Mark Ritson says, "American Marketing is Off the Boil". Is He Right?

The latest episode of “The Uncensored CMO” had me thinking for a few days.

It was another conversation between Jon Evans and Mark Ritson. Early in the episode, Mark says that “American marketing is off the boil.”

He also stated that he couldn’t put his finger on why that was, pointing to the culture wars and checking the boxes.

Which isn’t necessarily wrong, but I think these two examples point to a larger issue at the core of the underperformance of American marketing.

I’ve put together a list for you from notes I’ve been making over the years.

I don’t think this is a comprehensive list, but these 7 items have popped up in my notebooks and notes over and over throughout the years.

1. Cost of Education/Lack of Rigor/Degree Inflation:

The American education system is fucked.

It costs too much.

A quarter of Americans have more than $50,000 in education debt.

For the “don’t take out a loan” crowd:

Every job seems to require you to have a minimum of a bachelor’s degree to be an EA, Northeastern did research that said 9 out of 10 jobs stated a need for a bachelor’s degree.

Because everyone needs a degree, professors might not grade as rigorously and the curriculum might not be as rigorous as it should be because the students will need to get a master’s degree anyway.

Then, it breaks my heart to hear kids in marketing programs/sports marketing programs/other programs tell me about the $100,000 in debt they took on to get a master’s degree that isn’t fit for purpose.

Again, fucked!

What does this mean for marketing?

In too many instances, students don’t get the depth of education they need to begin the journey to becoming good marketers.

2. Incentives are all wrong:

We live in short-term nation.

I think Hillary Clinton called it “quarterly capitalism”.

Whatever your preferred term a few things have been going on for the last 15+ years in the US that have undermined marketing and business, in general:

• Free money. Everyone is an investor and investor is a genius because money is free and there is no punishment for bad investments, bad advice, or bad businesses. Quantitative easing and zero interest rate money is a con.

• Revenue over profit: I took the Mini-MBA in Marketing. One of my favorite parts is when Mark says, “It isn’t what you make, it is what you keep.” I’d always focus on profits, but for the last few decades, all that mattered was “growth”. When you don’t have to worry about finding the value necessary to deliver profit, your marketing chops are going to go stale.

• Short-term incentives: Everything is turn over and short-term incentives. You can’t build a brand making decisions from quarter to quarter. But that’s what most businesses live and die by…the quarterly report.

It is in an environment like this where stupid tactics and marketing personalities can catch hold:

• “100 pieces of content a day?!” Sounds great.

• “Start with your brand’s purpose and your why?!” Great idea.

• “Don’t study marketing, man!” I won’t!

3. Lack of Competition:

America has a monopoly problem.

Don’t believe me, believe that temple of socialism, Forbes.

It isn’t illegal to be a monopoly, but what happens in markets that don’t have competition are some of the following:

• Innovation suffers.

• Service declines.

• Wages take a hit.

• Prices rise.

But, most importantly for Mark’s point, marketing dives.

Why?

When there isn’t any competition, you don’t have to spend a lot of time worrying about the silly things that make up a complete marketer’s role like:

• Pricing

• Brand Building

• Strategy

• Product Development

• Value Proposition/Positioning

This feels designed to get people to focus only on comms because you can measure it and show your value, ASAP.

4. Consolidation:

The twin side of lack of competition is consolidation.

Consolidation in the American economy has taken off since COVID-19 first touched American shores.

What real impacts does consolidation have on the role of marketing?

• Fewer jobs.

• Less competition.

• Fewer products.

So…?

When you don’t get to be a marketer with full scope…what’s the easiest way to show your impact?

The new and shiny. Or, the communications.

5. Lack of Opportunities:

This goes hand-in-hand with the lack of competition and consolidation.

There are just fewer roles for real marketers.

Everything ends up being tactical and whatever is shiny and new.

This lack of opportunities is something that might not show up in official government statistics, but when you talk to real people…Americans are more pessimistic about the state of the economy than they have been in decades.

In a real way, this means that if you get any role that is related to marketing, you are at the mercy of a boss or team that might have drank the “Start with Why” or “Put everything into the platform du jour” approach of marketing.

Meaning, you do what you can to hold onto the role you have.

You don’t have time or hope of doing real marketing.

6. Lack of Diversity:

Change may be coming.

But if it is, change is coming pretty slowly.

Where does it begin?

At the beginning.

In America, we are still dealing with the conversation about unpaid internships. But the impact that unpaid internships and those internships limiting opportunities for minorities and kids from underprivileged backgrounds has been obvious for years.

Why does this undermine America’s marketing skills?

A few reasons:

• Lack of diversity often leads to lack of other viewpoints.

• Lack of diversity often leads to a lack of consideration of other viewpoints.

• Lack of diversity often leads to group think.

From my own experience:

• I’ve sat in a room full of people raised middle class talking about poor people like they are zoo animals because their experience of poor people was so far outside of the scope of their existence.

• I’ve sat in focus groups of non-wine drinkers where the marketers were enophiles. They couldn’t understand how people didn’t get excited about wine and how these potential customers were put off by the complexity of wine as they were talking about things like the “acidity” and “terroir” of wines.

• I’ve been called “an asshole”, “a jerk”, and worse for having the audacity to point out that the conventional wisdom might not work or that there were ideas outside of an industry that might offer value.

7. The Danger of Difference:

Mark points out that marketers can’t hold two opposing thoughts in their minds at the same time.

He also points out that there is no room for disagreement.

As I pointed out above, I’ve been there.

For marketing, this group think and lack of disagreement means that bad habits and poor practices take hold and embed themselves.

A few of my favorite things that have stuck in and can’t be fought back against without danger to life and limb include:

• The reality that discounts are for dummies. Tesla, Macy’s, and seemingly every other business under the sun are using discounts to “stimulate” demand, so they must be good.

• DATA! God bless your soul if you have the audacity to point out that all DATA is from the past and that your strategy is pointed towards the future. You’d think that feeling like you can’t make decisions about the future while staring in the rearview mirror would not be so controversial.

• The importance of strategy before tactics. I’ve rolled out the same Lewis Carroll quote for years about “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” Yet, I still have too many people telling me that, “We don’t do strategy around here.” Or, “That’s not how we do things.”

YOLO!

Today’s post is beyond offering solutions, but instead looks at the why…

That said, a few things that people can do immediately that will improve their business’s marketing skills.

1. Get yourself some training on the best practices in marketing: The Kelley Direct program through the Kelley School of Business is ace! Check out Mark Ritson’s Mini-MBAs in brand and marketing.

2. Look at the decision making processes in your business for short sightedness: Are you managing based on the wrong incentives? Are you getting the right voices in the room? Does your decision making process sound like the boardroom of the Barbie movie? Fix that.

Deeper:

I’m paying close attention to the antitrust actions taking place in the United States right now.

The implications for competition and opportunities from the cases against Google, Amazon, and other companies could open up room for more new businesses, more innovation, and new growth.

What do you think?

Is Mark off the boil with his observation about American marketers? Am I? Is there something that should have even greater attention?

Let me know.

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Though they have to watch out for Penny the Bulldog. She doesn’t like to be interrupted during nap time.