I’m new to marketing, and still learning a lot. One thing I’ve learned just this week is that if I’d spent my whole career in this field, I’d be terrified right now. Because I don’t think there’s any job in the world that is changing so much, so radically, in such short time. And the truth, which nobody dares to say, is that a huge number of people who work in marketing are totally screwed.
I’m attending Adobe’s annual Summit conference for digital marketers. Here’s what they’re saying: Marketing is quickly becoming a field that is all about technology, and data, and science. If you want to stay in this field, you need to completely “reinvent” yourself.
This morning’s keynote was titled, “The Reinvention of Marketers.” Note that they’re not talking about reinventing the field, they’re talking about reinventing the people.
A lot of those people must be scared to death. Especially when they hear the statistics that Adobe presented from a survey of 1,000 marketers in North America.
Adobe claims that 60% of marketers expect their role to change in the next year, and 40% believe they need to reinvent themselves, but only 14% actually know how to do it.
“It’s becoming harder than ever to be a digital marketer,” John Mellor, VP of strategy and business development at Adobe, told the crowd this morning. “The world around us is becoming increasingly complex. We personally are uncertain about what that means to us in our personal careers, and what it means to our organizations.”
Digital Distress: Quants Are Taking Over, and People Are Freaking Out
