My pet theory is that marketing and publicity as a craft is subject to an unfortunate combination of two factors: 1) successful results are hard to measure quantitatively and 2) the skill itself is focused on selling stuff.
As a result, once the market of successfully marketing products and services has reached equilibrium, marketing specialists are no longer competing and being selected for being better at selling marketable items—they are competing and being selected for being better at selling their own services to executives up to C-level.
It's easier to optimise the ability to sell one particular service to a known and relatively homogeneous audience than to optimise the ability to sell any arbitrary product or service to a broad and infinitely diverse population. Hence for instance the truism of "no publicity is bad publicity". What better way for the marketing crowd to evade the negative consequences of unsuccessful, controversial or even broadly hated campaigns?
Now I'm not saying that all successful marketing specialists follow this pattern. What I'm saying is that they are no longer at an advantage with regards to the bullshit sellers.
In the agency world, this is absolutely true. The goal is to get more work, not to do good work. Those who are good in the pitch meetings get promoted.
In an internal marketing department? Much less true. You still need people who are good at presenting and working with internal clients, but that is more based on communication skills then selling.
Yes, that does make sense. I'm sure the motivations and incentives of internal marketing teams are much better aligned, particularly if they have been established for a while.
As a result, once the market of successfully marketing products and services has reached equilibrium, marketing specialists are no longer competing and being selected for being better at selling marketable items—they are competing and being selected for being better at selling their own services to executives up to C-level.
It's easier to optimise the ability to sell one particular service to a known and relatively homogeneous audience than to optimise the ability to sell any arbitrary product or service to a broad and infinitely diverse population. Hence for instance the truism of "no publicity is bad publicity". What better way for the marketing crowd to evade the negative consequences of unsuccessful, controversial or even broadly hated campaigns?
Now I'm not saying that all successful marketing specialists follow this pattern. What I'm saying is that they are no longer at an advantage with regards to the bullshit sellers.