A time of truthful reckoning for an industry built on storytelling

4 key questions marketing needs to ask and answer this year

So now we are here; 2020. A year already being proclaimed as one of reckoning. The world burns — figuratively and literally — and we helplessly watch. But in the pits of our stomachs, we know that it is us, that we can’t continue to earn and spend to the detriment of society and our environment, that our individual aspirations for wealth, success and comfort are sometimes paths of compromised principles. That when we work in marketing, we are the bedfellow of capitalism, which started many of the fires to begin with and is coming under more and more scrutiny every day (even the The 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer found that 56 percent of their respondents believe that capitalism “is doing more harm than good in its current form”). Heavy questions are already being asked of us and January isn’t even over. Not all is lost, but there is nothing else for it but to start telling the truth.

Not only has there been a recent acceleration of groundswell against the non-diverse and greedy status quo of the business world, the last 10 years in marketing has been leading to a starker wake-up call, largely because we have been sedating ourselves for some time with a narrative of our own making. ‘Storytelling’ has been an intrinsic part of how marketing describes what it does, but it has also seeped into how we talk to ourselves about what we do. Yes, the world of stories is undeniably inviting, simple and joyful and staves off the cruel and biblical moment when childish things must be put away, when only truth will do.

And here it is; the key role of marketing is to get people to buy more stuff and spend more money, yet consumerism and sustainability are (mostly) at odds with one another, and using personal information to perpetually insinuate that people must spend to be complete, does not equate to delivering ‘customer-centric experiences.’ Nope. It is actually generating much of the want that results in the emptiness, mental illness, greed and social division we see before our very eyes, subsequently often adding to the overwhelming strain on natural and human resources.

But that’s not what we tell ourselves. Instead, we tell ourselves we are stimulating economies, we are only helping people to find more of what they already need, we are responding to pre-existing sentiment and we are keeping the lights on for hard working and appealing brands who need our help to survive and thrive. We find people who are likely to buy from a brand, then target them with ‘personalised’ ‘lifecycle’ and ‘engaging’ content that helps them to buy more conveniently, to everyone’s benefit. Like most stories, there is an element of truth in that, but not enough. In reality, we are still fabricating unnecessary consumer need, we are taking credit for correlation (here’s a deeper perspective on that) and when we feel empty or bad, we dedicate our time and skills to an awareness campaign for a good cause. But as a very talented young creative said to me a few months ago, “awareness campaigns are like pointing at a burning building in a crowd of onlookers and saying ‘look, there’s a fire!’” She couldn’t have known how pertinent that metaphor would become.

Now, I know there are product, service and creative teams working inside marketing organisations and genuinely doing positive things, and many brands that are commissioning them to do that work. In fact, I’ve been privileged enough to be a part of many such teams and worked for many such brands. Times are changing. But if your main job is getting people to consume, even with beautiful stories and interfaces, you have some bigger questions to ask yourselves this year. Real questions without simple answers. Truth is not a simple thing, not like a story. Truth is messy and often inconvenient, but confronting it is the only way to be relevant in an age when people need more of it. Great solutions are not always simple either, which makes it more difficult for them to win awards or get funding from VCs who do love to invest in something neat, sold with charisma, by dudes with Silicon Valley aspirations (they are mostly optimising the status quo with new technology that will sell today, so not disruptive by a long shot). But with ex-advertising minds like Simon Sinek talking about thinking beyond making money now in order to be relevant in the future (“The Infinite Game”), we know that there are ways for this industry to be part of something more beneficial in the long term instead of just hitting immediate revenue targets.

So, questions must be asked, and these are the ones that I think may offer the most interesting answers:

1. If capitalism and marketing are intrinsically linked, and our current version of capitalism and the perpetual push for growth is hurting our society and environment, what role should marketing be playing in a new and beneficial economic construct?
2. If marketing technology is mostly being used to perpetually target people with smarter data to provoke a more seamless spend, how can it be what is best for the context of the customer (society), not just the customer in isolation?
3. If we are an industry of advanced problem solvers who thrive at coming up with differentiated ideas, how can we put our skills to work on socially beneficial things worthy of our efforts while still generating sensible levels of considerate prosperity for all of us?
4. If we want to disrupt how we live for the better, and the majority of innovation funding is coming from wealthy and non-diverse members of the status quo, how can we find investment for people who aren’t just looking for ways to make money from simply digitising and speeding up how business works today?

Many of these questions will have a range of answers and I hope we find the best ones, because 2020 is going to be quite the year. So, let’s get stuck in.