68. What is marketing? (for real tho)
What are we really doing when we’re doing marketing
Nishant Jain is an interesting fella. He was an aspiring neuroscientist who was in the middle of his PhD program when he abruptly decided to quit and become a writer and artist. Now he creates beautiful sketches of day-in-the-life scenes around his city—formerly Chicago, now Vancouver, British Columbia; he writes a substack and has a podcast.
His background in neuroscience gives him a really unique perspective on today’s media and marketing landscape, which he summarized with this quote:
“I do not want to be in the business of manipulating your split-second attention.”
As a former head of marketing, I feel personally attacked lol.
But seriously though, the “business” that Nishant describes—the business of manipulation and attention—is a very apt description of the world in which today’s brands must operate and the marketing efforts that they may feel compelled to employ in order to be seen, heard, and noticed. By some estimates, we see over 10,000 ads per day. The battle for attention is real.
For the record, we (Bonfire) do not want to be in the business of manipulating anyone’s attention. Through our agency work, we help businesses tell unique and authentic stories that, we believe, cut through the noise just fine, thanks—no manipulation necessary.
But we are no strangers to the modern world of marketing and the demands that growth-oriented businesses place upon it. Those demands have been placed on us plenty, whether in agency discovery calls or back in our in-house marketer days.
What does it mean to be a marketer in 2025? (Or a marketing and branding agency, for that matter?)
If not manipulate attention, then what is a well-intentioned brand supposed to do?
What even is marketing?
ChatGPT, help us!
The many definitions of marketing: Pick a fave
As a former head of marketing for influential tech companies and unicorn startups, I recognize the irony in my asking the painfully basic question: What is marketing? The answer—in my defense—is elusive, even to former heads of marketing, because the discipline keeps evolving with the times. Don Draper did not have to deal with split-second attention; he also did not have the luxury of TikTok ads.
If I bristle at the thought of manipulation-as-marketing, then how exactly should we be defining it in today’s day and age?
Here is a list of options.
The definition I used most often is a simple little axiom I created over the years:
“Marketing is connecting a company with its customers.”
"Marketing refers to any actions a company takes to attract an audience to the company's product or services through high-quality messaging. Marketing aims to deliver standalone value for prospects and consumers through content, with the long-term goal of demonstrating product value, strengthening brand loyalty, and ultimately increasing sales."
Investopedia defines marketing as:
“Marketing refers to the activities a company undertakes to promote the buying or selling of its products or services. Marketing includes advertising and allows businesses to sell products and services to consumers, other businesses, and organizations.”
The American Marketing Association defines marketing as:
“Marketing is 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.”
Wikipedia defines marketing as:
“Marketing is the act of satisfying and retaining customers.”
To drive home the point(?), Wikipedia also includes a picture of Steve Jobs posing over a rad computer.
And yes, I did end up asking ChatGPT for its definition, too. Here is what it said:
“Marketing is the process of promoting, selling, and distributing a product, service, or idea to meet the needs and wants of a target audience. It involves understanding customer behavior, creating value, and building relationships to achieve business goals.”
What marketing is
Based on all these definitions, you can begin to see a few common characteristics that hint at a singular definition of marketing:
The vibes
Connection
Relationship
Retention
Satisfaction
Understanding
Value
The tactics
Promotion
Distribution
Audience-building
Advertising
ChatGPT, ever the curator of jargon and business speak, included “sales” in its definition of marketing, but I would argue that “sales” is part of, well, sales and not marketing. In fact, this anecdote from Reader’s Digest does a great job of explaining the difference:
“If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying 'Circus coming to the Fairground Saturday', that's advertising. If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk it into town, that's promotion. If the elephant walks through the mayor's flower bed, that's publicity. And if you get the mayor to laugh about it, that's public relations. If you did all of this on purpose, that's marketing. If the town's citizens go to the circus, you show them the entertainment booths, explain how much fun they'll have spending money at the booths, answer their questions and ultimately, they spend a lot at the circus, that's sales.”
Marketing is walking an elephant through the mayor’s flowers on purpose.
What marketing is NOT
You’ll notice that in all the different definitions of marketing, the words “manipulation” and “attention” were never uttered.
So why then do the words feel so apt and unavoidable when discussing marketing in 2025?
Back in the day, I avoided pursuing a business degree of any sort because I associated business (and sales and marketing) with the idea of convincing people to buy something they did not need. I recoiled at consumerism (still do). Which is why the marketing path I’ve taken has been much more about authentic brand-building than it has been about growth-at-all-costs world domination. How did we end up with a marketing world tasked with attention-seeking? Capitalism is partly to blame, sure. So is the glut of content and the systems we use to access the content. The problem with modern marketing, as it were, occurs when you take the positive notions of marketing—connection, relationship, value—and you weaponize them as tools to grow, grow, grow, capture, capture, capture, eat, eat, eat.
Marketing is not a magic bullet. Some businesses think that all they need in order to grow is a little splash of marketing. And then a little more. And a little more. Manipulation occurs when you pour on more marketing tactics without bothering to consider the beating heart of your efforts: your brand purpose, mission, and values.
Marketing is not a megaphone. Another misconception is that marketing is all about spray-and-pray tactics to tell as many people about you as often as those people can stomach. Quantity without quality only exacerbates the attention issue. The antidote is in finding places to have conversations (not megaphone broadcasts) with your people, not all people.
Marketing is not a one-and-done event. You do not market once and then it’s over. (Wouldn’t that be nice.) Instead, you build a plan that persists and keeps your story consistent, relatable, and alive.
How to avoid manipulating people’s attention: Bring on the brand strategy
As Nishant has said (and we agree), we “do not want to be in the business of manipulating your split-second attention.” But given how prevalent the attention economy can be, how do we avoid falling into this trap?
In many ways, this is the reason why we do the work we do at Bonfire, to invest in the type of marketing that rejects the need for manipulation and embraces the freedom of being yourself—whether for you, personally, or for the business you’re running.
To break it down further: marketing, as per our previous definitions, is about connecting your company to your customers, and within marketing, you’ll typically find these three disciplines:
Brand marketing: Which is all about who you are as a business
Product marketing: Which is all about what you sell
Growth marketing: Which is how you sell it
(We help with the brand marketing work at Bonfire, and we have great folks in our network who can help with the rest.)
With this setup in mind, we can begin to see a path away from the typical manipulation and attention-seeking. When you start your marketing efforts with brand marketing, you are forced to figure out who you are as a business and how to be true to yourself. Manipulation occurs when you’re putting on a false pretense and convincing people that you (or your product) is something that it’s not.
Brand foundations create the authentic, consistent versions of your messaging that will be true, never manipulative. From these foundations, you can then layer in the product, then the growth. Starting with who you are makes for a very different dynamic with your marketing efforts.
How do you ensure you’re on the right track (which is to say, not the manipulation track)?
Build your story with these three principles in mind:
1 - Stand out from the crowd. It’s okay to be you!
You don’t need to manipulate to get people’s attention. In fact, the more authentically you can be yourself, the more likely you are to attract the attention of the “right” people who get you and who want to spend time with you.
Part of the race for attention and the impetus for manipulation is the sheer volume of same-ness that takes place online. Turn on your LinkedIn feed, if you dare, and prepare to be assaulted with recycled anecdotes from a million AEs. If you and your brand are zigging while everyone else is zagging, then you don’t need to manipulate one iota.
2 - Stand for something, not for everything. It’s okay if you are not everyone’s cup of tea.
When you stand for something that you really believe in—and keep standing for this thing again and again—people who value the same thing will find you. It’s tempting to jump onto trends and participate in every conversation, but this dilutes your story and paints a fuzzier picture of what people expect from you and your brand. Pick a cause that’s true to you, and make it something you are known for!
3. Stand on business, not for business. Consistency and authenticity are where it’s at.
What you do and how you do it speaks louder than any flashy campaign or gimmick. Instead of chasing trends or trying to constantly sell yourself, focus on delivering value, keeping your promises, and showing up consistently. Let your actions and your reputation tell the story of who you are and what you represent. When you build your foundation on integrity and authenticity, you don’t need to stand for “business as usual” — you’ll stand out naturally by simply doing great work and being true to your values.
What do you think?
We’d love your thoughts on marketing, brand, manipulation, and attention. Hit reply to let us know!
For more…
Follow us on LinkedIn and on Instagram. Stay tuned to our Substack space for new community features and ways to meet your fellow subscribers.
And let us know if you’d like to go deeper with us to talk about you and creativity. We do:
1:1 coaching and mentorship
Team workshops and consulting for marketing and leadership
Speaking and appearances on podcasts and at events
I love love love this!!!