A stroke of genius at Marketing Week! They get rid of the only thing worth reading

For over ten years, at varying intervals, I wrote a column for Marketing magazine.

Such are the vagaries of human memory that some people still think I do – even though I haven’t for nearly ten years.

Eventually I wrote something so rude about a friend of the proprietor’s that they fired me, and I was replaced by a business school professor.

It was not a bad move, as besides being younger than me, with good looks and lots of hair, he is – unlike all most all his confreres – an excellent writer, and more subtle in his insults than I ever was. .

But during the period when I wrote my column, there were only two writers on marketing whom I admired and envied.

One was Jeremy Bullmore, former chairman of J. Walter Thompson, whose sharp intelligence and feline wit never fail to delight and amuse.

The other was Iain Murray, who, week after week, hilariously exposed the follies of the marketing industry, treating it with the contempt so many practitioners so richly deserve.

Compared to the tedious literary ullage that composed the rest of the magazine he shone out like a good deed in a naughty world. He was, by far, the only thing worth reading in its pages.

I never held a candle to him. Week after week In would read his stuff and chortle happily.

Now, I hear, they have fired him. Lunatics.

You do not save a publication (or product) by degrading it; a fact which many firms should bear in mnd in these tricky times

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

2 Comments

  1. jimprocterblain@hotmail.com

    Totally agree with you. As soon as MW arrived on my desk, I would turn to the back. Not ( as my colleagues thought ) to look at the job ad pages, but to read Mr Murray. I hope he finds another outlet; he will be sorely missed.

  2. Adrian

    Hi Drayton,
    I have worked in Engineering and Sales and watched with dismay as various star quality people have been dismissed by unimaginitive bean counters and the business subsequently suffer and they don`t seem to understand why.

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