Marketing got too big for its boots. Now, it’s lost everything.
The trouble with modern marketing is we asked too much for too long. Now the audience simply doesn’t care.
Bobbing around the internet in bed with a coffee like I do, I came across a scathing series of posts probably meant for a person’s creative coach Instagram.
They sat as a nine-part for-carousel designed brutality admonished artists about their lack of content with audience in mind. It said what they must do in order not to fail. It demanded websites, a certain level of social media commitment, and devotion to marketing artistry to be taken seriously.
In a group headlined for fledging and emerging artists, the marketing landed hard on it’s bullying, self-righteous face.
Dear marketer,
Nobody cares about marketing as much as you do
We’re entering a new age of smallness. Creation is put ahead of consumption. Lamb-legged wobbly content curiosity is back in vogue. Creators are saying “algorithm be damned”. The bigger platforms and SEO are changing too rapidly for them to care.
That means marketers feel the shifting sands, even their irrelevance, keenly.
And I get it, I really do.
I know why you’re shouting. Because I feel it, too. The internet is changing. And we’re doing what desperate people do – we’re clinging to all that knowledge. We’re lamenting all the brain space, money, and time spent learning platforms and techniques.
There’s a melancholy in knowing we’re sliding into obscurity.
The only person who likes change is a wet baby. And here we are in a complete reinvention of marketing driven by technology.
But let me break this down for you. Before you swallow all the videos, commit anew to the courses, and look for the new niche to nail yourself into:
Marketing pushed everyone too hard for too long. Now, people are disinterested. And with good reason
Expectations already fatigued us
Nobody ever said they’d study every WordPress plugin ever built like a devoted university student. Yet, that’s what companies expect. We expected automation to simplify things, not demand more attention. What happened to plugging and playing?
The hill is not for climbing
The clients never wanted to devote their life to marketing. Now with minimal return and strangled reach, there is utter disinterest. We know now what we’ve always known – that social media is built on shifting sands. But this is earthquake level. We’re caught in late-stage capitalist tech dudebro dick measuring contest. And as they run head-to-head trying to out AI each other, we’ve realised the game isn’t that exciting.
Small is in
Those mass audience figures you used to crow about will no longer define what you do. The reach has been juiced like a reluctant lemon. But our appetites are changing, too. Go to Threads or Substack. Even the biggest marketers and creative talents have removed the business armour, unhooked the bra, and grabbed a tea to sit cross-legged on the couch to talk of other things.
Our privilege is showing
Just like the GFC or the 90s bubble burst before it, the post-pandemic inflation is biting budgets. It’s also biting through what we do. We can no longer crow about lead magnets and funnels, big spends and mass eyeballs without sounding off-key, out of touch, and disconnected. Customers, businesses and freelancers are hurting. Creatives are still smarting. We’re hungry for change. And change never comes from the big things that promise it.
It’s also boring
I erroneously thought that everyone was “excited to announce” and finding “it’s been a while since I introduced myself” because ChatGPT had influenced trends.
But then I realised people were grabbing these slippery sentences and swinging into self-parody long before the word-wielding robots rode through.
Time for a little humility, perhaps?
In a rush to make ourselves the centre of our marketing, we’ve forgotten to leave room for the customer. We’ve become big, brave, bold, opinionated, and basically like the person at a dinner party that you suddenly need the bathroom to get away from.
Marketers, we have to take responsibility, not cling tenaciously to days of old.
As marketing is melting, warping, and reinventing, we’re the low electronic hum. Beige in a sea of beige, screaming to be relevant, hoping someone pulls their fingers out of their ears long enough to hear us.
Or we can:
1) Recognise marketing as we know it is changing
2) Get smart about getting to know our place in the reinvention
3) Stop blathering about how good we are
4) Listen to what is needed with empathy and curiosity
5) Get back to storytelling job
6) Become comfortable with creative experimentation
And be brave enough to do it all over again. Who’s with me?
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