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Marketoonist | 'Tom Fishburne' Cartoon Powered Marketing - Marketing
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B2B Marketing and the 95:5 Rule cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
In 2021, Professor John Dawes of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute introduced the 95:5 Rule, a simple but powerful concept that challenged conventional thinking in B2B marketing. In his research, John showed that up to 95% of buyers are not in the market in any one time (and perhaps won’t be for months or years). As he
AI Hallucinations and Reliability cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
The NYT published a fascinating article last month on the conundrum of AI accuracy and reliability. They found that even as AI models were getting more powerful, they generated more errors, not fewer. In OpenAI’s own tests, their newest models hallucinated at higher rates than their previous models. One of their benchmarks is called a
Creativity and Effectiveness cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
I stumbled across this line from advertising professor Tyler Dolph: “Creative without strategy is called ‘art’ — creative with strategy is called ‘advertising.’” The annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, which ended a few days ago, always reminds me of the tension of creativity and effectiveness. Last year was the first time I attended
Manufacturing Authenticity cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
I stumbled across this observation from a product marketer named James Christopher: “When everyone speaks the language of authenticity, no one sounds authentic anymore… “We’ve created a world where the only truly authentic thing is our collective exhaustion with fake authenticity.” Against the backdrop of so many brands pushing “authenticity” as a messaging priority, it’s
Buzzword-First Strategy cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
A strategy has to be more than buzzword-deep. In 2017, a publicly traded beverage company called the Long Island Iced Tea Corp. announced that it was renaming itself Long Blockchain Corp. They gave no justification for the pivot. But based on the name change alone to replace “iced tea” with “blockchain”, their stock price surged
AI-Powered Insights cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
The expression “Garbage In, Garbage Out” emerged in the earliest days of computer science. A 1957 article on US army mathematicians working with old-school IBM mainframes used the phrase “Garbage In, Garbage Out” to describe how poor quality data inputs lead to poor quality outputs. The adage has only grown more relevant in our increasingly
Marketing AI Agents cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
Marketing technology has always been something of an arms race. Yesterday’s breakthroughs turns into today’s table stakes. Agentic AI is being touted as the next frontier in the race. Marketers are already starting to implement Marketing AI agents across their tech stacks to analyze customer data, tailor messaging, and run campaigns. These AI agents can
Pricing and The Four Ps of Marketing cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
“Price” is only one of the classic Four Ps of Marketing (the other three are “Product”, “Placement”, and “Promotion”). But it’s sure getting most of the focus right now, as businesses figure out how to brace for tariff impact. Some brands like Black & Decker have already started raising pricing. Others like P&G and Hasbro
Impact of Tariffs cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
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
Humanize the Brand cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
There’s an aphorism I heard somewhere that “brands want to be human and humans want to be brands.” I’ve always found it funny when brand teams try to engineer sounding “human”. It can be like manufacturing “authenticity.” It’s often easy to see through it. But it’s particularly funny to me in the age of AI,
Evolution of Apps cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
A couple years ago, Cory Doctorow observed a phenomenon in online products and platforms that he dubbed “enshittification”: “Here is how platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value
Scenario Planning cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
There’s a famous observation from Dwight D. Eisenhower I've always found interesting: “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Another is Mike Tyson’s quip before a fight with Evander Holyfield: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” What we know as “scenario planning” can be traced back to a Shell strategist
AI-First cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
Organizations have been sending very mixed signals with AI. Many have claimed a strategy of being “AI-first” in one breath, while setting confusing draconian guardrails in the next. The promise of AI has outpaced our organization’s ability to adopt it. I like how Oguz Acar, professor at King’s Business School advocated for a more balanced
Navigating Uncertainty cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
Almost exactly five years ago, in early March 2020, I drew a cartoon that captured some of how I felt in that moment of uncertainty. It showed a group of of people in a meeting and one holding up a coin: “We need to update the forecast. Heads, this will blow over soon. Tails, it’s
The Creative Review cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
In 2006, I drew one of my most popular cartoons: “The 8 Types of Bad Creative Critics.” It featured common archetypes like “The Blender”, “The Waffler” and “The Crammer.” It seemed to strike a chord because many of us have been in bad creative reviews, on either side of the client/agency table. One agency even
Loyalty Programs cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
In 2012, I drew a cartoon of a shopper emptying her purse at checkout, saying “wait, I may have a card showing my loyalty to whatever store this is.” The loyalty program arms race has only accelerated since then — partly driven by brands trying to collect more first-party data. The checkout ask for an
AI Low Hanging Fruit cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
With all the hype and promise of AI, including synthetic market research I wrote about last week and new advances like “Agenic AI”, adoption in business is facing barriers and obstacles. Deloitte published their latest State of Generative AI report last month, including this headline takeaway: “We see that most companies are transforming at the
Digital Distractions and Finding Focus cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
We need to find time for focus to do our best work. Ironically some of the tools we use to make us more productive are designed to steal focus. Distraction is the default setting. Some of this challenge relates to work norms. I love how Jeff Maurer joked about the “always on” expectations of Slack:
The Super Bowl Ad Formula cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
The Super Bowl is the biggest high wire act in marketing. The media alone costs $7 million for a 30 second spot to reach an audience of more than 100 million people. So this is when marketers pull out all the stops. And yet they also tend to play it safe by following tried-and-true conventions.
Market Research Pitfalls cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
Early in my marketing career, at General Mills, we used to hold focus groups in a Minneapolis suburb called Eden Prairie. I once overheard a couple of our agency partners jokingly refer to this focus group ritual as going to see the “Oracles of Eden Prairie.” Whether new products, campaign strategy, or ad creative, the
Agile Teams cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
In 2001, a group of 17 software engineers famously drafted the Agile Manifesto at a ski resort in Utah. They were frustrated by the limitations of traditional “waterfall” software development and wanted a more flexible, iterative approach. The term “agile” evolved into a collection of methodologies that not only changed software development but started to
How we Brief cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
Sir John Hegarty, founder of Bartle Bogle Hegarty, famously said: “Writing bad briefs is the most expensive way to write advertising.” The sentiment applies to any form of creative communication and any type of brief. How we brief creative partners is as important as the talent of those creative partners. Writing a truly great brief
AI Learning Curve cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
It’s hard to make sense of the real promise of AI amidst the hype and noise. In 2023, Google CEO Sundar Pichai famously compared AI to the creation of fire and invention of electricity on an episode of 60 Minutes. By 2024, the hype cycle around AI gave way to the trough of disillusionment, as
Ho, Ho, Holiday Returns cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
Over the last decade, “Free Returns” became the new “Free Shipping,” going from differentiator (for pioneers like Zappos) to table stakes (for everyone else). But the tide is turning. According to logistics provider goTRG, 49% of US retailers now think of Returns as a severe problem, especially during the holiday season. In just the last
Product/Market Fit cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
Product/Market Fit has emerged as a key threshold of success for startups, but the concept can apply to businesses of any size. First coined by Benchmark co-founder Andy Rachleff, Product/Market Fit was popularized by Marc Andreesen in 2007 in a famous essay titled “The Only Thing That Matters.” In the essay, Marc defined Product/Market Fit
Change Fatigue cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
A few weeks ago, I drew a cartoon exploring the nonstop drumbeat of change in business, particularly from a marketing perspective. When everything is constantly changing, it’s easy to lose sight of the power of consistency. And yet the flip side of that dynamic is resistance to change, even when change is necessary. A couple
AI-Generated Homogeneity cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
It’s still early days with AI Generation tools. We’re all still learning the potential and limitations. One watch-out is the bias toward homogeneity — the tendency for AI results to look alike. As AI predicts what to generate, the path of least resistance is an averaging of the content in its source material. Ian Whitworth
Marketing Change Agents cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
Marketers are frequently the biggest agents of change in a business. Inside marketing teams, there’s a constant drumbeat for change, particularly when new members join the team. In my first marketing job, junior managers rotated to new brands every 12 months. Each new assignment brought fresh energy to make a mark on the brand. Higher
Always Be Upskilling - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
“Upskilling” as a business term was coined in the late 70s. But the pressure to “upskill” has never seemed more acute. Andrew Geoghegan, CMO of William Grant & Sons, described the challenge of upskilling for marketers a few months ago: “There used to be significant investment in-house in upskilling teams and building on those core
Herding Cats and Strategic Alignment cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
A few weeks ago, I drew a cartoon about the “silo syndrome” that most organizations struggle to navigate. It got me thinking about the challenge of strategic alignment in general — how hard it is to get and keep the extended organization on the same page. A big part of the marketing job is learning
Levers of Growth cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
I was struck by an observation from J. Walker Smith, Chief Knowledge Officer at Kantar: “The foundational prerequisite of growth is the courage to grow. Impediments to growth sit within a company itself. Growth is rarely hostage to the marketplace.” I like the idea that a brand is not “hostage to the marketplace” — that
7 Deadly Sins of Data-Driven Marketing cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
My cartoons are often inspired by something I overheard the previous week. Last week, I traveled to speak at the GPeC Summit in Romania and got to hear UnMarketing author Scott Stratten’s entertaining take on marketing while I was there. Part of Scott’s talk included a rant on vanity metrics — the seductive allure of
The Silo Syndrome cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
One of my favorite marketing observations comes from HP founder David Packard: “Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.” Our customers don’t care about our org charts. They don’t care which department is responsible for what. When they interact with different parts of a business, all they see is one brand.
Brand Planning cartoon- Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
Mike Tyson was asked his thoughts on Evander Holyfield’s fight plan before a WBA Heavyweight Title bout and famously responded: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” As we shift from Q3 to Q4 this week, brand planning season is in full swing for 2025, even as final 2024 numbers come
Creative Review by Committee cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
A few months ago, I heard Adam Morgan from eatbigfish and Jon Evans from System1 give a talk on the Extraordinary Cost of Being Dull at the Cannes advertising festival. Adam and Jon shared analysis from Peter Field who found that a “dull” advertising campaign has to spend £10m more a year in media on
Sales-Focused Advertising cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
Peter Drucker wrote this in his 1973 book on management: “You have to produce results in the short term. But you also have to produce results in the long term. And the long term is not simply the adding up of short terms.” Business carries a bias toward short-termism in general, but particularly in marketing
AI is a Tool cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
In 1966, Abraham Maslow, originator of the Hierarchy of Needs, made this well-known observation: “If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail.” This type of cognitive bias became known as Maslow’s hammer or the Law of the Instrument. I’ve been thinking about
Customer Journeys to Nowhere cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
Earlier this year an editorial in the New York Times wondered: “When did everything become a ‘journey’? Changing our hair, getting divorced, taking spa vacations — they’re not just things we do; they’re ‘journeys.’” And of course, to marketers, there’s the “customer journey.” The customer journey is a handy metaphor to help us consider all
Thinking Outside the Box cartoon - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
Conventional wisdom holds that creativity comes from “thinking outside the box”, but constraints are actually one of its key ingredients. One of Google’s principles of innovation is “creativity loves constraints,” as Marissa Mayer once recounted: “People think of creativity as this sort of unbridled thing, but engineers thrive on constraints. They love to think their
Playing it Safe is Risky - Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne
I’ve always liked this insight from Seth Godin: “If failure is not an option, then neither is success.” Organizations can spot the risks of a new idea a mile away. But there’s a curious blind spot when it comes to the risks of not taking those risks. The path of least resistance is to play