Why marketers are so obsessed with following fads
Richard Shotton explores why marketers are so fad-obsessed, using the unlikely metaphor of the penalty shoot out.
In one of Mark Ritson’s impressive talks he described marketers as magpies, flitting from one fad to another. He judged them guilty of spending too much time and budget on emergent opportunities at the expense of established ones.
This flightiness leads to media investment out of kilter with customer behaviour and large investments in areas with unproven ROI.
The academic evidence
Why as an industry are we so obsessed with the latest fad?
I think there are a few things:
1:) marketers are under a lot of pressure to find competitive advantage in the market and new fads can seem like low hanging fruit
2:) often, senior management pushes it on marketers (Pokémon go is a great example of something I have been pushed into in my career)