The New Face of the Marketing Team

One of the main consequences of Quantum Marketing was exposing that marketing teams were only trained to execute tactics based on outdated tools from Philip Kotler’s era. They were educated under the framework of the 4Ps of marketing and relied on mass media as their primary channel.

The foundation of modern marketing is closely tied to television. While the telegraph, newspapers, and radio played instrumental roles in advertising long before, marketing as a mass and attractive vehicle for businesses began with television. The first television commercial aired on July 1, 1941, in the United States: a Bulova Watches ad broadcast on WNBT (now WNBC) in New York before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies. It lasted 10 seconds, cost $9, and featured a watch with the phrase: "America runs on Bulova time." This event marked the beginning of television advertising and the birth of an industry that would become a pillar of marketing and the global economy.

One of the most significant milestones in television advertising history was the first color broadcast in 1954, featuring a Westinghouse ad on CBS. This advancement allowed brands to create more attractive and effective commercials, increasing visual impact and brand recall among viewers. From that moment on, television advertising evolved rapidly, becoming an essential brand-building tool.

Another crucial medium for modern marketing was newspapers. Although color printing technology was available decades earlier, its widespread use in American newspapers didn’t begin until the early 1990s. The transition was gradual: in 1894, The New York World introduced color printing in its Sunday comics section, but it wasn’t until the 1930s that the advertising sector began adopting it, taking advantage of improvements in photography and printing. A key milestone occurred on May 12, 1939, when The Chicago Tribune published the first color photograph in a newspaper. However, prestigious newspapers were slow to adopt full-color printing. The New York Times printed its first color front page in 1993; The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post also delayed its integration. The arrival of color transformed newspaper advertising, making ads more appealing and improving brand recall.

Decades later, social media emerged as a marketing revolution. However, once considered indestructible platforms have already seen their best years. Facebook's peak user growth spanned from 2009 to 2017, reaching 2 billion monthly active users worldwide in 2017. Facebook generated $117 billion in advertising revenue in 2021, but since then, regulations and declining user interest have slowly eroded its dominance. The same happened with Instagram, whose most significant growth years were from 2016 to 2020. Today, TikTok dominates in popularity, but as seen with every platform from Friendster to TikTok, consumer preference is temporary. The same is true for search-based marketing: Google Search peaked between 2012 and 2018, controlling over 90% of the market. Its cultural influence was highest between 2010 and 2018, with SEO advancements and algorithms like Panda, Penguin, and RankBrain. Financially, its peak came in 2021, with $209 billion in ad revenue. However, since 2023, it has faced challenges from the growing preference for conversational AI (ChatGPT, Gemini), TikTok Search, forums like Reddit, and antitrust investigations.

Quantum Marketing demonstrated that marketing has changed radically and that technology is its primary disruptor. However, it also showed that marketing teams were not ready for this new reality. Only now are academic programs beginning to incorporate topics such as social media, data-driven marketing, and digital marketing. Universities started integrating digital marketing into traditional marketing programs in the mid-to-late 2000s, but full degrees in digital marketing only became common in the 2010s. For example, Stanford University has offered a digital marketing program since February 1, 2004. Considering that the first online banner ad appeared on Hotwire.com in 1994, it’s clear that modern marketing is still in its early stages and that academic development lags behind technological advancements. Unlike fields such as engineering, architecture, or physics—based on universal laws—marketing requires constant updates, modernization, and analysis.

Marketing is no longer a profession that a one-man band can handle. The number of required functions makes it essential to have multidisciplinary teams. Marketing has shifted from a generalist practice to a collection of specialties. From the first banner ad in 1993 to the era of short-form videos and influencer marketing, digital marketing has evolved without pause. Initially, digitalization allowed the transition from traditional media to strategies based on clickable banners and search engines, with Yahoo (1994) and Google (1998) marking the rise of SEO as a key tool. With the arrival of social media platforms like MySpace (2003) and Facebook (2004), digital marketing shifted from mere visibility to audience segmentation and data analysis. Tools like cookies and platforms like WordPress enabled personalized content, while influencer marketing (2015) proved the power of trust and recommendations in purchase decisions. Today, with the explosion of Reels and short videos, marketing teams must refine their strategies to adapt to increasingly dynamic, fleeting, and engagement-driven content consumption. The speed of change forces teams to master data analytics, automation, multimedia content, and omnichannel strategies to remain competitive.

If we consider that the marketing era began in 1950, its impact on the global economy is undeniable. However, we must also acknowledge that it is a young discipline still taking shape. Accepting that marketing is in its early stages requires humility, especially in an industry built on larger-than-life figures like David Ogilvy. Today, the individual has been replaced by the team. A one-man band can still play a key role in brand building, but it is no longer advisable to place the future of a brand in a single person’s hands.