I'm a marketer, but I didn't sign up for this

Marketing has changed. So why is nobody talking about what's really going on?

Last week, someone left this comment on one of my videos.

Unlike other comments I’ve received on social, this one stung.

Me? Manipulative, just to make a few bucks? I criticize marketing all of the time. I’m basically anti modern marketing at this point.

(Yes, I took this much too personally at the time.)

What was hard for me to separate was that this wasn’t actually a personal attack, despite my initial reaction.

It was simply someone’s observation of who marketers have become.

And that’s what made it especially shitty.

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Let me be clear about something…

I’m not writing in defense of marketers. I’m not asking you or anyone else to feel sorry for us.

Some marketers are in fact, absolutely vicious. They believe brands must demolish competition at all costs, that “growth above everything” is a literal religion, and that deception is actually just “being smart”.

Trust me, those marketers exist. They’re thriving, even, making bank, and shamelessly climbing on top of their colleagues’ backs to fight for their next promotion.

But I became a marketer because I love psychology. I love learning about human behavior, what moves people, and how stories connect us.

I studied Journalism in college, and it’s there where I learned the importance of ethics and transparency.

So when it came to marketing, I thought it meant that you helped good brands get noticed. Even my senior capstone project was working on a nonprofit for veterans.

Throughout my corporate career, I dreamt about helping founders who deserved attention and small businesses with real value.

And now I can’t help but think that might’ve been a little naive on my part, because the playing field for brands is anything but level. Especially right now.

The game is so beyond rigged

We need to talk about what’s actually going on.

And trust me when I say that I don’t bring up these stats to make this a partisan issue. These are just numbers to help paint the picture of the world we live in right now.

Four new billionaires minted every single week while 3.6 billion people (44% of the global population) live on less than $6.85 a day, a number unchanged since 1990.

60% of the billionaire wealth is unearned - it’s simply just inheritance, monopoly power, and crony connections. No innovation or merit.

And 18% of all billionaire wealth comes directly from monopolies. Amazon controls an overwhelming majority of online sales. Even Google has bought its way to dominance, despite anti-trust rulings.

More and more conversation is surrounding who will become the world’s first trillionaire.

This is the world we as marketers operate in now. And this is why marketing has become so toxic, lifeless, and soul-sucking.

There is no marketplace of ideas anymore. We’re marketing behemoths as underdogs and selling the illusion of choice in a system that’s trying to eliminate it.

The game is so rigged, and our job as marketers is to convince people that we have no idea, anyway, look over here at this really cool Black Friday sale! Buy buy buy!

So when people get angry about shrinkflation, inflation and tariff costs (which end up coming out the wallets of consumers) their blame is put toward marketers who manage the frontlines.

And you know what? It makes sense.

Because look at what’s happened

In February 2024 Kellogg’s CEO Gary Pilnick went on CNBC to tell cash-strapped families to eat cereal for dinner to save money. “Give chicken the night off!”

This man was making over $4 million a year at the time. He suggested families struggling with 30-year-high food costs buy his $7 boxes of Frosted Flakes for dinner.

When asked if this might’ve come across wrong, he didn’t even flinch - instead, he doubled down. “It’s landing really well right now.” meanwhile, TikTok was buzzing with people talking about how this was “corporate gaslighting” at its finest.

And you know who had to clean up the damage from this campaign and pretend like nothing happened? Marketing teams.

Not the CEO who made the statement or the board who conveniently turned the other direction. The marketers trying to salvage what’s left of brand trust.

Let’s also look at the American Eagle campaign. CMO Craig Brommers said it was like being “at the epicenter of what looked like a crisis”.

American Eagle CMO Craig Brommers via “Would American Eagle Do It All Again?” ADWEEK

But then he talked about how they measured success by stock performance, first and foremost. Not whether the campaign built genuine brand love. Are we really surprised? (I should also note that during this fireside chat, they purposely didn’t take questions from the audience…hmmm)

This year, Southwest ended 54 years of free checked bags. CEO Bob Jordan’s explanation was that the airline had a “tremendous opportunity to meet current and future customer needs”.

Except zero customers wanted this? Hello?

The real reason was because investors demanded it. Other airlines had made $7.3 billion in baggage fees alone in 2024. Southwest was just “leaving money on the table.”

Cool, so just say that you want more money then. Don’t insult everyone’s intelligence with corporate speak about “customer needs”. And then make marketers do your dirty work.

See the pattern here?

Every single time it’s the same playbook - the C-suite focuses on prioritizing stock gains, the plan trickles down to the marketing team who has to force “customer first” language, and when it blows up, that same team picks up the pieces.

Marketers are like the clean up crew of capitalism

CEO makes tone deaf statements? Marketers clean it up.

Companies prioritize stock prices over people? Marketers and PR teams (specifically below the CMO level) are forced to spin it.

A brand exploits workers and price-gouges customers? Marketers push the “we care about you” messaging.

Monopolies consolidate power and destroy competition? Marketers talk about “innovation” and “choice”.

Decision-making for the brand comes top down, instead of asking people who are on the front lines with customers and employees what should be done.

I say this over and over again, but people aren’t stupid. They clearly see it, feel it, and are experiencing it every single day.

But now with social media, employees post videos, customers share screenshots, and the receipts are everywhere. There’s no PRing your way out of bad faith anymore.

I’ve worked for my fair share of shitty, righteous brands and bosses. I mean come on, I spent 12+ years in corporate.

So I’ve written and re-written corporate speak, crafted campaigns to bandaid issues customers were having, talked to PR teams at all hours of the day and night, and so much more.

This is truly what goes on behind the scenes.

Sadly, while I didn’t create the system, at some point in my career, I agreed to sell it.

Most marketers are complicit. I was complicit.

But might we also be scapegoats for a system we didn’t create? Possibly. Both things can be true.

What marketing could be

While the state of marketing feels dismal, there are also glimmers of hope for the future - or, at least, what many marketers have always wanted marketing to be.

Just look at Zohran Mamdani’s NYC mayoral campaign. He won by (simply) talking about what actually matters to people right now: affordability, rent freezes, free buses, and universal childcare. No corporate speak or shareholder values.

People celebrated this campaign because it connected them to everyday problems they face. The campaign validated the majority of the city’s honest struggles.

That’s what marketing could be if it wasn’t shackled to a system designed to extract maximum value from people while giving them minimum respect.

But what the current environment does is give us enough contrast to acknowledge that collectively, people want a better way. Better, honest solutions to the problems they face.

And with that shift, more brands, leaders, and teams will emerge to authentically satisfy that demand.

Not in a way that drives sales at all costs or bows down to the stock market, but in a way that creates an ecosystem of true fulfillment and integrity.

What happens now

I can’t fix this, and I can’t break up monopolies or redistribute wealth or force CEOs to stop being out of touch assholes.

But I can refuse to participate in the deception.

I can work with brands and people who have integrity and care about customers as humans and not just revenue sources.

Now that I’ve been out of corporate for a bit, I can tell you that these brands do exist.

On top of that, when I see marketing that's clearly just spin for corporate greed, you know I’m going to call it out on social.

If you’re angry about being manipulated by brands - good!

The system isn’t going to fix itself. Monopolies won’t break themselves up. Billionaires will even become trillionaires.

So when you see marketing that’s clearly spin for greed, talk about it. Share it.

When marketers defend the indefensible, hold them accountable.

And when another marketer says that they didn’t sign up for this, ask them what they’re going to do about it.

That’s the work we all have to put in right now to see change.

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Let me know in the comments:

Does this resonate with you as a marketer or non-marketer?

What do you think is the best way to encourage change?

Where do we go from here?