My new column is live in The Drum:
‘In many ways, modern marketing has more in common with the software profession than it does with classic marketing management.’ So wrote marketing technologist Scott Brinker in his 2016 book Hacking Marketing. But was he correct?
Too many suit-and-tie marketers seem to loathe themselves, hate their jobs, and wish they were hoodie-wearing software developers instead. It is the only reason that I can surmise why the digital marketing world adopts so much of the trendy vocabulary of the high-tech industry without question.
“10x programmers” led to “10x marketers.” “DevOps” inspired “MarDev.” “T-shaped developers” resulted in “T-shaped marketers.” Many online marketers now want to be called “growth hackers”. When internet marketers do not have an original thought, they seem to steal an idea from the high-tech world. Digital marketers believe that techies are as cool as Kim Deal and think that any idea that is useful in the software development industry must be copied in marketing.
But building brands and deploying software are two very different things – and never the twain shall meet. Still, the startup founders who know only software development but not traditional marketing think otherwise.