Categories: Articles

The Craft Of Marketing

Is it just a job or the work that you were meant to do?

I don’t get tired of writing these words. I don’t get tired of having conversations about business, and then turning them into a Six Pixels of Separation Podcast. I like prepping slides for a presentation. I love it when my Mirum team members come to me with pitches, decks, ideas for clients and more. I feel blessed to be in this business. I know that this is more than a job for me. It’s more than just work… This is my craft.

Work or the work that you were meant to do?

We spend so much time zipping through content, that we often fail to think about why it was created, how it came to be, and who the creator is behind it? It’s easy to flick one’s thumb through a feed and pay no attention to something. Digital media equalizes everything. A tweet catches the same attention span as a piece of art, and it’s often hard to appreciate the nuances of life because of it.

Well, marketing is a craft.

I believe it. I respect it. I spend time… Painstakingly trying to get better and better at it, in a world where it’s often hard to notice anything marvelous at all. Take a look at this incredible mini-documentary about the making of John Mayer‘s Born & Raised album cover. Not the music. The cover art. It’s fascinating, because album cover art has become so devalued. They’re more like tiny icons in iTunes and Spotify, and less like the seminal pieces of art that they became known as, when vinyl ruled the world. David A. Smith is a traditional sign-writer/designer specializing in high-quality ornamental hand-crafted reverse glass signs and decorative silvered and gilded mirrors. David produced the artwork for Mayer. Beyond the craft of this artisan, listen to his words and watch him work. This is a craftsman at work. When work gets tough. I watch this video. It reminds me of what I need to bring to my work every day… if I want the day count.

Work your craft, my friends…

The Making of John Mayer's 'Born & Raised' Artwork from Danny Cooke on Vimeo.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.