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The Hard Truth Marketers Must Accept
After more than two decades in the marketing and advertising industry, one reality has remained constant: people don’t care about marketing nearly as much as marketers do. It may sound harsh, but understanding and accepting this truth is one of the most valuable insights any marketer can gain.
As marketing professionals, we live and breathe campaigns, creative concepts, messaging frameworks, channel optimization, and KPIs. We agonize over every word, every image, every call-to-action. But to the average consumer, most marketing is simply noise.
The Forgetfulness Factor
Multiple studies have shown that most advertisements are quickly forgotten. Even the ads that do manage to make a memorable impression are often misremembered, with key brand details getting lost or distorted. This isn’t because our work isn’t good; it’s because people have limited cognitive bandwidth. They’re focused on their own lives, their own problems, and their own priorities.
In fact, the majority of consumers actively avoid advertising whenever possible: skipping YouTube ads, installing ad blockers, and fast-forwarding through commercials. In many cases, even when ads are viewed, they’re processed peripherally rather than deeply engaged with.
Why This Matters for Marketers
This reality doesn’t mean marketing is futile. Quite the opposite. It means we must adopt a highly disciplined, consumer-centric, and data-driven approach to our work. Here are several guiding principles that have served me well across a career managing extensive marketing and advertising budgets:
- Repetition and Consistency Are Key
Your audience needs to see your message multiple times, across multiple channels, in a consistent and recognizable format. Familiarity breeds trust. - Simplicity Cuts Through
Complex, clever campaigns often fall flat. Simple, clear messaging resonates and sticks. Your audience should be able to grasp your value proposition instantly. - Emotional Connection Matters
Consumers may forget what you say, but they’ll remember how you made them feel. Craft marketing that creates positive emotional associations with your brand. - Respect Consumer Attention
Focus on delivering genuine value in your messaging. Entertain, educate, or solve a problem. If you respect your audience’s time, they’ll reward you with attention. - Relentlessly Optimize
Data is your best friend. Measure everything. Use insights to refine messaging, targeting, and creative to improve ROI across the entire sales funnel.
The End Goal: Business Impact, Not Marketing Awards
Ultimately, our job as marketers is not to create art for art’s sake. It’s to drive business results. Top-line revenue growth. Customer acquisition. Brand loyalty. Market share gains. These are the metrics that matter.
Acknowledging that people don’t care about marketing allows us to take a more humble, focused, and effective approach to our work. We stop trying to make marketing that marketers love, and instead create marketing that real people find useful, relevant, and memorable.
That’s where true marketing success lies.