We all seem to be commiserating about the state of our industry, the death of agencies, the loss of creativity, the impending doom of GenAI but what is really going on?
If we start from those in the industry today, all the way to the next generation of marketers about to join us, the picture becomes clearer. The challenge isn't just about technology or transformation, it's about learning, about aspiration, about whether the next generation of CMOs will even want to step into our shoes.
The Current Situation
Look at what they're inheriting: Effectiveness and measurement is still difficult, not the utopia it was promised to be, yet paradoxically, some say we've lost all creativity to data. The jobs themselves are under threat as holding companies struggle, while procurement keeps squeezing margins until real creativity has lost its value. Every other article on LinkedIn declares that AI will kill all marketing jobs.
And then there's the generation that came of age post-COVID, hyper-focused on e-commerce and performance marketing who may have missed the foundational training in insights, creativity, and brand building. We're caught in this tension between experts and generalists - certain areas like the media value chain have become so complex that you have to go deep, yet the CMO role demands breadth across everything.
"The result? Marketing has lost its coolness factor, its shine, its lustre."
Lex Bradshaw-Zanger
Where Did All the Heroes Go?
Think about it: Where are JWT, Y&R, Wunderman? More recently, DDB and MullenLowe seem to be in doubt. These letters were the heroes of an industry that has lost its direction. Does anyone rewatch Don Draper anymore? Who remembers Madison Avenue? Who is the new Don - maybe Rory, but probably not Cindy or John Wren. The agency brands that once attracted the brightest creative minds have faded and with them the aspirational pull of our profession.
What Can We Do About It?
We need to rebuild the brand of marketing itself, starting with training on real marketing both in the classroom and on the job. We need to remember that marketing is a business of creativity AND science, and that's what makes it exciting for some of us. Marketing hasn't changed, but marketers must.
"There are great marketers out there, and we need to shine the light on them so that others can see the way forward."
Lex Bradshaw-Zanger
At my own small scale, taking my love of teaching, I'm trying to spend more time with marketing students and young marketers to make sure they're ready for the next 10 years of making marketing great again. And this is why The Marketing Society runs its Ones to Watch Programme - to make sure we give our future leaders the platform to succeed from today.
Here's what I tell them
Marketing is even more exciting than ever, with channels and media giving us more canvas for creativity, and data and technology giving us more science to make decisions. But we have to remember that people are not always rational beings, and this is what makes our industry and craft exciting.
"The challenge isn't the tools we have it's making sure the next generation wants to pick them up."
Lex Bradshaw-Zanger
That's the work that matters now.
Credits:
- Thinking is mine
- Writing supported by Claude
- Visual created in partnership with ChatGPT
