Professor Mark Ritson was at his devastating best to 400 marketers and 100 brands in Melbourne and Sydney last week, unravelling the “propaganda” and false claims  which underpin much of digital marketing and media today.    

Ritson was a one-man battalion of data-led counterpoints to the prevailing beliefs among marketers that digital marketing is their silver bullet. He also obliterated widely held views that we’re on the brink of  a systemic collapse in legacy media channels.

There was a “tsunami of horseshit” in the market, Prof. Ritson told his audiences in a sweeping hour-long lecture which confronted, among other things, the absurdity of those who claim  “media neutrality”.  Rather, he said there was entrenched, industry-wide bias in favour of anything new in tech, regardless of the results, or lack of, that they deliver for brands.

“Media neutrality – what a phrase that is,” he said. “It’s hard for those of you who have Google or Facebook sitting around the corporate table advising you on the overall strategy.”

Prof. Ritson said marketing professionals were the “Magpie Profession”, obsessed with anything new and shiny in tech at the expense of real marketing strategy and level-headed thinking around the media channels which delivered best on a brand’s specific strategic blueprint.  

“We need people with digital skills but you better learn about all the other tools or you’re useless" he said. 

Marketing Deconstructed is a must-watch lecture but for those needing a quick teaser, there’s 100 seconds of highlights in the video at the top of the page. Brace.

And we’ll leave you with a sprinkling of Prof. Ritson’s nickable quotes from the first lecture in Marketing Deconstructed’s three part series this year. Enjoy.

To register for the remaining lectures in July and October, go to aana.com.au

Professor Ritson’s nickable quotes from the 2016 Marketing Deconstructed Lectures: 

“The minute you start with digital you are an idiot. You’ve already said to me you are tactical. You are no use to me. You’ve already got your hammer and you’re looking for nails.”

“Get rid of digital marketers, dreary, dreary digital marketers.”

“Stop obsessing about millennials. They don’t f*%king exist; they’re not a segment. In the second [Marketing Deconstructed lectures] if you come, I’m going to break it down and smash it on its face. If you say ‘millennials’ you are also a moron.”

“Some of you have a self-induced mania that I cannot change. It’s gone beyond rational, it’s a point where there is no changing you. You are literally and utterly wrong but you will not see it.”

“We are desperate not to be left out. We are worried that if everyone else is using Thwacko, I may reflect badly in my next job interview. Because when the question comes ‘Are you on Thwacko’, I have nothing to say.”

“TV is the dominant form of video now and will be for the foreseeable marketing future, whether you like it or not.”