Marketing today feels a bit like Marty McFly hitting 88mph — everything moves fast, everything sparks, everything feels urgent, and everyone is shouting about KPIs, dashboards, attribution models, ROAS, LTV:CAC, incrementality and AI.

We’ve built DeLoreans out of martech stacks.
We’re running campaigns at speeds the 1980s couldn’t dream of.
And yet… something fundamental has quietly slipped through time.

Great Scott — we've forgotten the power of old-school customer understanding, strategic leadership and human insight.

In the race to optimise every metric, too many brands have lost the thing that actually drives commercial growth:
clarity, direction, positioning, proposition, and customer truth.

This blog is a reminder — from someone who's been in both the analogue and digital eras — that the future of marketing requires both:
defined skills + defined KPIs + a leader who can pull it all together at a strategic level.

Because without that?
You’re just time-travelling without a destination.

We’ve Gained More Skills… and Lost More Alignment

Marketing roles today sound like engineering specs:

• Performance marketer

• Lifecycle automation specialist

• CRO manager

• Data modeller

• Attribution analyst

• Full-funnel content engine

• Multi-channel retargeting strategist

• Paid social scientist

We’ve become incredibly skilled.
Incredibly efficient.
Incredibly capable.

But also incredibly fragmented.

Like Marty and Doc in different timelines, shouting instructions across dimensions.

Modern marketing teams don’t fail because of lack of skill — they fail because nobody is connecting the dots.

Someone needs to hold the map.
Someone needs to define the narrative.
Someone needs to align:

• brand → product → customer → operations → performance → revenue

That someone is still marketing leadership.

Tools can optimise.
Teams can execute.
But only humans can orchestrate.

The Metrics Arms Race: When KPIs Become Vanity

Here’s the paradox of 2025:

We have more metrics than ever, but fewer that actually matter.

As an ex-McKinsey CEO I worked with at Pass the Keys — Alex — used to say:

“Duncan, the numbers tell you what happened.
The customer tells you why it happened.”

And he was right.

Brands burn enormous time and budget chasing:

• clicks

• impressions

• open rates

• CTR

• likes

• conversions without profit

• repeat visits without intent

• dashboards designed for theatre, not decision-making

It feels like progress.
It feels busy.
It feels smart.

But vanity dressed as commerciality is still vanity.

Metrics only matter when they move:

• revenue

• profit

• lifetime value

• cost efficiency

• market share

• customer love

• operational simplicity

Everything else is noise.

Old-School Insight Still Wins (Even With AI)

Every powerful marketing moment — from Apple’s “Think Different” to Airbnb’s rebrand to LEGO’s adult strategy — was born from human truth, not dashboards.

AI can generate options.
Performance teams can optimise.
Brand teams can craft.
But someone still needs to understand the psychology:

• Who is the customer?

• What do they fear, desire or value?

• What moment are they really in?

• What job are they hiring your product to do?

• Why you vs everyone else?

Modern tools don’t replace this.
They enhance it.

But insight still drives the story.
And story still drives the sale.

Foundations: The Part Everyone Wants to Skip

With all the excitement around AI, automation and instant optimisation, the fundamentals feel “slow”.

But the fundamentals are the flux capacitor — without them, nothing works.

The foundations every brand needs:

1. Clear positioning

   If you don’t know who you are, your campaigns won’t know either.

2. A distinct brand

   If you don’t stand out, you pay more to convert.

3. A clear journey

   Customer flows drive profit flows.

4. Strong data discipline

   Too much data is as dangerous as none.

5. Leadership alignment

   If product, marketing and commercial disagree, the customer feels it.

6. A single strategic narrative

   Across ATL, BTL, CRM, sales and product — one story to make buying easy.

Get the foundations right, and every channel performs better.
Skip them, and you’re permanently stuck in 1955.

Final Thought: The Future Looks Familiar

Marketing has evolved.
Roles have evolved.
Tech has evolved.

But the fundamentals of human behaviour?
Exactly the same.

The brands that will win the next decade are not those who chase every tool, tactic and metric…

…but those who know when to slow down, zoom out, and ask the one question Marty and Doc had to ask throughout all three films:

“Where are we actually trying to get to?”

Because without strategy, without alignment, without customer truth —
all the dashboards, KPIs, funnels and AIs in the world are just noise.

The future belongs to marketers who can blend the new skills with the old wisdom.

And yes — the future will still need leaders.

Great Scott.

Sign-off

When strategy needs momentum and momentum needs direction, I can help you get there.

Let’s connect and explore what’s possible.