Marketoonist is the thought bubble of Tom Fishburne. Marketing cartoons, content marketing with a sense of humor, keynote speaking.
Marketoonist is the thought bubble of Tom Fishburne, a career marketer and cartoonist.
Learn MoreCartoons from 15 Years of Marketing, Business, & Doodling in Meetings
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Influencer marketing is all the rage, but there’s not a clear understanding of what constitutes influence. A few years ago, I participated in an influencer event for a consumer brand. It was an expensive affair put on by the brand’s agency. There were a few dozen “influencers” there, which, it turned out, meant a collection of people with blogs and…
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It’s in vogue for marketers to think of themselves as storytellers. But much of the marketing that gets passed off as “storytelling” really isn’t that much of a story. There is genuine power in stories and there are inspiring examples of brands that tell stories. But I think that often gets diluted by all of the content produced in the…
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There’s a widening gap between how marketers and consumers feel about brands collecting data and tracking customer journeys. According to a recent report by Edelman and The University of Cambridge Psychometrics Centre, 77% of marketers believe their organization should invest in predictive data and 71% of consumers believe that brands with access to personal data are using it unethically. Much…
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Marketers risk talking too much to ourselves. As demonstrated at Cannes, SXSW, and every other festival where marketers congregate, there’s a well-insulated marketing echo chamber. Nowhere is this more prevalent today than in content marketing. The sheer glut of new content created every day is deafening, and much of this content is created on the topic of the content marketing…
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“If marketing kept a diary, this would be it.”
- Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs
Packed with nearly 200 marketing cartoons, this new book collection celebrates 15 years of Marketoonist.
Snapchat is the hottest advertising ticket right now. With 150 million daily users, they reach 41% of consumers 18-34 in the US. And, just in time for Cannes, they unveiled a new advertising strategy last week, including an API that will allow Snapchat ads to be sold by third parties. This land rush is going to be interesting to watch,…
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If you think the way that retargeting ads follow consumers around the internet is a little creepy, just wait. Retargeting is only getting warmed up. We’re all used to seeing ads for products that we’ve browsed online suddenly pop up ad infinitim on every other site we visit. Retargeting ads are 76% more likely to be clicked than regular display…
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Few marketers think that they spam. Spamming is often thought of as using email addresses from a bought list. But spamming is more expansive than that. Spam really just means an unsolicited or unwanted message. Cory Doctorow recently audited all of the spam in his inbox and discovered that most of it came, not from unknown entities, but from organizations…
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I was struck by the recent research that 60% of clicks on mobile banner ads are accidental. The main contributing factor was identified as fat finger syndrome. With mobile on track to become the third largest advertising medium, accounting for 12% of all ad spend, that’s an enormous disconnect. Of course it’s not fat fingers that are to blame. It’s…
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Instagram caught a lot of flak for its rebranding last week, but it’s only the most recent in a string of companies that have gone through brand makeovers. Uber, Airbnb, and Yahoo each debuted new brand identities in the last couple years that were widely lampooned. The biggest rebranding cautionary tales remain Tropicana in 2009, which backtracked after sales dropped…
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In the vein of last week’s cartoon on ROI, marketers are struggling to prove their digital efforts are working. Advertisers aren’t sure which measurements point to success, often relying on single metrics like the click-through rate. Single metrics can give a false picture, particularly for campaigns that may be more about awareness than conversion. I read recently that a whopping…
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Marketers are facing increasing pressure to demonstrate ROI, but giving a simple answer to the ROI question still isn’t that simple. Econsultancy released a report last month titled “Marketing Budgets 2016” that flags ROI measurement as a major impediment to increasing marketing activity. Illustrating ROI has always been tricky in traditional marketing, but even in digital marketing, marketers don’t rate…
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In innovation, the path of least resistance usually leads to mediocrity. A form of Darwinism drives organizations as they decide which ideas to launch. But instead of “survival-of-the-fittest,” it’s “survival-of-the-safest.” Innovation stage gates generally reward predictability, proof points, and past successes. And so the ideas that rise to the top result in more of the same. Innovation in many organizations…
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Marketers are tripping over themselves to reach Millennials. Advertisers spend five times as much on reaching Millennials as they do on all other generations combined. The Millennial obsession on how to become relevant to the next generation has led to a lot of soul searching for marketers. Many old-school brands have been having a sort of brand identity crisis. McDonalds…
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When I worked in web marketing in the late nineties, everyone was focused on “eyeballs” (basically counting impressions) and clicks. Ad inventory was sold on a CPM model. Not much has changed. Eyeballs are still commonly cited as the measurable end result of a campaign. But at the end of the day, impressions don’t buy. Real people do. Many of…
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Many marketers were schooled in the marketing funnel. In the traditional funnel, consumers move lockstep in uniform sequential stages from awareness to purchase. The specific stages might vary, but the journey is assumed to stay pretty much the same. The marketing funnel actually dates back to 1898, in the writings of Philadelphia advertising pioneer E. St. Elmo Lewis. His framework…
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When every innovation claims to be disruptive, disruptive loses its meaning. This is particularly the case in startups, where the word “disruption” is almost a business pitch requirement nowadays. We have to be careful of the echo chamber in innovation. Most of what is claimed to be disruptive is really just just an incremental innovation with a large dose of…
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SXSW has turned into the Superbowl of “brand experiences.” This year, virtual reality was the main technology focus. McDonalds even created a virtual reality experience where attendees could paint the inside of a giant Happy Meal box. There is obviously tremendous promise in virtual reality, and some are calling 2016 a breakthrough year in virtual reality for marketing. But as…
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The Trojan Horse metaphor is regularly used to describe content marketing. I’ve used it frequently myself. I like the idea of marketers sharing content so good that an audience would welcome it for its own sake. By sponsoring the content, the marketer’s brand comes along for the ride. But the Trojan Horse can also be a metaphor of trickery. Historically…
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“People don’t want to be interrupted by advertising. They want to engage with it on their own terms, when they’re in consumer mode and thus in the proper mindset to listen to a brand’s messaging.” I read this takeaway in a Guardian article on the death of the 30-second spot, comparing it to the eight-track of advertising. But I wonder…
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Marketing is increasingly data-driven. But the data we choose matters. It’s tempting to cherry-pick the data that makes us look or feel good. Or the easiest data to persuade an audience to buy into whatever we want them to believe. This is particularly the case in digital marketing, where over-simplified numbers like Likes or YouTube views are frequently used as…
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