Book collection celebrating 15 years of Marketoonist

This Week's Cartoon

Humanize the Brand cartoon

Humanize the Brand

There’s an aphorism I heard somewhere that “brands want to be human and humans want to be brands.” I’ve always found it funny when brand teams try to engineer sounding “human”. It can be like manufacturing “authenticity.” It’s often easy to see through it. But it’s particularly funny to me in the age of AI, as our own human roles…

Read More

Cartoon Powered Marketing

Most Recent Cartoons

Evolution of Apps cartoon

Evolution of Apps

A couple years ago, Cory Doctorow observed a phenomenon in online products and platforms that he dubbed “enshittification”: “Here is how platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.…

Read More
Scenario Planning cartoon

Scenario Planning

There’s a famous observation from Dwight D. Eisenhower I’ve always found interesting: “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Another is Mike Tyson’s quip before a fight with Evander Holyfield: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” What we know as “scenario planning” can be traced back to a Shell strategist named Pierre Wack in 1965.…

Read More
AI-First cartoon

AI-First

Organizations have been sending very mixed signals with AI. Many have claimed a strategy of being “AI-first” in one breath, while setting confusing draconian guardrails in the next. The promise of AI has outpaced our organization’s ability to adopt it. I like how Oguz Acar, professor at King’s Business School advocated for a more balanced approach to adopting AI in…

Read More
Navigating Uncertainty cartoon

Navigating Uncertainty

Almost exactly five years ago, in early March 2020, I drew a cartoon that captured some of how I felt in that moment of uncertainty. It showed a group of of people in a meeting and one holding up a coin: “We need to update the forecast. Heads, this will blow over soon. Tails, it’s the end of the world.”…

Read More
The Creative Review cartoon

The Creative Review

In 2006, I drew one of my most popular cartoons: “The 8 Types of Bad Creative Critics.” It featured common archetypes like “The Blender”, “The Waffler” and “The Crammer.” It seemed to strike a chord because many of us have been in bad creative reviews, on either side of the client/agency table. One agency even asked to print the cartoon…

Read More
"Loyalty Programs" cartoon

Loyalty Programs

In 2012, I drew a cartoon of a shopper emptying her purse at checkout, saying “wait, I may have a card showing my loyalty to whatever store this is.” The loyalty program arms race has only accelerated since then — partly driven by brands trying to collect more first-party data. The checkout ask for an email address or phone number…

Read More

Wondering if a marketoon™ campaign is a good fit?

Let's Talk