Marketoonist: "Impact of Tariffs" cartoon

Weekly hand-drawn business cartoon from Marketoonist Tom Fishburne

Author

Tom Fishburne
April 28, 2025

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.

Impact of Tariffs

I’ve been hearing requests from some of you to draw a cartoon explicitly on the impact of tariffs — including one reader fresh from the Canton Fair (China’s largest trade show).

Businesses of all sizes and geographies have been trying to estimate the potential impact. Last week, 3M estimated potential annual impact of $850 million and J&J $400 million. But the analysis is nonstop, the impact is more than financial, and we’re all a little blindfolded.

McKinsey has an interesting framework for how to respond to tariffs, including the insight that companies consider “relative” competitive advantage. It’s not just about the “absolute” potential impact on a business, but how that business is situated relative to competitors and substitutes.

McKinsey frames the impact of tariffs in a simple two-by-two matrix (management consultants love the two-by-two matrix). On one axis, they sketch out whether relative competitive advantage is improving or declining. On the other axis, they frame whether customer demand is shrinking or growing.

That matrix helps determine whether companies should “rationalize and refocus,” “invest to reset cost structure,” “capture market share,” or “invest in growth.”

As McKinsey puts it:

“As leaders move beyond immediate tactical responses to consider more enduring shifts to their businesses, they should assess how the new tariffs will affect their competitive advantages and growth prospects.”

Of course, the challenge is that it’s hard to “move beyond immediate tactical responses” when the state of play keeps changing. It’s hard to know what the “enduring shifts” will be.

But there’s opportunity in every time of chaos. And the response is never one-size-fits-all.

Keynote Speaking

Let me know if you’d like to talk about any events or conferences you’re planning that could use some levity. Here’s some detail on my most popular keynote topics.

And here are a couple upcoming events:

Cartoon From The Archives

And here’s a cartoon I drew in 2020.

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.