The Job Changed. I Didn't. That's Why I'm Building Something New.

This morning I drove my dear friend, Flor, to the airport. That’s us from a couple of years ago.

We've been close for years. We met at Mastercard when marketing and communications were chaotic, but it still felt like a real profession. The pressure was intense, but the expectations were clear. We were there to think, to challenge, to create. The goal wasn't just getting campaigns out the door; it was doing work that meant something to the customer and the business. Or at least that’s what we believed it was.

That version of the job is getting harder to find.

Flor and I have stayed in this field because we care about the work. But on the drive today, as we talked about where we are now: what we're seeing, hearing, and feeling, and I realized something that's been sitting just under the surface for months:

I don't know what this job is anymore, not because I've changed, but because the job has.

It Didn’t Break Overnight. But It’s Breaking.

This shift didn’t happen in a single quarter. But it’s happening everywhere, fast.

You don’t have to read between the lines anymore. The headlines are blunt:

• CMOs are being pushed out or rebranded into “growth” roles with no real budget or authority.

• Brand teams are being cut or replaced by freelance churn.

• Startups slash marketing under the promise to “reinvest when the funnel stabilizes.”

• Teams of 8 have quietly become teams of 2, and those two are told to “keep the energy up.”

Behind those headlines are real people, trying to hold it together.

They’re asked to be strategic while fielding 30 Slack pings a day.
They’re reporting to product heads who think brand is just a vibe.
They’re expected to hit metrics for audiences no one’s taken the time to understand.

And in all this noise, we’ve lost what marketing used to do.

The Data Confirms It

This isn’t just a feeling. The numbers back it:

• Marketing Budgets Are Shrinking
  In 2024, marketing budgets dropped to 7.7% of company revenue—down from 11% pre-pandemic.
  Source: Duke Fuqua CMO Survey

• Teams Are Being Cut
  34.9% of B2B marketers reported cuts to budget and headcount in 2024.
  Source: Marketing Week

• Workloads Are Growing
  Nearly 59% said they’ve been asked to do more with fewer resources.
  Source: Marketing Week

• CMO Tenure Is Shrinking
  The average tenure of a CMO at a Fortune 500 company is now just 4.3 years, below the C-suite average.
  Source: Spencer Stuart

These aren’t one-offs. They’re signals.

Marketing is under pressure.
The budgets are tighter.
The trust is thinner.
And the patience for anything long-term is almost gone.

The Impact on Brand and Strategy

What gets squeezed first? Strategy, audience, and brand, the very things that require time, space, and internal alignment.

Instead, we’re watching this play out:

• Short-Term Gains Over Long-Term Value
  Campaigns are judged in 14-day windows. Brand equity is ignored unless it supports immediate conversion.

• Erosion of Strategic Thinking
  No time for insight. No headcount for research. No air cover to push for what’s actually right.

• Loss of Professional Identity
  Marketers are being reduced to task managers. The people who used to lead the work are now patching gaps and crossing fingers.

This Isn't Burnout. It's an Identity Crisis.

If you're in marketing right now and feel exhausted, not just physically but existentially, you're not alone.

Because what you're doing probably doesn't match why you got into this in the first place. The thinking has been replaced with "turn it around by EOD." The space to explore has been traded for the need to justify every hour. The ability to focus on the audience has been buried under internal politics.

We used to build something. Now we maintain. React. Patch. Spin.

And here's the part we don't say out loud: Even the people in charge feel it. The whisper at the executive level is the same: "We're doing a lot. But I'm not sure any of it's working."

But Here’s the Thing: It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way

Driving Flor to the airport this morning, I felt the weight of all of this.

Not just as a consultant. Not as a strategist.
I am someone who still believes in what this work can be.

We didn’t get into this to fill calendars and submit creative briefs.
We got into this to connect with people. To help companies stand for something real.
To create clarity, internally and externally, when everything else feels like chaos.

That’s still possible. But it’s not going to come from inside the current system.
It will come from people who remember what this job is supposed to be and who are ready to rebuild it.

That’s precisely why we started the Marketing Accountability Council.
And that’s what we’re building next.

That Drive Made Something Clear: I'm Not Okay With This Being Normal.

I don't want to go back in time. But I'm not going to pretend this is fine, either.

I don't want to be complicit in a system that rewards volume over value, speed over sense, and optics over outcomes.

So I'm not sitting still.

I'm building something else.

This Is Why the Marketing Accountability Council Exists

The Marketing Accountability Council wasn't born out of ambition. It was born out of frustration with the direction of things and the silence around it.

We saw the drift happening, named it, and decided to do something more complex than tweeting about it: We decided to build.

Here's what we're doing: Publishing honest commentary about what's broken in this field. Creating a shared vocabulary for people who want to stop pretending and start pushing for better. Building the MAC Stack, a practical system to help teams cut through noise, align on strategy, and bring marketing back to its strategic roots. Convening a group of insiders, marketers who've done the work, seen the cracks, and are ready to lead something more grounded and sustainable.

We Know the World's Not Ready. But That's Not the Point.

We're 15 months in.

And no, most of the market still isn't ready for this. They want fast answers, shortcuts that don't challenge the business model, and marketing that delivers without asking anyone to think too hard.

But there's a growing group of people who are ready, inside companies, in between roles, quietly questioning everything.

We're building this for them. Not someday. Not later. Now.

If you're reading this and thinking, "Yes. This is what I've been feeling too."—You're not crazy. You're paying attention.

We are, too.

And we're building what comes next.

🧭 The MAC Compass Disclosure

This story didn’t start with a dramatic moment. It started with a slow unraveling.

The ride to the airport with Flor? That’s just when it clicked. When months of quiet frustration snapped into clarity.

What we talked about wasn’t new. It had been sitting just under the surface—after too many client calls that blurred into chaos, too many strategies rewritten for someone’s “gut feel,” and too many marketers asking each other, “Do you even know what our job is anymore?”

This isn’t just my story, it’s ours. What I’ve shared here is built from months of pattern recognition—inside brand teams, C-suites, group chats, and DMs. It’s been shaped by real conversations, not performance posts.

But more than that, it’s backed by data:

• CMO Tenure Shrinking: Average CMO tenure is now just 4.3 years—shortest in the C-suite. Source: Spencer Stuart.

• Budgets Are Shrinking: Marketing budgets have dropped to 7.7% of revenue—down from 11% pre-pandemic. Source: Duke Fuqua CMO Survey.

• Teams Are Being Cut: 34.9% of B2B marketers reported cuts in budget and headcount this year. Source: Marketing Week.

• Workload Creep Is Real: 59% of marketers say they’ve been asked to do more with fewer resources. Source: Marketing Week.

• Trust Is Cracking: The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer shows rising distrust in leadership and institutions, especially among employees under 40.

And if you’ve read the MAC canon—pieces like Why Pay-to-Play Marketing Is Dying, Catch and Release Marketing, and From Peddling Lies to Lighting the Path—you’ll see this story isn’t isolated. It’s systemic. And it’s time we name it.

This isn’t nostalgia for some golden era. It’s a refusal to normalize what’s happening now.

That’s why this isn’t just a post. It’s a compass. A line in the sand. A reassertion of the standards we’re rebuilding.

The Marketing Accountability Council exists to make sure this moment doesn’t get brushed off.

We're not looking back. But we are drawing the map forward—together.