Laura Hawtin

“The marketing isn’t working” is a phrase I’ve heard countless times over the years. Sometimes it’s true. Marketing isn’t immune from criticism. Like any business function, it can be inconsistent, poorly executed, or simply focused on the wrong things.

Ask most CEOs whether their marketing is working and you’ll get one of two answers. Either a confident “yes” based on a gut feeling, or a more honest “I think so” that trails off slightly. Very few can point to a clear, structured answer — not because they’re not paying attention, but because nobody has given them a practical framework for evaluating it.

Episodic marketing - bursts of activity with gaps in between - rarely compounds. Each campaign starts from scratch. Brand recognition builds slowly, then resets. Teams spend more time reacting than building. And because nothing is connected to a consistent underlying framework, the results are hard to predict and harder to sustain.