Creative Cringe: Marketing Edition

Image courtesy of @alicegrace via Unsplash.

Fellow marketers, gather ‘round.

Every day, we come across things in our professional roles that make us cringe – some things you may not even notice anymore, and others might make you grit your teeth and your whole body tense up.

In this article, I’ll list my top six cringe-inducing things that drive me crazy as a marketer, that I’m sure you’ve experienced in one way or another.

Of course, we’re all about those positive vibes here at NSC, so I’ll also share some handy tips on how you can avoid or navigate these cringy events, so you can keep your marketing sanity for future projects and campaigns.

This is part of our ongoing ‘Creative Cringe’ series of articles, where we explore the worst cringes of creative professionals and how we can deal with them effectively.

Before we dive in, let's discuss what I mean by ‘cringe’ – the dictionary definition is: 

“[to] bend one's head and body in fear or apprehension or in a servile manner.”

For me, the "bend in my head" is the shudder I feel when I see or hear a marketing 'faux-pax' in day-to-day life.  

You know, those little things that make you grind your teeth, twitch or pull that awkward I-Don't-Really-Agree-with-You Smile™.

It puts me in mind of one of our favourite comedy shows at NSC: Blackadder. 

In the fourth season, Captain Blackadder (played by the legendary Rowan Atkinson), torments another soldier, Captain Darling (played by another acting legend, Tim McInnerny).

Captain Blackadder repeatedly calls his fellow soldier "Darling" throughout the season – making him dramatically wince and twitch, as if every time he hears it, he suffers an electrical shock. 

Here’s a clip top show what I mean:

I like to think I can hide my cringe-face better than Captain Darling, but I’ll let my co-workers be the judge of that.

With Captain Darling's cringe-face fresh in our minds, let's dive in...

Image courtesy of @sadswim via Unsplash.

1. “Marketing is sales, isn’t it?”
Too often, marketing is lumped in with sales, like they’re the same thing.

If you don’t believe me, just check out the marketing jobs available on LinkedIn – it’s a muddle of ‘Business Development Executives’, ‘Lead Generation Officers’, ‘Conversion Managers’, and other bullshit titles that all amount to sales careers.

Marketing is not sales.

Marketers don’t want careers in sales – they want careers in marketing.

Sure, communicating with customers is very useful, but when we muddy the waters with sales conversations, the usefulness of that conversation for marketing activities vanishes.

Chatting with contacts from a marketing perspective can be valuable for audience research, ABM (account-based marketing) strategies, and formulating customer messaging.

However, we shouldn’t be expected to push to convert contacts at this point.

There, contacts should be handed over to the sales team, where their job begins, and our job ends (for the meantime).

Marketing is the activities before a customer reaches the transaction of sales, and is typically on a larger scale.

Marketing also requires a combination of both creative and analytical skills, whereas sales needs negotiating, interpersonal skills.

Sure, there are some crossover skills (as there are with many career paths), and both departments should work together, but they are different points in the customer’s journey.

So no, marketing is not sales.

How do we avoid this?
If your marketing role is becoming a sales one, speak with your manager about your concerns.

It can also help to out together a flow chart of your customers’ typical journey, and pinpoint where each department steps in, along with what their objectives are at that point.

Every department is important, but they should also have clearly defined boundaries to avoid crossover of responsibilities.

Image courtesy of @micahboswell via Unsplash.

2. “Give me good copy... you have one hour”
Sometimes, it’s unavoidable – you get sent an ad hoc request to put together some copy for another campaign, marketing material, or even someone else’s email to a customer.

But that doesn’t make it any less annoying.

It feels as though copywriting is seen as an easy job that anyone can do – but we know that it isn’t.

Bashing out well-crafted, eloquent, simple, impactful copy in a matter of minutes is a near-impossible task.

It takes careful editing, re-writing, editing, pondering, and even more editing to put together a good piece of copy.

Plus, there’s the danger of misusing your brand’s tone of voice if you’re in a rush.

What’s worse is when you’re sent a copy request that “needs to be done today, urgently”, when it’s half-past four on a Friday.

How do we avoid this?
As I mentioned earlier, sometimes, it’s unavoidable – and when it is, and you aren’t in a position to complete the request, you can just say no.

There is power in the word ‘no’, and while it’s something that we’re afraid of, particularly in a professional setting, ultimately, your personal wellbeing trumps everything.

However, sometimes, it is avoidable. 

You can set a rule for people to give you at least three days’ notice (or whatever works for you) for any other copywriting requests, so you can work it into your schedule.

Make sure that everyone in the company who would send you requests knows about this rule, and don’t make too many exceptions, otherwise they’ll start to take advantage.

Image courtesy of @mabevillanueva via Unsplash.

3. “Just do the same as the last campaign”
This one really grinds my gears.

“Do it the same way we always have” is a business-killing phrase.

Any manager, director, or leader of any sort who says this more than once (we’re into second chances at NSC) should consider changing their career path.

Stale marketing campaigns can never truly grow, and if you’re just essentially copying and pasting entire campaigns, they won’t achieve their objectives, particularly if you’re setting higher targets regularly.

Look at some of the most successful, viral marketing campaigns – what do they all have in common?

They’re different.

So dare to be different.

How do we avoid this?
Challenge those that merely survive in their comfort zones.

Challenge them to take just one step outside of their box, and thrive.

Make a list of marketing activities or messages that defy expectations of your campaign – really think outside the box – and suggest them regularly, but not all at once.

If you suggest every wild idea at once, very few of them will actually come to life.

Plant those seeds carefully, and nurture them so they can grow.

For more on how to implement your crazy marketing ideas, check out my article, Experimental Marketing: Try Something New.

Image courtesy of @matthewhenry via Unsplash.

4. One marketer to do it all
Marketing is a vast discipline, with lots of niches, responsibilities, and processes.

But that doesn’t mean that one marketer in a business can do all of it.

Sure, not every business has a budget to hire more than one marketer, particularly small businesses or start-ups.

But they need to tailor their expectations of their marketing person.

One person can’t write all the business copy, design every image, take product photographs, make you go viral online, direct and star in Scorcese-standard product videos, produce detailed analytical reports, organise a thousand-person event, build powerful relationships with massive influencers and publications, and handle all of your internal marketing communications.

At least, they can’t do it all to a high enough standard to be worthwhile.

Marketers are people, with limitations, not gods.

This is such a huge pain-point for me that I’ve written an entire rant-fuelled article all about it: Recruiters’ Expectations Are Killing Marketers.

How do we avoid this?
We can keep pushing the message to recruiters that their expectations are too high of one person.

If someone approaches you with this sort of marketing role, explain to them why you won’t consider it: your mental health is simply too important.

The more we spread the message, the more roles will change to more manageable, niche roles so you can focus on specific marketing skills and excel – after all, average is boring.

Image courtesy of @nickxshotz via Unsplash.

5. “How many followers do you have, personally?”
Ugh. I spend too much time building other social media accounts to focus on my own.

I prefer to write these articles, read, and watch Netflix in my spare time, not spend hours building my personal social media accounts.

And that’s okay!

I had a recruiter ask me this question a few months ago, and I noped straight out of that conversation.

Coupled with the fact that it’s not the number of followers you have that matters, it’s the ratio of interested, genuine fans versus bots and fake accounts that we should focus on.

One genuine fan is worth thousands of bots.

How do we avoid this?
As soon as recruiters or managers ask the question, shut that shit down.

It doesn’t matter how many followers you have unless you’re applying for a paid role as an influencer.

If you don’t spend lots of time building your social media accounts, tell them what you’d rather do in your spare time, how else you develop your skills.

Image courtesy of @chuttersnap via Unsplash.

6. “We’re launching a product in a month – make a campaign plan, now!”

Crafting a campaign plan takes time and focus.

But too often, they’re rushed, and doomed before they even begin.

Successful marketing campaign plans are developed months in advance of the launch, sowing the seeds of the product, getting the audience revved up and keen.

Audiences don’t get properly researched, offers can fall flat or miss important details.

When a marketing campaign is bundled together in a matter of hours, it’s fair to assume that imperative information will be missing from that plan, and it won’t achieve its set targets.

How can we avoid this?
Arrange a meeting with the department who dictates when products are launched to advise them of your timeline as a marketer, stressing the importance of time to craft a comprehensive, well-rounded, more successful marketing campaign.

Ultimately, they want their product to sell well, as do you, so you’re both working to the same end goal.

Stick to what you agree with them after that meeting, and make sure that everyone follows the same processes.

After all, process makes perfect.

Those are my top six marketing cringe-points and how to avoid them!

Feel free to leave your own marketing cringes in the comments below, and we’ll see if we can come up with a solution for you.

Or share your stories of how you have overcome your personal cringe-points – reach out to us by using the #CreativeCringe hashtag on Instagram.

You’re more than welcome to ask for advice in the comments below – we’re all about supporting the creative community here at NSC, and will do our best to answer any questions or give out advice.

Check out the editions in the Creative Cringe series here.