Welcome back to Marketoonist, the cartoon I’ve been hand-drawing to poke fun at marketing and business nearly every week since 2002. Was this email forwarded to you? Please subscribe here.

Decades of Marketing

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I originally drew a version of this cartoon before the AI boom. ChatGPT launched three years ago this week, and completely changed the trajectory of the decade.

(The original panel I drew for the 2020s involved the metaverse, which already seems so dated.)

It's a good reminder things are always in flux in marketing. And yet, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

We are apt to focus more on tactics than on strategy. I like how Mark Ritson describes this as "tactification":

"Tactification means the almost total obsession with execution that afflicts most marketers and comes at the expense of a broader, deeper grasp of the discipline."

Marketers all have access to the same tools, techniques, and tactics. The real game changer comes from starting with a solid strategy and then figuring out what tactics make sense to execute that strategy.

This is acutely true in figuring out how to approach AI.

I like how Tom Goodwin framed it this week:

"I don’t want more AI, I want better products and services in a world where AI makes spectacular things possible."

Keynotes from the road

Last week, Nestlé Purina Europe invited me to be a part of their end of year Golden Paws awards. I gave a live cartoon-filled keynote from my cartoon studio to two audiences in Spain and Switzerland. Our family dog even had a cameo.

Thank you to everyone at Purina for your hospitality, and to Ricardo Prieto-Ortiz for this lovely recap.

This week, I’m speaking in-person at BAM Marketing Congress in Brussels (alongside an amazing line-up including Carla Johnson, Rory Sutherland, Jenni Romaniuk, and Grace Kite).

As always, please let me know if you’d like to talk about any events you’re planning (or know of) that you think could be a good fit. For an idea of my approach with events, here are some of my more popular keynote topics.

Cartoon From The Archives

Here’s one I drew in this vein from 2019. And here’s where you can read and search all 23 years of these cartoons.

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Thank you for all of your support (and cartoon material)!

-Tom

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About Marketoonist

Marketoonist is the thought bubble of me, Tom Fishburne. I first started drawing cartoons as a student in the Harvard Business School newspaper (not quite as well-known for humor as the Lampoon) and later started this newsletter from a General Mills cubicle in 2002. The cartoons have followed my career ever since. I poke fun at the ever-changing world of marketing and business because I believe that laughing at ourselves can help us do our best work.