Published on September 4th, 2019 📆 | 7960 Views ⚑
0The Dilemma Of The Middle-Aged Marketer 07/30/2019
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Today is my birthday. I still call myself middle-age, but truth be told, I passed being middle-aged some time ago. I would more accurately be called two/thirds-aged (hopefully).
 Thatâs not the only half-truth Iâm hanging on to.
When new people I meet ask me my profession, I like to say Iâm a âreformed marketer.â In addition to
being somewhat untruthful, I also realize now that this response is pretentious on many different levels.
First of all, it gives off this âholier than thouâ vibe that's a little
off-putting.
Secondly, if I regret being a marketer so much, why am I still hanging on for dear life to that particular epithet? The people Iâm being introduced to now often have no idea
of my past. The fact that I once called marketing my career has no relevance to them. They could care less. Iâm just saying it for effect.
Thatâs a little sad.
If I dig way
down to the truth, I have to admit being a marketer defined me for most of my life. I loved influencing people. I adored my career. And Iâm not ready to let that part of me go.
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Calling
myself a reformed marketer gives me the illusory comfort of still hanging on to something important to me, but holding it at armâs length, like a disease Iâve recovered from. Iâm
trying to play both ends against the middle.
And thus comes the Middle Aged Marketerâs Dilemma. It hit me in my 40s.
In last weekâs column, I started talking about âWhyâ vs the other
4 Ws: "Who, What, When and Where." I have a love/hate relationship with âWhy.â It was that damned âWhyâ that ushered in the Dilemma.
As I said, I loved
âWhatâ I did as a marketer. It was endlessly challenging and fascinating. And if you love âWhatâ enough, you donât really care so much about âWhenâ and
âWhere.â Youâll work ridiculously long hours in whatever location your career takes you.
I even came to terms with âWho.â I loved most of my clients. The few I
didnât, I managed to either cut loose or build a big enough buffer so that they didnât make my life too miserable for too long. Those 4 Ws allowed me to carve out a pretty fantastic life
for myself.
But then came along that damned âWhy.â It was innocent at first. My âwhysâ had a limited and very applied scope. They were specific to the work I did for my
clients. They allowed me to add another dimension to the market research we were doing for others. The more I asked âwhy,â the more I wanted to learn about how people ticked. I loved
âwhatâ I was doing even more.
Then my âwhyâ flipped on me and went for the jugular. It has a habit of doing that. I made the mistake of asking myself why I was doing
what I did for a living.
Itâs a tough question. I donât think many of us want to go gentle into that good night without having sussed for ourselves a pretty good reason why we have
lived our lives. And when middle-aged marketers asks themselves âwhy,â a satisfying answer does not immediately spring to mind.
âSo I could help profit-obsessed
companies sell more shit to people who donât need itâ is not exactly a sterling argument for canonization.
And yes, I did just toss everything about marketing into the same
over-generalized bucket. Quibble if you will. I know there are exceptions. If you navel-gaze long enough, youâre sure to find them. But Iâll stand by my struggle with âwhy,â if
you can stand by yours.
Today, Iâm still struggling with the Dilemma. The fact that Iâm still writing this column week after week speaks to my inability to let the past go. I
remain totally in love with the âwhatâ of marketing, but have ethical issues with the âwhy.â
I do believe marketing is built upon the questionable edifice of
consumerism -- and Iâm not sure thereâs a lot of moral high ground we can lay claim to.
We work (or, in my case, did work) in an industry that depends on humans having baser
instincts.
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