CASE CLOSED: The Final Report from The Marketing Case Files

We Solved the Mystery. Now It’s Time to Rebuild.

When I launched The Marketing Case Files, I did so because something wasn’t sitting right with me.

LinkedIn was full of hype. Communities were espousing nonsense about the role of the CMO, offering “education” that wasn’t even marketing, and using language like “ascension to the CRO role” as if marketing was some stepping stone rather than a strategic commercial engine in its own right.

Job specs made no sense anymore, and marketers were being hired and fired at speed, without any clarity on what they were meant to be doing…. And don’t get me started about all the brilliant marketers struggling to find a job!

I didn’t recognise my own profession anymore, and I couldn’t understand why, or how, we had let it get this far.

So I started investigating.

I wasn’t interested in the trends or tech with which so many of us seem to be obsessed, thinking that would keep us relevant and in the game. What I was more curious about was even deeper than this, something no one seemed to be discussing at the time—the slow, systemic erosion of marketing’s power, credibility, and clarity.

Over the last 9 months, I have written about:

• The Great CMO: CEO divide

• The Great Marketing Massacre

• The Disposable CMO

• Everyone’s a Marketer

• Marketing Burnout Is A Symptom of A Bigger Disease in Marketing

• Why CMO Roles Don’t Last

• 28% of CMOS have Abandoned Ship

• The Great Role Carve-Up

• Why I left Pavilion

• Why Are Recruiters Ghosting?

And have offered support with

• The Three Dimensions of a Marketer

• The Art of 360 Degree Leadership

• Marketing Is Finally Growing Up

• Dear CEO

And through it all I have asked the big question:

Who shot marketing….and can it be saved?

What I Found

The current marketing crisis hasn’t been a death by one single bullet or hand. Instead, it has been a thousand misfires and savage cuts where:

• Strategy has been handed to sales

• Creativity has been reduced to content

• Brand has been cut from the funnel

• Influence has been traded for execution

• Marketers have been pushed downstream, further and further from the decisions that matter

• Pipeline has become the obsession

• The customer obsession has been replaced with revenue obsession

• Long term thinking has been replaced by a hamster wheel of quarterly tactics

But what has saddened me most is that it really doesn’t have to be this way.

In every broken team, every under-valued function and every misaligned boardroom, there’s one person who can change the story - the marketing leader who is brave enough to rewrite the rules.

What Happens Now

The Marketing Case Files were the autopsy for our professional demise. But now it’s time to rebuild. We still have a chance to make marketing great again.

Starting next week, this newsletter will become Built to Last Marketing- a new, solution-focused home for marketing leaders who want to shape strategy, command respect, and build careers that go the distance.

No more diagnosing what’s broken. We now know why we got here - what matters now is HOW we change it.

The next chapter is doing something about it - with tools, thinking, and the leadership support that will help you rise, influence, and grow.

If you’ve been reading The Marketing Case Files because something didn’t feel right in your role, your team, or your career… then you already know: you’re not alone. No, you’re not imagining it.

Built to Last Marketing is where we fix it. Together.

(By the way, have you joined The Marketing Revolution WhatsApp group for senior marketing leaders? - Send me a message with your Linkedin Profile to apply for your free place.)

What You’ll Get from Built To Last

Each week, expect:

• Strategic insights to elevate your role

• Leadership tips and insights

• Career tools to grow your influence and land your next move

• Honest talk about leading in today’s volatile marketing landscape

• Lessons from inside the C-suite, mentoring rooms and board discussions

• Clarity, confidence, and zero bullshit

I’m not here to impress the internet. I’m here to help you lead.

One Last Thing...

If you’ve read even one of these case files, replied to a post, shared with a colleague, or told me you felt seen, thank you. Truly. This newsletter has always been about you.

The messy, brilliant, overextended marketing leader doing their best to drive growth in a world that barely understands marketing.

You’re the reason I write.
And you’re exactly who Built to Last is for.

We close the case files here, but the real work, the influence, the strategy, the leadership, that’s only just beginning.

Because we need to turn the tide, we need to take our seats back.

See you next week.

With total respect,
Emma

Founder, The Marketing Revolution & Be Brilliant Consultancy

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