Warning: This article contains views some marketers may find upsetting.

Dear Marketers,

I’m sorry to say it but a high percentage of you are spending significant money to make people dislike your brands.

You are doing so by making poor media choices and even poorer work.

A big statement.

So let me support it.

I recently read the excellent ‘Flesh’ by David Szalay, Booker Prize winner 2025.

I researched the author and found an interview with him on YouTube conducted by Dua Lipa.

The interview ran 37 minutes and 44 seconds.

My enjoyment of this absorbing interview was compromised by brand messages a staggering 13 times.

That’s less than every 3 minutes.

In all, I was subjected to 24 commercial messages in under 38 minutes.

Of the 10 brands responsible for this, two subjected me to the same message 5 times and one 4 times.

Yet not one of these messages engaged, entertained, moved, even vaguely interested or made any kind of positive impression on me whatsoever.

On the contrary, by the time I had completed the much-interrupted interview, I actually came away with a negative impression of all 10 brands whose irritating messages I had been subjected to.

This was some achievement.

Think how much collective media and production money must have been committed to boring, annoying and prejudicing me.

And given I’m a pretty regular sort of person, consider also that this money was likely spent disenchanting the 49,000 other poor souls who have so far watched the interview.

This is what I mean by spending significant money to turn people off your brands.

It is madness.

Advertising has always interrupted.

But it hasn’t always cornered people, pinned them down and attempted to batter them into submission.

The big tech platforms, of course, promise you ‘efficiency’.

But they neglect to mention that all the money in the world can’t buy someone’s attention and that it has instead to be earned.

Think about it.

Never before have we had such quantity and quality in what we choose to engage with.

So surely it follows that, if we want people’s attention, we must be as engaging, impactful, interesting, clever, entertaining, compelling, involving, thrilling, beautiful, ugly, stirring, funny, rewarding or just plain Wow! as what they are choosing to give their valuable time to.

And I refer not just to ads.

In fact, with platforms increasingly forcing you to watch ads and people paying good money to avoid them, earned-first thinking has never been at a greater premium.

Not only does ‘earned’ potentially save you significantly in media spend.

It offers the opportunity to be more surprising, relevant and effective in how your brand shows up, facilitates and rewards people in their everyday lives.

It is brutally competitive out there.

Our start point must always be that no one is interested in our brand, product or service.

The best strategic and creative people never forget this.

So work with them.

Work with people who think solutions and not necessarily ads.

Work with people who create ideas that stand out and engage, that are culturally relevant and more deeply resonant.

People who make jaws drop, spirits soar, hearts melt and hairs on necks stand up.

Because, make no mistake, it is not a numbers game.

It’s a ‘be outstanding’ game.