Marketoonist is the thought bubble of Tom Fishburne. Marketing cartoons, content marketing with a sense of humor, keynote speaking.
One piece of slang that has long embodied the short attention span Internet age is TL;DR, short for “too long; didn’t read.” With the explosion of generative AI tools, we’re rapidly entering the age of TL;DW: “too long, didn’t write.” A January survey from Fishbowl found that 40% of nearly 12,000 workers have used ChatGPT or other AI tools at… Read More
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There’s a counter-intuitive Buddhist line that has stuck with me: “Don’t just do something, sit there.” It’s particularly useful in times of uncertainty or even panic, when the temptation is to follow the herd, or take action for the sake of taking action. Sometimes the best action to take on a situation is no action at all. For me,… Read More
In last week’s cartoon, I parodied some of my favorite clichés in marketing presentation slides. With just six panels in that cartoon, I had to leave a lot on the cutting room floor. One of my other favorite used and abused slides is the ever-present framework, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Psychologist Abraham Maslow first proposed this theory in a… Read More
Marketing plans too often sound alike, even for completely different brands in completely different industries with completely different objectives. I’ve tried to capture a few common marketing plan slide clichés in this cartoon, but marketing plans can easily swell to hundreds of slides and appendices. They often take the form of what Garr Reynolds once dubbed the “slide-ument” — an… Read More
What a difference a year (or even a few months) makes. Just last January, I drew a cartoon showing a couple marketers (as legless avatars) standing in a virtual world under a banner that reads, “welcome to our brand experience in the metaverse!” One is saying to the other, “I’m sure consumers will show up ANY minute now.” The… Read More
Ian Whitworth recently described AI-generated content as “infinite words nobody wants.” He observed: “ChatGPT is here to make us all the same… The Great Same-ening is upon us… “ChatGPT, Jasper and all the rest are powerful conformity machines, giving you the ability to churn out Bible-length material about yourself and your business that’s exactly the same as your competitors.” That’s… Read More
Whenever budgets are under scrutiny, marketing is one of the first items on the chopping block. Those conversations are more difficult when marketing and finance speak a different language. One of the most important target audiences that marketers need to learn how to market to is their own CFO. I’ve always liked the brand management school of marketing training because… Read More
