Ad-Nonymous: The musings of a disillusioned strategist

The new four P’s of marketing
 
Recently I joked to my husband, who also works in advertising, that I’ve redefined the four Ps of marketing: Pointless PowerPoint, politics and people. It’s not even a joke, it’s an observation. About my life. So the Joke’s fully on me.
 
Having given the same version of a Powerpoint presentation at least once a week for a few months, where the facts are presented slightly differently, with a slightly different rational, delivered to slightly different political audiences, even I don’t believe me anymore.
 
The subject of my weekly presentation is; how marketing works, ‘that marketing works, and why we should make it work for my clients’ brand. I make use of all a lot of data - first party, third party, some bespoke and specific to the brand, some academic. All well proven. 
 
I have been told once or twice that I am not bad at making an argument - I hope this is true. But these days I’m not so sure. Somehow my clients aren’t capable of either accepting, or rejecting my proposal, which, to be clear is to do my job. The silos of the organization have been carved too deep, so we are all living this Groundhog day existence together. Them, trying not to get fired before their shares vest, me trying not to quit… because?
 
If that’s not boring enough, I’ve decided to bore an audience by writing about it. 
 
Hello? 
 
If you’re still here, you should probably ask yourself why you’ve been reading this at all. Hopefully (for me) it’s because you are living a similar hell. So at least, the joke’s on you too. Perhaps we should both do something else?

This piece was written by a senior person at an agency who has chosen to remain anonymous.