The Marketer is dead. Long live the Marketers!

Marketing as we knew it has fragmented and hyper- specialized.

The impact of technological changes and now Covid-19 has ensured that there is no going back. And that has implications for traditional Marketers as well as users of Marketing as a skill set or function.

Even a few decades back, a traditional marketer was a generalist.

A jack of all - Branding, positioning, strategy, copy writing, analytics and consumer research, pricing, advertising, communication and more.

The traditional marketer was like the conductor of a symphony.

He/she didn't play the individual musical instruments. But brought the musical score (marketing strategy) to life and was responsible for the results of the performance.

“Marketing was already complicated and now we’re writing a new playbook in real-time” - Jonathan Mildenhall, CEO Twenty First Century Brand & former CMO of Airbnb.

The symphony is getting out of tune.

The marketer is no longer the conductor. Every individual musician is!

One can be an expert only at Google ads and be a Marketer. Or an expert on Email Marketing. Or Facebook ads, copy writing or a video maker.

At some point, algorithms will do most of the marketing functions.

The traditional marketer will need to identify and leverage their tacit knowledge.

For users, the marketing process will seem like a black box.

They won’t understand what’s happening in there. The level of noise will go up with each tactic and hyper specialization claiming to provide all the answers.

Everyone will need to become a marketer. Long live the marketers