More Than the One With the Colouring Pencils
After more than ten years working in marketing, there is one experience that has remained painfully consistent.
I still get reduced to“the one with the colouring pencils.” Or “the one who makes the pretty pictures.” Or the classic: “just the marketer.”
It happens in throwaway comments, introductions, or conversations where other roles are treated as “serious” while marketing is implied to be surface-level fluff. The casual dismissal is almost always unintentional…
But it reveals a much bigger disconnect:
Most people do not understand what marketing actually is.
And honestly, for a field as broad, technical, psychological, and strategically essential as marketing, the misunderstanding is staggering. This post is my attempt to bridge that gap, for marketers who are tired of being discredited, and for anyone who still thinks marketing is “just social media” or “making things look nice.”
Marketing Is a Profession So Broad That People Mistake It for Simplicity
Part of the misunderstanding comes from the fact that marketing is huge. It is not a single job, it is not a task, and it is not a channel.
Marketing is an entire organisational discipline, encompassing dozens of specialised fields such as:
Brand Strategy
Advertising & Creative Direction
SEO / SEM
Performance Marketing
Consumer Psychology
Market Research
Analytics & Attribution
Content Strategy
UX & CRO
Social Media Strategy
Product Marketing
CRM & Lifecycle Marketing
PR & Reputation Management
Customer Journey Mapping
Paid Social & Algorithmic Targeting
(just to name a few…)
Any one of these could be a full-time career. This isn’t my opinion, and it’s reflected in the definitions from the world’s most respected marketing bodies.
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“The activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
That’s not “colouring in.” that is value creation.
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“The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating, and satisfying customer requirements profitably.”
Again, management process.
Marketing is not a poster.
It’s the strategy that decides whether a product even needs to exist, who it’s for, how it’s positioned, what problem it solves, and why anyone should care.It is the discipline that connects customer needs to business outcomes.
And yet… we’re still “the ones with the crayons”
People Only See the End Result, Not the Infrastructure Beneath It
Marketing is often dismissed because people only experience the output:
A reel on TikTok.
A billboard.
A leaflet.
A pretty-looking email.
A cute post on Facebook for you to share with your 5 friends.
That “pretty picture” is the final 1% of the work.
The 99% underneath it includes:
Market segmentation
Keyword research
Search intent analysis
Message testing
Competitor audits
Data modelling
Persona building
Funnel mapping
UX testing
A/B experimentation
Performance analysis
Forecasting
Budget allocation
Measurement frameworks
Attribution modelling
People see the creative asset, marketers see the strategy, psychology, and science holding it up, and marketing is the invisible architecture behind the brand.
Research Shows How Misunderstood Marketing Really Is
The research also supports the reality that marketing is undervalued, often dramatically.
A 2023 McKinsey study reported that many CEOs undervalue marketing because they see it as “the colouring-in department” rather than a strategic growth driver.
Not because marketing isn’t strategic, but because they don’t see the strategy. I have even worked in a large corporate department full of talented and incredible marketers, only to overhear a stakeholder refer to us as “the one with the colouring pencils”.
We measure customer behaviour, segment audiences, model demand, plan budgets, optimise journeys, and use data to anticipate needs long before sales are involved. But because marketing’s impact is often upstream rather than at the point of transaction, the work becomes invisible. This is a perception problem, not a competency one.
The Data: Marketing Drives Growth
Here are the numbers people never associate with “the pretty pictures”:
Content marketing generates:
3x more leads than traditional marketing
at 62% lower cost (DemandMetric)
SEO drives:
over 1000% more traffic than organic social media (BrightEdge)
Brand strength can influence:
over one-third of a company’s shareholder value (Interbrand studies)
Customer experience (a marketing function) accounts for:
up to 30% of customer loyalty independent of price or product (Forrester)
Companies who invest consistently in marketing outperform competitors in:
revenue growth
customer lifetime value
market share
Marketing is not decoration. Marketing IS profitability.
The Thinkers Who Defined Marketing All Point to the Same Truth
Peter Drucker:
“The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous.”
Meaning:
If marketing is done correctly, the customer already wants the product.
Philip Kotler:
“Marketing is the art of creating genuine customer value.”
Not hype, not “posting more”, VALUE.
Seth Godin:
“Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make, but the stories you tell.”
Storytelling is not fluff, it is how humans understand the world, and it influences how they buy.
Rory Sutherland (My lord and saviour):
“Most economic problems are marketing problems in disguise.“
This is behavioural science, when you look at thought leaders across branding, psychology, economics, and strategy, the consensus is clear:
Marketing is a strategic function essential to business success, the problem is the public hasn’t caught up.
Marketing Is Science Wearing Creativity as a Disguise
Marketing’s biggest challenge is that the creative layer makes people think the job is purely artistic, but behind the creativity is some of the most intellectually diverse work in any profession.
Marketing requires:
Data analysis
Consumer behaviour understanding
Cultural insight
Narrative framing
Testing methodologies
Algorithm literacy
Economic thinking
UX and behavioural design principles
Competitive analysis
Emotional intelligence
Communication strategy
Marketing is where psychology meets analytics meets creativity meets technology meets commerce… And it is hard work.
So Yes… I’m Frustrated
Because after a decade of developing strategies, researching audiences, rebuilding systems, fixing funnels, analysing attribution, optimising content, creating brand stories, managing communities, and driving measurable growth…
I still get reduced to the crayons, the colours, the clipart maker, the “post this for me”, the one who is bottom of the food chain.
Marketing is the only profession where people feel entitled to say “I could do that.” without having the slightest idea what “that” actually involves, and it’s exhausting.
Not because I need validation, but because the gap between what marketing is and what people think it is is wider than any other field I know.
The Conclusion: Marketing Deserves Respect, Because It Drives Everything
Marketing is not the art department.
Marketing is:
how customers discover brands
how products find their audience
how businesses grow
how loyalty is built
how reputation is shaped
how revenue becomes sustainable
how strategy becomes something real
It is the heartbeat of commercial success, a profession that requires intellect, creativity, psychological insight, analytical rigour, and the ability to operate in ambiguity while staying ten steps ahead of everyone else.
And after 10+ years in this field, facing the same dismissive assumptions over and over again, I’ll say this plainly and without apology:
I would never assume I can do your job, so please don’t assume you can do mine.
Because if you truly understood what marketing is, you’d understand it is anything but “just.”
A Personal Note — And an Honest Boundary
And finally, reflecting on all of this; the misunderstanding, the pressure, the constant need to justify my work, the pace of the industry, the expectations placed on marketers to be endlessly creative, endlessly analytical, endlessly available, I’ve realised something I’ve been avoiding admitting to myself:
I’m burned out. Fully, and deeply.
Marketing is my career and my craft, and I love it, but it has also taken more from me than I’ve been willing to say out loud, so I’m drawing a boundary.
For the next while, I’ll be stepping back from all volunteer and freelance work and giving myself the space to recover, recalibrate, and focus on personal projects that bring me joy and creativity without pressure.
I’ll still be doing my 9–5, because I love my job and the work I do, but outside of that I’m choosing rest, I’m choosing clarity, I’m choosing myself.
Because even the most passionate marketers need time to step out of the noise and reconnect with the version of themselves that exists beyond deadlines, deliverables, and the constant pressure to prove their value.
This isn’t goodbye, it’s just me choosing to come back stronger.
References
American Marketing Association (AMA). “Definition of Marketing.” AMA Official Site.
Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). “About Marketing.” CIM UK.
Drucker, Peter. The Practice of Management. Harper & Row.
Kotler, Philip. Various works including Marketing Management.
McKinsey & Company. “Why Marketing Is Misunderstood — And What To Do About It.”
DemandMetric. “Content Marketing Infographic.”
BrightEdge. “Organic Search Is the Most Dominant Source of Traffic.”
Interbrand. “Best Global Brands Report.”
Forrester Research. “Customer Experience Drives Loyalty.”
Seth Godin. Various interviews and All Marketers Are Liars.
Rory Sutherland, Ogilvy. Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don’t Make Sense.
