Today, I’m raising my mug from the original Starbucks in Seattle that has a k-cup of freshly brewed pikes place roast in it.
Cheers!
To you who are a walking cliche without realizing it. When you leave the house on casual Fridays in skinny jeans, Tom’s shoes, a cool thrift store shirt, hipster glasses, vintage jewelry (with a story), and hair perfectly disheveled with your earbud dangling listening to soul lifting tunes.
To you who love your MacBook Airs completely irrationally.
To you who are loyal to your iPhone but have doubts about that love and dream of cheating with Samsung.
To you who glaze over when your website developers say your request isn’t possible and show you the boring, functional look of what IS possible. Then you repeat yourself how you need the website to FEEL in your perfect unicorn world as the developers plot your death.
To you who are child-at-Christmas giddy when you are handed weekly brand trend reports revealing units sold a week and in what geographical areas it’s doing best.
To you who feel genuine sadness or bewilderment when units sold are down.
To you who stare up at the ceiling chewing over words and phrases until they feel right to publish.
To you who find the most sunlit corners OR the darkest crevices to brainstorm. Overhead lights kill brain cells, you are convinced.
To you who were always a marketer, even before knowing that word or understanding what this profession was even about.
To you who have strong opinions on commercials; loudly praising, criticizing- or providing consumer summaries on who that commercials’ target demographic was.
To you who are genuinely surprised no one else is curious and fascinated with the psychology of shoppers and how “tribes” have completely impacted how we think of the food industry.
To you who isn’t defensive anymore when your non-marketing friends/coworkers chortle at your “fluff job”. That strong core of knowing how critically important your job is to the company is enough. (most of the time…)
To you who laugh loudly when people ask you how to determine brick and mortar ROI on a digital campaign saying how you’d be a millionaire if you figured that out. Then promptly tell them how you do it effectively.
To you who wish you had more hours in the day to write ALL brand related content because you know your crazy passion would tell the story of your brand the best even with your agency partners and social media teams doing amazing work.
To you who find yourself suddenly out of breath from run on sentences while smiling like a lunatic when an intern asks a simple broad based marketing question. The joy overflows like a drowning torrent at times.
To you who say the words “genuine” and “authentic” when talking about the brand plan for the year until you are blue in the face and people sometimes finish your sentence for you with smirky smiles because you overuse the words.
To you who are digital strategy consultants in your free time or donate time to create engaging social media content and campaigns for non-profits because, well, it’s FUN.
To you who hate shopping because you loose time in stores from loving it so much. Eyes darting, you notice every piece of marketing and branding and are constantly cataloging hits/misses along with how that strategy could work for your brand.
To you who laugh out loud at marketing misses in stores- pitying them and looking around at other shoppers to see if they see the ridiculousness. You wonder why you frequently get such strange looks.
To you who have felt the bliss of completing an entire year of brand strategy and budgeting. (Who needs the endorphins from running a marathon!)
To you who feel like it’s Christmas morning when you get to begin implementing strategy by finding the perfect agencies to handle your baby brand.
To you who love data and research, realizing you’d be no where without it, but are comfortable to make gut decisions at the end of the day.
To you who have had the privilege and curse of managing a brand launch.
To you who the words “forecasting and replenishment” make you feel extremely one way or the other.
To you who feel fine about writing a blog post on marketing during the day because you work through lunch most of the time and your spouse reminds you at night or on weekends that you are only actually paid for 40 hours a week.
So, this is to you, marketers. The ones who get it. The ones for who marketing isn’t a job so much as it’s a lifestyle choice and you happen to have a job that pays you to do it. Cheers!
