There’s marketing and then there’s “marketing”.
Living and breathing and understanding marketing and speaking to those who are experienced in what marketing is and with proven track records, there’s the sound that’s growing louder and louder that marketing is not what it was, and how what’s needed are new mindsets capable of turning things around.
Where things often drown in murky waters is when those who should know better, don’t-don’t know better- refuse to admit it and start behaving like a bull in a China tea house without seeing all the broken pieces on the ground around them.
Perhaps this is why when one thinks of entrepreneurs, there’s only the name Elon Musk that’s mentioned, and with many of those yesterday’s people long past their Use By date desperately trying to be seen as relevant.
One often hears the Platters singing in the background whenever they’re around, but with very few hearing those warning sounds.
It’s not unlike also listening to “For What It’s Worth” by Buffalo Springfield or visiting Mr Bob’s Desolation Row.
Is this ability to turn a blind eye, because of ignorance or arrogance?
Both, and with more than a soupçon of false bravado and desperation creeping in to ensure that the plastic fantastic is kept hidden for as long as possible. The con needs to last while the parachutes are strapped on.
Gawd knows, I’ve come face to face with these pretences more and more recently, and can smell the fear along with the cheap perfume, the murder of crow of garbled voices rabbiting on, and with so many blinking first.
As Dylan sang, “You’re invisible now, you have no secrets to conceal”.
Being revealed as having no bananas is tough for many to take, and so out comes that old procession line where the blind lead the blind with everyone tripping over each other to join the herd mentality.
What happens next is a comedy of errors aboard the Ship Of Fools that’s hitting icebergs, but with those in charge refusing to see these and man the boats.
It’s not about the captain wanting to go down with the ship. It’s about selfishness and power and control despite holding a poker hand where two of a kind is the best one has.
So what’s the answer? Change everything, especially the narrative. No one believes it. It’s just that it’s the only thing around. It’s like Valium. Pop enough of it and let everything be fogged up and with words like truth and honesty hiding from view and replaced by happy snaps.
The business model of what passes itself off as being “marketing” must change. If not, it’s just blindly following The Little Drummer Boy over the precipice.
This is why new leaders have disappeared and there’s nothing and no one around like Dylan- Thomas and Bob-, the Beatles, Tin Pan Alley, Fred Astaire, Charlie Chaplin, Independent and game changing film makers and game changers in all aspects of life.
This is why the world is so lacking in inspiration and motivation and Hope and keeps being dragged down by clichés in life commandeered by vacant Corporate Speak and believed by subservient order takers and sycophants.
What the world needs now, apart from love, and with no more time to lose by more diddling and fiddling and skimming and scamming is that Independent spirit that always has a habit of popping up and changing the world when it’s most needed through new thinking.
With this new thinking, like Tom Wolfe’s New Journalism, often being difficult to accept, there’s a need for new mediums for the message- and those who will write this message.
It’s either this or turning in your badge and staying at Happily Retired where at least the truth resides.
Copyright © Hans Ebert. October 19, 2022