The Evolution of Marketing teams
The evolution of marketing teams: This one is for all youngsters trying to build a career in marketing.Over the past few years, I’ve started witnessing a very strong trend in the composition of marketing teams. Early in my career, while I worked with the larger companies, I would see individuals such as :
Media buying ninjas who negotiated deals with vendors
Campaign strategists collaborating with business teams and agencies
Creative directors orchestrating asset development
Communications experts managing social, PR, and on-ground activations
Market researchers uncovering consumer insights
Ironically, as my career progressed, the companies I worked with became smaller—and that’s when I witnessed a dramatic transformation in hiring preferences. Digital-first organizations began prioritizing entirely different skill sets:
Analytics experts who could translate data into stories
Data scientists building measurement and attribution models
Product marketers with tech-first thinking
CRM specialists optimizing customer journeys and retention
Growth hackers - project managers driving experiments using creativity with technical expertise
In my last company, I was working directly with business development and sales teams on a daily level to optimise marketing campaigns. This shift isn’t just about how smaller companies operate. It’s a clear signal about where marketing is heading.
To those fresh from business school or with less than 3 years of experience: marketing today demands versatility beyond a single specialized skill. My advice? Choose your category/ industry/ brand, then study the entire consumer journey. Identify every department that touches that journey and are in-charge of optimising it. Now ask yourself: “What would it take for me to learn what they’re doing?”
You don’t need to replace entire teams, but high probability that some Gen AI tool might! This will rapidly create redundancies. Cross-functional capabilities aren’t optional luxuries—they’re survival skills.
What marketing skills are you developing that sit outside your comfort zone?
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