At the beginning of 2014, I wrote an article called “Beware The Attack Of The Killer Facebook Marketing Ninja Rockstar Gurus.”
It was a play on the fact that many marketers use phrases like “rockstar”, “shaman” or “guru” to describe themselves. It’s a hard pill for me to swallow since as a marketer as well as an educator I find that I spend most of my time learning as do many of the peers that I admire and respect. I suspect that many of those that seek to aggrandize themselves do so to conceal their limits.
Wordsmithing is now part of the marketing hustle. You’ll never get hired as a designer when you’re competing with the “VP of Logotype Symbolism.”But I’m noticing a new trend. As the economy continues to churn, talented marketers still need to put food on the table and while they wouldn’t be caught dead wielding a business card with the title guru, they seem to have relented in other ways.
I now know people whose business cards say “Chief Executive Happiness Officer” and “Sales Firestarter.” A designer I know for well over a decade has thrown in the towel and now deems himself the “Chief Ideation Manager” of his boutique.
It’s not hard to see why some have gone down this road in the context of the perpetual evolution that marketing requires. Consider that you used to hire a writer, now you hire a content marketing specialist. In the past you may have produced advertorials, now you engage in placing native advertising.
Wordsmithing is now part of the new hustle. You’ll never get hired as a designer as long as you are competing against the “Vice President of Logotype Symbolism.”
Perhaps this is why businesses are now being told that instead of talking with customers, they need to find their truth and manifest their reality to engage the universe. Whatever the linguistic gymnastics, it all boils down to marketing bullshit.
These are my 300 words for the day. I am Ralph M. Rivera.
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