Why Great Marketing Is Always In Motion
Modern business owners often fall into the trap of viewing marketing strategy as a simple, one-and-done task—just another item to check off the list. Not only that, but many of them make the mistake of doing the same thing month over month, year over year. They fail to realize that markets are always changing. The change is almost imperceptible day by day. But over months and years, the changes are profound.
There’s the famous quote from Heraclitus — “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”
Everything is always changing, always moving — never static. And the way people see your message in the market is always changing. Not because of the message itself, but because people’s desires, needs, and interests evolve every day.
This means that your message to market is only effective for a limited time.
The good thing is that people love “new” and they’re receptive to new, exciting messages that allow them to:
Escape pain
Pursue pleasure
Life brings about new experiences and it is up to us as marketers to constantly adapt and understand people at a deep level.
We see this mistake with new direct-response marketers who obsess over campaigns from 50 years ago and try to replicate them in the present, while some of the best modern marketers are right in front of them. They just don’t see them because they don’t look like the guys from 50+ years ago that they’re studying today.
They cling to a fixed idea of what advertising should look like, instead of understanding that advertising evolves, and like a mirror, it reflects the desires of a society at any given moment.
Don’t get me wrong—studying the greats and learning from history is essential. And it’s something one should do if they take their career seriously. I’m all for “standing on the shoulders of giants.” But trying to apply tactics from 1960 to 2025 is unlikely to succeed in today’s world. This is a good example of market dynamics in action. Extra points for irony.
There’s another important insight I’ve noticed:
You tend to get two main personalities in ad world:
Math people
Creatives
Math people focus entirely on data. While data is crucial for making decisions, as marketers, our primary goal should be to hone the creative aspects of our craft to deeply understand people so we can guide them toward the right solution. And ideally, position our products and services as the right solution.
The way I see it is:
How can we possibly be effective without connecting with customers on a human level?
I believe in starting with the human side of marketing—understanding people's motivations—then using data to run experiments and make decisions. And that’s worked well for me.
Ultimately, marketing is a constant attempt to reverse-engineer current mass desires.
It’s not about clinging to what worked in the past—it’s about staying curious about people, ideas, and culture. I’ve found that the most effective marketers are those who embrace change and use it to connect with customers in meaningful ways.