Over on MarketingProfs, Beth Harte recently wrote an article about “The Value of a Marketer.“  Beth starts out the piece by claiming:

“Frankly, it’s just not a fun time to be a marketer. Those who have a job are fearful and waiting for the axe to fall and those without a job are struggling to secure one in a sea of rough competition.”

No offense to Beth, but I couldn’t disagree more.  You see, the rationale of the article is that in these economic times, “it’s tough out there right now” for a marketer.  But you cannot equate economic uncertainty to mean that an entire industry is unenjoyable and/or faces an uncertain future.

Frankly, I cannot think of a better or more fun time to be a marketer.

Conveniently enough, I was having drinks with Michael Troiano right after I read the MarketingProfs post.  When I mentioned my struggle with Beth’s post, Michael reminded me his manifesto on Scalable Intimacy in which he proclaimed:

Let’s face it folks… marketing has become what HR used to be, before somebody figured out we were spending more money on people than on anything else. It’s the place where arty intellectuals can travel, interact with like-minded pretty faces over cocktails, and hide from the accountability that has transformed every other corner of the 21st century corporation. Most marketing people are mediocre. Most marketing is the sexy part of sales without the pesky accountability, and it is worthless. Harsh, perhaps, but you know it’s true.

Michael definitely put it more bluntly than I would have… but he’s so right.  Over the past decade, marketing has started to undergo a radical transformation.  The days of Mad Men are gone and with it the easy road of a creating a TV spot that made everyone happy.  In fact, I would say there has been a direct correlation between the decline of mass media and the increase in marketers needing to put in serious time and effort into creating brilliant brand building.

And in my eyes, that is a good thing.

Marketing is not and never should have been just fun and games.  Real marketing is hard work in both good times and bad.  It is a job that is about taking insights on your consumer and turning those into brilliant strategies that move more cases.

And for those of us that somehow get a thrill out of this, there is no better time than now to be a marketer.  Why?  Well consider just a few things:

1. More than ever, management needs leadership on how to grow the business: ROI has always been extremely important but never more so than now.  If a marketer can show management that their marketing expenses are actually an investment, instead of a cost, than this is the perfect time to make the case.
2. Marketing is more dynamic than ever: Marketing has changed more in the past 5 years than in the past 50 years.  In this age of Facebook, Twitter, iPhones and any hundreds of other shiny objects, marketers have the chance to lead this change.  Marketers have a chance to lead the strategy of how your brands and business will use these new tools to really connect with consumers.
3. Consumers are expecting more from us: It wasn’t too long ago that marketers had all the control.  If consumers wanted great TV shows, they had no choice but to watch the commercials.  After all, there were no remote controls and DVR was just three letters in the alphabet.  But that’s changed completely today and as a result, consumers have a choice.  And once they have a choice, they are going to start expecting more from us as marketers because they can easily skip us.  That challenge is what makes it fun to be a marketer today.  We have to find the next Nike+ that goes beyond just shouting at people and instead adds values to their life.

Great marketers live for a challenge and they live for change.  Today’s marketing world features both, which means there has never been a more fun time to be a marketer in my eyes.

Now let me end by saying I don’t want to discount the tough times some people are going through because of the economy.  Layoffs aren’t a laughing matter.  But at the same time, we can’t take the view that the industry is “no fun” because of the current crisis.  If anything, these tough economic times present one of the greatest opportunities ever for marketers to show why are jobs can truly build the business.

It is just up to us to be brave enough to seize the opportunity.