I have no idea what brings you here. Maybe you want to hire me for something. Maybe you googled my name after seeing me on social media. Maybe you were googling for that Adventure Time character and somehow ended up here.

In any case, you’re here! And that’s exciting!

I’m Finn. Here’s a picture of me:

I’m obsessed with culture, humans and marketing. I work at CommandBar. Professionally, I’m a marketer, (copy)writer and sometimes design graphics.

What I believe about Marketing

Marketing is weird. Few can agree on what it’s all about:

A beret-wearing creative director will extol the virtues of art direction and long-term brand building. The ex-finance growth marketer calls branding bullshit because it doesn’t create attributable revenue. Copywriters argue it’s all about words, designers insist nobody reads anything anymore.

These arguments are endless because so few agree on the principles. While everyone can have their own, here are mine:

Marketing exists to get results.

Marketing isn’t art. It’s not funded by grants, but from a company’s budget. That doesn’t mean marketing material can’t be delightful, beautiful and entertaining.

But unless marketing aims at measurable results (over the short or long term), it’s not marketing.

Marketing should serve customers.

Too much marketing is done at the customer. It should be for the customer.

You’ve seen it: The landing pages that brag about the company’s accomplishments, the blog articles that brag about how “proud and humbled” the company is of some partnership.

When marketing is created to brag, it’s a disservice to the customer. Instead, materials should address customers directly, respect their intelligence and be honest.

Marketing has a duty.

One of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite essays is as follows:

So to me, the problem is not with the buying, nor even with the culture-grifting of brands, but with some kind of insufficiency on the part of the companies themselves. If the meanings they have on offer are starved versions of cultural membership, then perhaps, I started to feel, the brands aren’t going far enough. Could we imagine a version of a branded subculture that was both nonextractive and meaningful?

-Toby Shorin

Internet-era brands are culture. Unlike industrial era manufacturers, we create our own media. Unlike industrial era publishers, we do it in the service of profit, distribution, MAUs.

This gives us a responsibility. I believe we need to create nourishing contributions that advance our customers, industry and culture forward.

Those are the 3 main principles I believe about marketing. I could write a lot more, but will let you browse around a bit under the links above (if you’re in web3 marketing, my pinned tweet has a lot of cool stuff!)