John B.

Hightouch released a research report titled: "Has martech failed marketers" where 74% of marketers blamed the tools. But further analysis showed the root causes were really around the data. Jacqueline Freedman 🦋 was quoted saying "Re-architecting platforms, buying new tools, or getting stuck in vendor lock-in is exhausting. The truth? Marketers don’t always need to start externally. Sometimes the biggest unlock starts internally with their very own data.” 💯 and also the cost of re-architecting and ripping and replacing only gets more complex and costly as the martech landscape now grows to 15,000+ tools. In a truly double edged sword scenario, on one hand the challenge is that legacy tools aren't connected enough, yet figuring out how to migrate to a new tool and account for the downstream ramifications from unplugging a legacy tool is also a separate challenge all together. Scott Brinker was quoted saying “Three-quarters of all tool problems are data problems. Don't blame the screwdriver when the real issue with your furniture assembly is that you can't find half the screws.” Before I read his quote I was digesting the content and arrived at similar thought. It's like the golfer who thinks their swing is bad just because they aren't using the best clubs, or the basketball player who thinks their game would improve if they just had better sneakers, or the chef who thinks their uninspiring dishes would be fixed if they could only secure some higher quality ingredients....this mindset of "if only..." But let's be real...these are just excuses. I can have the best of the best, but if I don't have a strategy, plan, skills,the workflows in place, what exactly do you think the outcome will be? I recently wrote about a related topic where I think the new 3 Ps of people, process, and tech are being replaced with people, process, tech, data, culture and I think this report reinforces that point. Read here if interested: https://lnkd.in/egBfgrfH If you read the Hightouch report, you will see a string of chain-of-thoughts that goes deeper into a rabbit hole as the layers are being peeled back linking back to the broader issues at play. For example: 1️⃣ What marketers struggle with tools! (tech) 👇 2️⃣ Well to get their tools to work they need to rely on data! Ideally self-serve! (data) 👇 3️⃣ However to make the data flow, there is dependency on engineering teams due to the nature of the work! (process) 👇 4️⃣ But engineers alone don't understand the business context, so it's not enough to just make data available even centralized! (people) 👇 5️⃣ Can AI play a role in solving these issues? yes But 95% pilots fail and 42% are abandoning AI initiatives (culture - this one is not obvious but that's my hypothesis) #martech #data #ai #cdp #genai #personalization

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Great news! I'll be attending Forrester's B2B Summit North America this year and have some great recommendations to share: https://lnkd.in/gkkpaaQx The context: Buying groups and those that influence them have grown along with use of AI search. And yet a lack of confidence in AI answers is causing the need for validation across channels and sources of influence. The proof: According to Forrester’s State of Business Buying 2026, the average B2B purchase now involves 13 internal stakeholders and nine external influencers. At the same time, buyers using AI tools feel less confident because of unreliable AI-generated information. Can you relate? I know I can. That means buyers increasingly compensate by expanding the sources of information used to validate what they find with AI. The result: A buying environment where visibility is necessary but it’s not enough. At TopRank Marketing, discovery fragmentation is driving the importance of Best Answer Brands: companies that earn their position with proof and consensus as the most credible, relevant answer where buyers are looking whether it's in search, AI summaries, communities, through influencers, or analyst reports and research-based thought leadership. Forrester calls the force behind these changes and more in the B2B marketing space, the GTM Singularity, where AI-driven buyer autonomy is collapsing traditional go-to-market models across marketing, sales, product, and customer success. GTM Singularity is also the theme of B2B Summit North America, taking place April 26-29 in Phoenix. As prep for my first time at B2B Summit, I reached out to Forrester Analysts Laura Ramos, Kelvin Gee, Karen Tran and Lisa (Berkley) Gately for a preview of their keynotes and presentations as well as recommendations for how senior marketing leaders can get the most out of the event. If you're considering attending, this post is a useful preview of what to expect. If you're already signed up to attend #ForrB2BSummit then the advice on how to get the most out of the 4 day conference is very useful - who doesn't want to get more ROI out of attending an industry conference? Either way, if you're attending this year, I'd be happy to connect. Let me know if you'll be attending in the comments. Also, as a further preview of the conference, I will be hosting VP, Research Director at Forrester, Dave Frankland on the #BeyondB2BMarketing podcast where we'll do a deep dive on GTM Singularity and major trends in the B2B marketing space. That episode will publish in the next few weeks so be sure to watch for it.

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So how do you protect the future of #marketing leadership, #brand ownership, and #adagency relevance when CMOs and agencies are optimizing away the next generation of leaders? That’s the question posed in this thought-provoking article from Tom Ajello™ at my former employer Lippincott. Research confirms that AI-exposed entry-level roles (including those in marketing and advertising functions) are experiencing real displacement: 🔹 Workers age 22–25 showed a 13% decline in employment 🔹 Older workers in the same roles did not decline. 🔹 Employment in lower-exposure roles rose or remained stable. If the entry-level rung disappears, the entire ladder collapses. For years, we've functioned in an apprenticeship model where young talent does real work, develops instincts, makes mistakes, sees patterns, and eventually steps into leadership. AI disrupted that model faster than anyone expected. Instead of junior roles learning by doing, we now have senior talent orchestrating models that do the work directly. When CMOs hollow out the base layer, they cut off the long-term supply of institutional knowledge, judgment, creativity, and leadership. Agencies face an even sharper consequence: if they eliminate junior talent, clients will soon wonder why agencies are needed at all. A senior strategist operating AI doesn’t create differentiation if any client can pay for tools and skip the intermediary. If the bottom up career model is broken, we need to invent the next version: One direction is AI-augmented apprenticeships: where early-career talent learns not by replacing AI, but by leveraging it, interpreting it, improving it, stress-testing it, and translating its output into strategic relevance. Another is to shift early roles toward customer-driven learning: Expose them to real conversations, interviews, sales interactions, usage behavior, and segmentation in areas where judgment is formed, not automated. A third is to formalize rotational learning frameworks: Broaden roles to cut across channels, categories, formats, growth loops, and systems so tenure creates depth rather than repetition. And the fourth path may be the most radical: Design entry roles around decision-making, not execution. Give junior talent responsibility sooner, rather than task lists that AI could complete faster. Protecting the bottom rung as it once existed is impossible. Eliminating it outright is short-sighted. Redesigning it may be the only viable choice. This isn’t about “preserving junior headcount.” It’s about protecting the future of leadership, brand ownership, and organizational memory. Check out the article: https://lnkd.in/eeYt3uwQ I’m interested: Are CMOs and agencies thinking about this intentionally yet? Would love to hear perspectives from leaders who are actively wrestling with this transition. #MarketingLeadership #FutureOfWork #NextGenMarketers #AgencyLeaders #AIImpact #AgencyLeaders #CMOCommunity

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As CMOs the challenges that truly occupy us rarely make it to panels or podcasts. What gets discussed publicly is the polished version of marketing. What we actually deal with is ambiguity, pressure and decisions with incomplete data where the cost of being wrong is high. One of the biggest gaps in this role is the lack of real sounding boards. People dealing with the same problems, at the same scale, in the same market. Very few spaces allow honest conversations on what is working, what is not and what is changing where you can be unsure, skeptical or still figuring it out without it being held against you. In a market moving as fast as ours, that gap matters. We need faster feedback, deeper context and a place to pressure-test thinking before it becomes an action. That is why The CMO Assembly matters A peer-led space built with CMOs, not at CMOs. Glad to be a Founding CMO Member and grateful to be part of this room and Thanks to Vivek Sheth for making this happen. https://lnkd.in/gs7QSuBz

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