San Francisco’s dirty disruption underbelly contains a lesson for all marketers
After a recent eye-opening trip to San Francisco, Catherine-Josephine Tayeh asks: should we accept our smashed avocados with a side of smashed windows, or are marketers tasked with a higher purpose?
The streets of San Francisco almost feel like hip pocket Melbourne. As a marketer, one of the earliest differences you notice are the advertisements for tech company after tech company. Google and Apple are dominant personalities in the out of home playground.
However the precious spots in the sky are also occupied by an immense array of little-known startups that have just received a fresh wave of early-stage funding, along with the ambitious acquisition targets spurring them towards next quarter’s #billboardgoals.
But it’s below the billboards radiant with ambition and aspiration that you see the true toll that an extreme focus on the tech industry has taken on The Golden City. Indeed, it’s on the streets that you’ll witness the dirty underside of disruption in San Francisco, a city that appears to be both high-strung and hamstrung by the world wide web.
