memes

State of Marketing 2025 - In Memes from the Met

Here's how I feel about marketing this year so far, in 10 memes.

Mariya Delano

Mariya Delano

— 4 min read
Zoomed in photo of a silly face on an ancient Greek vase.
I love ancient Greek art.

Hi there, here's how I feel about marketing this year so far. In 10 memes based on artworks I took photos of at the Met this month.

Meme 1 - The AI "Revolution"

Painting of two kids scared in bed while being read a story. Caption "then we replaced our entire marketing team with AI agents"
I'm as scared as these kids are thinking about all the cybersecurity & reputational risks.

Meme 2 - Marketers Always Say "Yes"

Photo of a silly looking gun handle in the shape of a face. A bunch of unreasonable marketing requests and answer is "I'll handle it"
This was ACTUALLY a handle of a gun. So yes, it's a pun. You're welcome.

Meme 3 - Inescapable Despair of Cold Emails

A painting of a woman looking pissed off with text saying "have. you tried ai-powered personalized outreach"
I looked in my own spam folder to get the line exactly right. I don't recommend it.

Meme 4 - Headspace of a Typical Marketer

Painting of a depressed looking man sitting at a table with papers, caption says "trying to set up cross-channel attribution models in a zero-click world"
My husband said this guy looks like one of my business partners. (Hi, Michael!)

Meme 5 - LIVE EVENTS ARE BACK, BABY!

A painting of a woman dancing, captioned "heading to my next in-person event"
We might be ignoring that the world is on fire, but getting drunk to network is fun!

Meme 6 - The Tale of Dropping Traffic

A painting of a man with a basket of food falling out, labeled "traffic" and on the floor "AI mode", behind him a man smiles labeled "Google"
We're holding on to our traffic chickens for dear life here.

Meme 7 - The Recipe for Efficient Meals

Two women cooking, looking very disgusted and skeptical, the food is labeled "ai-enhanced content"
"Maybe if I add a lot of salt they won't notice it's spoiled?"

Meme 8 - Avoidance as Old as Time

Woman staring at the distance labeled "new hacks & tools", behind her are three ghosts labeled with marketing fundamentals.
We will do literally anything before actually trying marketing fundamentals.

Meme 9 - Budget is a Dirty Word

Painting of woman in chair looking disgusted, caption says "leadership when you ask for pr budget".
Somehow there's always enough money for short-term demand gen though.

Meme 10 - Smile and Wave, Everybody

Photo of a silly looking ancient greek vase with a poker face captioned "of course we're confident in our marketing strategy right now"
We're fine. Marketers are fine. It's all........ fine........
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Top 3 Reading Recommendations

  1. "Reality Check" by Ed Zitron. I believe we're in an AI bubble, where the value of large language models is vastly overblown. Ed brought receipts as to why that might be the case.
  2. "Creator marketing has the reach — CMOs want the rigor" by Seb Joseph (Digiday). Creator and influencer marketing have matured a lot in B2C, and I think B2B is barely starting to catch up.
  3. "This reminded me of you" by Meg Dalessandro. The real pinnacle of building brand loyalty? A mug with Snoop Hot-Dogg on it.

Musical Minute

"Voices" by Damiano David.

I've loved Damiano as the frontman for Maneskin, and I like his new solo album quite a lot. This song just gets stuck in my head every other day.

"They say that movin' on will heal it over time
It's your imagination tellin' you the lies
They said throwin' out your things would set it right
Out of sight, but you're still on my mind"

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