B2B loves a trend. Every few years, we crown a new marketing royalty, only to dethrone them quietly a few years later when reality sets in.
2010: Product Marketers ruled the kingdom 📊 High ACV, long sales cycles. Positioning and messaging were the power skills. Everyone wanted to be the "strategic" marketer.
2015: Digital/Growth Marketers seized the throne 📈 The freemium SaaS revolution. Suddenly, driving self-serve revenue and generating pipeline was marketing's hottest skill. Field marketers desperately rebranded as "demand gen specialists," claiming to be data-driven without the skills to back it up.
2020: ABM Specialists & PLG champions took over 💼 Product teams hijacked "growth." Marketing got pushed downstream. Enterprise marketing focused on ABM while everyone else obsessed over product-led motions.
2025: Brand Marketers get the promotions 🏆 With 50+ competitors in every category, differentiation is impossible on features alone. The pundits have spoken: "Brand is the new moat."
And so, executive recruiters are now chasing “brand marketers.”
But here’s the uncomfortable truth about this latest wave:
In tech, most creative functions are outsourced.
And most self-proclaimed brand marketers in B2B?
They’re not strategic brand architects.
They’re not creative visionaries.
They’re catch-all marketers who inherited corporate comms or content — the very functions AI is now automating.
They’re managing brand guidelines.
Not creating them.
🚨 The next disappointment is already baked in.
The only future-proof marketer?
The full-stack marketer with ‘taste’.
🧠 Understands the buyer — their job, pressures, and pain
🎯 Crafts differentiated positioning that actually resonates
⚙️ Knows the mechanics of every acquisition and retention channel
🎨 Has the creative judgment and ideation (“taste”) to execute with excellence
🤖 And uses AI to scale and gain creative superpowers
These marketing unicorns 🦄 will become more and more prevalent. They won't come from traditional brand or comms backgrounds, though.
Because AI can write copy, generate video, and crank out design assets.
But AI can’t instrument a marketing funnel, teach strategic thinking, or data-driven decision-making.
So, the marketer of the future?
The Renaissance marketer:
Part product marketer.
Part growth marketer.
High taste. High output. AI-native.
________________
♻️ Share this with your network
➕ Follow me Benoîte Yver for more.
2010: Product Marketers ruled the kingdom 📊 High ACV, long sales cycles. Positioning and messaging were the power skills. Everyone wanted to be the "strategic" marketer.
2015: Digital/Growth Marketers seized the throne 📈 The freemium SaaS revolution. Suddenly, driving self-serve revenue and generating pipeline was marketing's hottest skill. Field marketers desperately rebranded as "demand gen specialists," claiming to be data-driven without the skills to back it up.
2020: ABM Specialists & PLG champions took over 💼 Product teams hijacked "growth." Marketing got pushed downstream. Enterprise marketing focused on ABM while everyone else obsessed over product-led motions.
2025: Brand Marketers get the promotions 🏆 With 50+ competitors in every category, differentiation is impossible on features alone. The pundits have spoken: "Brand is the new moat."
And so, executive recruiters are now chasing “brand marketers.”
But here’s the uncomfortable truth about this latest wave:
In tech, most creative functions are outsourced.
And most self-proclaimed brand marketers in B2B?
They’re not strategic brand architects.
They’re not creative visionaries.
They’re catch-all marketers who inherited corporate comms or content — the very functions AI is now automating.
They’re managing brand guidelines.
Not creating them.
🚨 The next disappointment is already baked in.
The only future-proof marketer?
The full-stack marketer with ‘taste’.
🧠 Understands the buyer — their job, pressures, and pain
🎯 Crafts differentiated positioning that actually resonates
⚙️ Knows the mechanics of every acquisition and retention channel
🎨 Has the creative judgment and ideation (“taste”) to execute with excellence
🤖 And uses AI to scale and gain creative superpowers
These marketing unicorns 🦄 will become more and more prevalent. They won't come from traditional brand or comms backgrounds, though.
Because AI can write copy, generate video, and crank out design assets.
But AI can’t instrument a marketing funnel, teach strategic thinking, or data-driven decision-making.
So, the marketer of the future?
The Renaissance marketer:
Part product marketer.
Part growth marketer.
High taste. High output. AI-native.
________________
♻️ Share this with your network
➕ Follow me Benoîte Yver for more.
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