Skipping Junior Marketers Undermines Future Marketing Talent
The AI Tech ad says cut junior hires in marketing, the magical marketing box will make it work for you. They are wrong. This week is part two of my series on covering the 2026 Content Marketing Institute research on Marketing Careers. And this week I'm talking about how we are cutting off the lowest rung of the career ladder at our own risk. One in three marketing organizations is reducing entry-level hiring right now. Meanwhile, those same organizations are growing their overall marketing teams. They want more firepower. Just not from people who are new. The logic seemingly writes itself: AI can draft the social posts, compile the reports, coordinate the calendars. Why hire a junior marketer when a prompt does the job? Here's why: If you're successful you were never hiring junior marketers for what they could do. You were hiring them for who they'd become. Two years of sitting in on strategy calls. Of getting their copy torn apart. Of figuring out why a specific campaign flopped, and why the other completely illogical one succeeded. That's how you build the taste, judgment, and instinct that makes a great mid-level marketer, and increases the value of your team over time. You can't automate that formation. You can only skip it - and pay for it later. In three to five years, companies will be desperately hunting for experienced marketers in their business who simply don't exist. Because nobody invested in building them. The bottom rung of the ladder isn't a cost center. It's a promise you make to your future brand. In the full article I go into more detail on why.... https://lnkd.in/guzZvq8R
Measure Content by Relationship Depth, Not Speed
So - I'm wrapping up my March series on Content Marketing Measurement with a wider lens look at how we design a measurement framework to begin with... Most content marketing measurement today is like evaluating a symphony orchestra based on...
Strait of Hormuz: Tiny Passage, Massive Oil Impact
I’m wondering if the news media can muster up an article or report about the Strait of Hormuz, how big it is at its narrowest point and why it’s such a critically strategic waterway to oil trade…. I haven’t heard...
Anthropic's Brand Pivot Makes Claude #1 App
I talk a lot about Brand Storytelling - and getting to a distinctive story.... And, admittedly, it gets really esoteric at times... It can be really hard to see how all the pieces fit together... But - look out... Anthropic...
Gravity Beats Reach: Redefining B2B Branding in 2026
So - remember those old TomTom ads? “You are not stuck in traffic. You ARE the traffic.” Yeah, well the same applies to the sea of beige B2B content we’re all drowning in. If you’re complaining about "slop" while hitting...
AI‑driven Polish Makes B2B Content Beige; Stand Out
You’re not suffering from incompetence. We're drowning in the opposite. Welcome to the Beige Wall - B2B marketing in 2026. Look around. Everything is now polished. Everything is articulate. Everything is grammatically perfect. A two-person startup in a garage now...
Act Now: Marketers Must Navigate a Fractured Reality
"A long time coming, but I know... A change gon' come... Oh yes, it will" - Sam Cooke This a special edition of my newsletter - which if you're interested, you can subscribe here. Hello friends. It is Martin Luther...
Don’t Normalize AI Risks: Tackle Boring Work First
What if the most dangerous moment in innovation isn’t failure…but the moment we decide the failure cost is “acceptable”? Here's the funny thing - that's just Wednesday. We do this for every innovation. This video kicks off a new chapter...
AI Denialism Ignored: Technology Advances Faster Than Skepticism
A Response to The Rise of AI Denialism Over the holiday, I caught Louis Rosenberg’s “ The Rise of AI Denialism” article in @BigThink(big hat tip to my friend Ian Truscott for sending it to me) and I was struck...
Marketing Channels Keep Dying, yet Platforms Never Deliver
Same Enshittification, Different Day. So - every few years, the internet declares something in marketing “dead,” drags the body into the street, and asks marketers to please clap. Blogs? Dead. Email? Dead. Social? Died, frankensteined (yeah that's a verb don't...
Fear and Guilt, Not Strategy, Drive AI Adoption
Why do we HAVE TO implement AI…? This year, everything in marketing seems wrapped in the language of productivity and acceleration. Yeah, I know that’s every year. But this year in particular feels like marketing and content teams became Hogwarts...
Avoid Content Sameness: Build a Strong Marketing Operating System
Let's talk about content marketing in 2026 for a sec... So - here's your Tuesday existential question: if every brand pumps out the same AI-glossed content at the same time… does any of it actually exist? Or does it all...
Marketing Returns to Fundamentals Amid Planning Season
You can always tell when it’s marketing planning season. Not because of the leaves changing - but because the air smells faintly of pumpkin-spiced Excel spreadsheets. That potent blend of caffeine, desperation, and conditional formatted pivot tables can only mean...
Managing Up Now Means Coaching Your Boss
You know that feeling when Hollywood announces another sequel nobody asked for? Did we really need a Happy Gilmore 2? Now that we’ve survived Freakier Friday, should we brace ourselves for Freakiest Friday? Well lately with my consulting clients I've...
Attention Is Cheap; Real Impact Requires Emotional Connection
Be honest - when was the last time your marketing actually moved someone? Not a view, not a click, not a “conversion.” I mean when it actually created the definition of "impression" and actually impressed something on someone. When it...