Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne

Marketoonist is the thought bubble of Tom Fishburne. Marketing cartoons, content marketing with a sense of humor, keynote speaking.

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This Week's Cartoon

Lifecycle of Innovation Marketoonist cartoon

Lifecycle of Innovation

I drew this week’s cartoon thinking about two common innovation pitfalls: feature creep and over-serving the market. A company starts by meeting a customer need. Then it adds features to chase more profitable customers upmarket. Eventually it outstrips what the average customer needs or wants to pay for. A low-end disruptor comes along, and customers switch. Zoom is a classic… Read More

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The AI Agent Trust Gap cartoon

The AI Agent Trust Gap

I drew this week’s cartoon inspired by the explosion in AI agents at work and home, and the simultaneous reluctance to let them run. Even as AI agents are starting to hit a tipping point (such as Meta Muse outpacing even the meteoric adoption curve of ChatGPT), there’s a trust gap. A recent Harvard Business Review article notes that 59%… Read More

Gut Feel Decision Making cartoon

Gut Feel Decision Making

As an HBS student, I was once assigned to be the handler of founding Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale for the afternoon at a school tech conference. Jim was particularly well-known for his “Barksdaleisms” — his colorful proverbs on how to run a business. One of the Barksdaleisms that I always liked: “If we have data, let’s look at data. If… Read More

"Marketing Funnel Vision" cartoon

Marketing Funnel Vision

I’ve been researching an upcoming international trip and gave an email address at one point. I was overwhelmed by the aggressive marketing tactics that came next: a string of offers all designed to rush me through the classic marketing funnel stages as quickly as possible. They ignored where I actually was in the process, and instead pushed deals, deals, deals…. Read More

The Workslop Tax cartoon

The Workslop Tax

When chasing metrics that reward any type of AI adoption, it’s easy to miss the workslop tax that is being paid underneath the surface. Last year, BetterUp Labs and the Stanford Social Media Lab introduced the phenomenon of workslop: “Workslop is AI-generated content that looks polished and complete — but is actually unhelpful, low-quality, or off the mark. It can… Read More

The Itty Bitty Sh*tty Committee Marketoonist cartoon

The Itty Bitty Sh*tty Committee

I’ve always liked this colorful expression to describe the critical, anxious inner monologue that can drive our thinking. For anyone doing creative work, the committee is a barrier. It can stymie whatever creative ideas we’re working on. It’s hard to fully mute the committee, but we can create environments that help turn the volume down. Steve Martin once said, “the… Read More

Panic as AI Strategy Marketoonist Cartoon

The AI Strategy

I drew this cartoon thinking about how much panic and FOMO has been setting the pace and tenor of AI adoption. No one wants to be left behind. And that’s led to some of the most disjointed decisions we’ve seen, like banking on business growth by laying off staff and assuming AI will “automagically” fill the gap. CNBC reported that… Read More

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About Marketoonist

Tom Fishburne is the Founder and CEO of Marketoonist, a content marketing studio that helps businesses reach their audiences with cartoons.

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