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

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

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"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

The AI Scarlet Letter Marketoonist carotoon

The AI Scarlet Letter

This cartoon was partly inspired by the whiplash approach to AI writing at LinkedIn. A few years ago, they indiscriminately pushed AI tools, offering to draft a full post after typing just 30 words. Surprise, surprise, this resulted in a lot of AI slop on the platform. A recent study from Pangram Labs claims that 41% of long-form posts on… Read More

Product Design and Conway's Law Marketoonist cartoon

Product Design and Conway’s Law

I heard somewhere years ago that the reason the classic TV remote control is so ridiculously complicated is that each button has its own product manager, lobbying hard for the features of that button. I think of that every time I stay in an Airbnb and can’t figure out how to turn on the TV. It inspired this cartoon. In… 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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