Marketers are killjoys

I just came from a big Nestle initiative to go Cannes-worthy. More than 100 people in business attire, listening to a colleague talk about digital work.
It was insightful, very informative and quite comprehensive. But heck, was it boring.
While he was preparing for his talk, I happened to know that he was consulting an Ogilvy presentation. Again, from a big agency conference with this booklet handed out that aims to frame digital work.

It had speakers in business profile pictures. There was a table of contents and tabs to separate the topics. It was hefty and square.
It was boring.

Everyday, “social media experts” tweet around the “newest”, “most interesting”, “very useful” article on “the next big thing on social media”, “how to leverage social media for profit”, “getting your ROI on social media”, “10 ways to be successful in social media”, ETCETERA.

They’re long articles with business-type headers and business-like people looking back at you from their business suits.

They’re boring.

Just yesterday, I opened yet another flash mob attempt in my inbox. Remember when they were really thrilling? And really surprised?
Now they’ve just gotten boring.

Virals? Apps? Boring! (AND fake!)

Marketers are approaching a half-naked-in-the-bedroom, totally random, freedom via anonymity, dada-esque ugly, and most importantly, FUN medium into something they can hopefully measure, bottle and sell to very proper, business-like brand marketing teams.

And making it boring in the process.

The internet is not something that can be plotted out and forecasted. It won’t take an “expert” to tell you that anything can come out of the internet tomorrow and it’ll be the next big thing. At the very least, it cannot be approached in a linear, causal way. Have you BEEN on the internet?

The way we’re behaving, if the internet were a forum even I’d kick marketers out.
Maybe doing your job isn’t fun. But please don't make it not fun for everyone.