Marketers Are Whiny Bitches

Yes, I said it. Marketers are a bunch of whiny bitches. 

For the last decade+, marketers (myself included) have had it too good. All over the world, we’ve gotten super comfortable with the fact that every single click, every set of eyeballs, every time someone looked at an ad — was trackable, and would, therefore, have the ability to report the success of a campaign. 

Fast forward to now. Social media companies are under scrutiny by authorities worldwide. Privacy concerns abound, and now the ability to target and track those clicks has become harder. So, marketers have become a bit whiny. Actually, most of them are a bunch of whiny bitches. 

I came up in the radio business. Back when I was head of creative for a large broadcast company, we didn't have the ability to track the effectiveness of an ad. Our data came from the client. They’d say a campaign killed it, or the phones rang off the hook, or we had more people in the store last week, or our orders have spiked since we started advertising with you.

Wait, what?! We couldn’t track every listen, every demographic, or target women in their 30s who’ve had 2 kids and drive a minivan? Hell no! We created an ad that, if done well, grabbed the attention of our target listener, who then took the action we wanted them to take.

The Magic Reporting Tool

We didn't have some magic reporting tool that would tell us an ad was effective in delivering the message to the right listener. It was all about getting impressions or the number of ears that heard the ad and the number of times those ears heard them. 

So why was radio so effective at delivering ears and revenue to clients? It's because marketing is simply a game of at-bats. It's a game of impressions and numbers. Sure, your messaging must be right. And absolutely, your offer has to be solid, but trying to turn every impression into a transaction is the wrong approach. It's all about your at-bats and staying in front of your audience consistently.

The King Of Beers And The Metrics That Matter

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of having lunch with the man responsible for spending the advertising budget for Anheuser-Busch in the western region of the United States. We talked at length about the state of marketing in 2021. He, too, came up in the radio business. We got into a very detailed discussion about the battle for throat time. Let me back up and explain what the battle for “throat time” even means. In the beverage industry, whether it's beer, water, or soda, every company is battling for the same consumers to drink their beverage. When that consumer buys their product, they call it throat time because they won the swallow or got that consumer’s throat. Anyway - our server delivered our meals, and we stuffed our faces and drank our beverages. Some brand won our throat time simply because we sat down for lunch that day. Now I can’t drink anything without thinking about throat time. 

We dove into the metrics that matter to Anheuser-Busch. I dropped my fork when he shared the most important metrics in terms of sales data and conversion. I was shocked (but not really) to discover they bonused his agency on the number of eyeballs that see their ads. Why? Because eyeballs are a metric that equals throat time for Budweiser. Let me reiterate—the more eyeballs on the ad for Budweiser products, the more likely those people will convert into buyers and therefore deliver the throat time to Budweiser and not a competitors’ brands.

We’ve Had It Too Good

What today’s marketers fail to understand is that we've had it too freaking good for too damn long. 

When digital platforms came to be, we suddenly had the ability to track data like never before. We became masters of tracking, follow through, and funnels… those damn funnels. We could literally find someone in our target demo, introduce them to a product, service, or brand and create an experience for them, bringing them through the sales pipeline or funnel, until they converted and became a customer. 

But now we're going backwards. The ability to track that conversion is getting a little more challenging. The waters are a little muddier. The sales funnel today… well, it looks more like a web because the customer journey isn't as simple as: see one ad, get served a second ad, followed by a third ad, equals a sale.

Today, it takes 28-62 touch points by a brand to create the awareness that drives the conversion. Good luck getting those touchpoints with the 10,000+ ads we are bombarded with every damn day. Yes, marketers will continue to try to convert cold audiences from the top, and many will be online bragging about their amazing results. But the fact is, these marketers don't actually know much about marketing. They have no idea how to make that brand sit on the tip of the tongue of the target consumer. They have no idea how to make a jingle or a tagline to help that business stand out in a very noisy and crowded advertising arena. 

Yes, marketers have become a bunch of whining bitches, but it's time they look in the rearview mirror and see what's worked effectively for literally hundreds of years. Build awareness, have a great offer, and get lots of eyeballs to see your ads. 

More eyeballs = more throat time… more throat time translates to more sales.

It’s simple. So, stop the whining and get your eyes back on the marketing ball.