The Monday Brief
The week’s developments that matter to a marketing leader, sorted and explained.
Monday Briefing: Google Admits AI Search Pays LessFrameworks for the hardest job in marketing
Budgets, boards, brand, and the team you inherited. Every idea drawn out plainly enough to use by Friday.
Monday Brief plus a Thursday deep dive. No paid tier.
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Leadership7
Career5
Strategy4
Portraits are illustrative, not subscribers. Articles are real.
Every idea, drawn out
What arrives, and when
The Deep Dive
One original framework on the practice and politics of running marketing.
Cut the Middle Before the CFO DoesMore deep dives
All articles →- Cut the Middle Before the CFO Does Most marketing plans spread money across programs that are neither proven nor capable of a big payoff. The Marketing Barbell puts about 80% on what works, up to 20% on capped bets, and nothing in betw
- Your CFO Keeps a Ledger on You Uber cut two-thirds of its ad budget and rider app installs held flat. Stories like that are why your CFO discounts your next pipeline claim.
- Your 2027 Plan Has No Diagnosis Richard Rumelt's test for a real strategy fits on one page. Here is what it does to a typical marketing plan, layer by layer, and the page that replaces it.
- What Your CEO Says About You When You Leave the Room 85% of CEOs say their CMO builds trust inside the company. 13% are very confident marketing can show what its spend actually moved. Both numbers come from the same 150 CEOs.
- The Decisions You Both Think You Own Marketing is primarily responsible for pricing at 28.2% of companies and revenue growth at 42.5%. The middle of that list is where two executives both think they decide.