Universal Self-Promotion: Everyone's a Marketer Now (Whether They Like It or Not)
We All Hate Marketing, But It's Become a Survival Skill in the Age of AI
Professional marketers are getting obliterated by AI, and it’s beautiful to watch.
While they frantically rebrand themselves as “human-centric growth alchemists,” ChatGPT is churning out better copy than their entire creative team ever did.
But here’s the thing: just as marketing departments implode, everyone else is being drafted into the self-promotion army.
Congratulations, you’re now a one-person marketing machine whether you signed up or not.
The Great Marketing Department Extinction Event
Remember when “programmatic advertising” made media buyers sound important? Now those same buyers are glorified spreadsheet babysitters watching algorithms do their jobs better, faster, and without demanding salary bumps.
AI content generation isn’t just replacing copywriters — it’s humiliating them. That carefully crafted campaign they spent weeks perfecting?
An algorithm just produced something better in twelve minutes.
The existential crisis is real, and it’s spreading faster than a viral TikTok.
Marketing automation already turned marketing managers into overpaid button-pushers.
Now AI is coming for the buttons too. The entire profession is getting disrupted by software that costs less than their monthly Starbucks budget.
Welcome to the Everyone-Is-Sales Economy
Corporate job security died somewhere around 2008 and we’re still pretending it’s coming back.
The average job lasts four years if you’re lucky. The pension? That’s adorable. The gold watch? It’s probably made in China and breaks after six months.
In this delightful new reality, your resume isn’t a document — it’s a marketing brochure. Your LinkedIn isn’t networking — it’s brand management.
Your coffee shop small talk isn’t casual conversation — it’s relationship marketing.
The most successful people aren’t the most talented. They’re the ones who convinced everyone else they’re talented. There’s a difference between being a great chef and being a great chef who makes you believe their pasta will solve your childhood trauma. Guess which one gets the book deal?
Personal Branding: Strategic Authenticity for Fun and Profit
Personal branding is the beautiful paradox of our time: being authentic, but with better lighting and a content calendar.
Your personal brand isn’t who you are — it’s who you are when you’re trying to get something. It’s you, but optimized for engagement.
It’s authentic the way reality TV is real: technically true, but engineered for maximum impact.
Most people are terrible at this game. They post gym selfies with quotes about “crushing Monday” or share stock photos of laptops captioned “Building my empire!”
It’s certainly performance art, and they’re performing with the subtlety of a community theater production of Hamlet.
The winners understand that personal branding is just marketing in overly baggy jeans. They know consistency beats authenticity, storytelling trumps credentials, and perception becomes reality faster than you can say “thought leader.”
The Four Domains of Mandatory Self-Promotion
Professional Marketing: Your Career as Content Every project is now a case study. Every achievement is social media fodder. Every networking event is a brand activation. You’re not doing your job — you’re building a portfolio of proof points for why someone should pick you over the other desperate candidates.
Family Marketing: Household Brand Management Parents have become personal brand managers for their children, curating Instagram feeds of soccer victories and honor roll certificates.
Children learn to market themselves for college admissions before they can legally drive. Family dinners are focus groups where everyone beta-tests their personal narrative.
Internal Marketing: The Office Influence Game The people who get promoted aren’t just good at their jobs — they’re good at making sure everyone knows they’re good at their jobs. They send weekly updates that somehow make expense report filing sound like strategic initiatives. They’ve weaponized visibility.
Civic Marketing: Citizenship as Brand Engagement Even volunteering has become a branding exercise. People don’t just help their community — they help their community in ways that align with their personal brand values. Community involvement becomes content for their professional narrative.
Skills Transfer: From Mad Men to Sad Everyone
The beautiful irony? As traditional marketing jobs vanish, marketing skills become survival essentials. The same principles that drove successful ad campaigns now drive successful everything.
Understanding your audience? That’s knowing who you need to impress at work, what your friends value, what your community needs. Crafting compelling narratives? That’s explaining why you deserve a promotion, why someone should date you, why the city council should listen to your zoning complaint.
Building brand awareness?
That’s making sure people remember you for the right reasons instead of that time you accidentally replied-all to the company-wide email about bathroom etiquette.
Marketing was never about products anyway — it was about understanding human psychology and communication. These skills don’t become obsolete when AI takes over ad creation. They become more essential because they’re fundamentally, irreplaceably human.
The Self-Aware Self-Promoter’s Advantage
The future belongs to people who are excellent at self-promotion but make it look effortless. They help others succeed while advancing their own interests.
They’re playing 4D chess while everyone else is still figuring out checkers.
This isn’t selling out — it’s buying in.
We live in an attention economy where visibility determines viability. The people who claim they’re “above marketing” are the ones getting overlooked while less talented but better-promoted individuals collect the opportunities.
AI isn’t ending marketing — it’s democratizing it. The tools that required corporate budgets and agencies are now available to anyone with a smartphone and Wi-Fi. The question isn’t whether you’ll need to market yourself. It’s whether you’ll be any good at it.
The New Reality Check
Everyone’s a marketer now, but most people are going to be spectacularly bad at it.
The winners will be those who embrace this reality, develop these skills, and use them to create genuine value for others.
The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing — it feels like someone sharing something valuable with people who need it.
The corporate marketing department might be dying, but marketing itself is more alive than ever.
It just changed clothes and got a new job title.
Your success no longer depends just on what you can do. It depends on how well you can convince others they need you to do it.
Welcome to the gladiatorial future, where everyone’s in promotion and nobody wants to admit it.
A Shameless Plug: A Book About Refocusing on Humanity
I’m excited to share my new book “People Over Pixels: Using Commercial Anthropology to Reconnect Business and Brands with Humanity.” It’s free to download on Saturday June 7th to Sunday, June 8th, 2025 (and always free with Kindle Unlimited).
Each chapter works as a standalone guide, so you can jump straight to whatever interests you — whether it’s understanding real human behavior beyond the data or building brands that actually connect.
So, if my essay struck a chord and you have an opportunity to grab the book, I’d really appreciate an honest Amazon review as a small favor.
Real reader perspectives matter more than algorithms (which is kind of the whole point!).
