doesn’t the marketing team have enough flowers?
no, your linkedin network does not need to know about 'brat' green…
One of my favorite academic articles1 introduced me to a very long term: protoprofessionalization. In the article, the researcher uses the term to describe how the average television viewer’s relationship to what they’re watching has changed in an increasingly digital age. More generally, protoprofessionalization explains how academic knowledge disperses itself and mutates in non-academic spaces.
I scroll through LinkedIn a few times a day, a hangover of a nervous tick I developed during my springtime job search. Imagine my dismay when I had to read the words “Hawk Tuah” in that lifeless LinkedIn font. Rolling around at rock bottom, I thought of the similar feeling I had seeing earlier LinkedIn posts praising the success of Charli xcx’s brat campaign. LinkedIn is a terrible place, but it’s got me thinking harder about why I’ve started to react so negatively to social content about other social content.
In the same way television viewers have become more aware of the industry that feeds them—the production staff, the filming schedules, the behind-the-scenes vocabulary—I’m afraid the protoprofessionalization of marketing is happening as well. Beyond brat and Ms. Hailey “Hawk Tuah” Welch, in the past few years I’ve noticed a sharp uptick in tweets, infographics, and video essays about successful and unsuccessful marketing campaigns. In shorter forms, I’m even seeing videos that praise brands for making marketing, the act of selling and being sold to, “fun again.” In just the past few months, there’s Hailey Bieber’s Rhode chapstick phone case, there’s Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” ice cream, there’s the interactive Coors Light can, there’s NEON’s creepy Longlegs movie campaign. I could go on!
Before I get too cynical, I don’t want to downplay the benefits of this kind of media literacy. When I wrote about Palestine a few months ago, I emphasized the need for a deeper understanding of how privileged consumption has dire consequences. Social media as a tool to teach about how marketing is a part of that equation is a net positive.2 There is some value in quickly being able to point out what counts as an ad. Big. However. Comma. Content in praise of “good” marketing3 may be working to have the opposite effect.
When you start to realize everything is an ad, then nothing becomes an ad. That desensitization is a slippery slope, and as the niche of “analytical marketing content” grows, so does the number of videos and creators that do a bad job at it. We’ve worked so hard to understand modern marketing that we’ve turned around and started romanticizing it.
For some marketing creators I do love:
Ashwinn (@schwinnabego on TikTok) makes critical, interesting branding breakdowns that I never miss.
Tepper (@teppertoks on TikTok & Movie Industry Musings here on Substack) is a super knowledgeable screenwriter and film marketing expert whose videos always teach me something new.
At the same time (and this wasn’t obvious to me at first), because we treat marketing and advertising like art in and of itself4, other art starts to get diluted. I’ve seen countless tweets about how Sabrina Carpenter’s marketing strategy solidifies her as a pop star. To that point, I ask, “What about the music man??”
Seeing brat think-pieces on LinkedIn gives me a different ick. There is beauty to brat, as a musical concept and as a digital, repeatable artifact, but attempts to put brat into a language that shareholders and suits can understand is actually not very brat at all! That contradiction is not the fault of the, maybe, misguided Charli fan, but a direct result of what platforms like LinkedIn reward: Watered-down pop cultural takes that attempt to help you understand media without partaking in or experiencing it. In the wider social media sense, it pays to make those who are out of the loop feel like they’re in it, so we sell parts of the culture in a depressing piecemeal. On LinkedIn, it’s made even more dystopian because posting buzzy, fun content is a way for many to stay relevant to the algorithm and stand out as a job applicant.
It’s not lost on me that pop culture iconography and marketing are intertwined, but I have to ask what the endgame of posting about it as a regular citizen is. Part of me envies marketers who contribute to the personalities of my favorite media entities, but I don’t think mindless praise of their work is good for anyone but the billionaires and the social media platforms they own.
The phenomenon of protoprofessionalization makes average consumers feel like they know more than they do about the value they contribute online. Peek behind the curtain and things are much messier and darker despite our best intentions. I can’t stop thinking about this TikTok from @prettycritical where she makes a joking plea for her followers to stop commenting “get that bag, girl!” whenever she posts a brand deal!
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When people hop on TikTok to beg for the “marketing girlies” to get a raise, they shouldn’t be tricked into thinking the girlies will get one. When people post on LinkedIn saying the marketing team behind Barbie “deserves their flowers,” they are not protecting the individuals on that team from the next streaming layoff. Marketing is labor. It’s a job, and when we blindly equate social validation with compensation, we’re losing the plot.
If you really must support your favorite marketing campaign, there’s an easy way to do it: Buy the thing! See the movie! Stream the song! When the marketing coordinator makes their slide deck proving the impact they had in Q3, the millennials tweeting about how much “the social media intern” “popped off” will, unfortunately, not make the cut.
The marketing teams helping corporations sell you things already have your attention. They don’t need your flowers. They’ll sleep well at night because, in the words of Don Draper, “that’s what the money is for!”5
Yes, I have one of those.
This statement is up for review in 6 months.
“Good” marketing is an oxymoron. In my perfect world and this one, good marketing is no marketing.
Don’t fight me, marketers. I think your work is very artistic. Hold on tight to that Clio! It’ll be okay!
I feel like Mad Men still needs a Gen Z moment. I love this line.
Such an interesting piece!! As a marketing/ PR/ advertising girlie, I've always loved creative marketing campaigns that make me smile or make me think, but you're so right that they should never take away from the actual art that's being marketed to me, as that's the whole point of it all. Yay Simi!!
WOW! This was such a well-researched and thoughtful piece. Of course appreciate your sweet shout out but woah - This truly made me want to be a better writer. It felt so nuanced, timely and is giving me so much to think about too. Appreciate you!