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Jay E. MandelYonkers, New York
I expose the bad data, fake certainty, and organizational theater hiding behind marketing performance—then build systems grounded in permission, context, and evidence.
See the work↓Marketing fails when it optimizes what is easy to measure instead of what creates real value.
Bad data mistaken for truth. Activity presented as impact. Personalization without permission. Brand promises the business cannot keep. Cultures that ask for candor, then reward compliance.
These are not marketing quirks. They distort decisions, waste investment, erode customer trust, and burn out the people expected to make broken systems perform.
AI will scale whatever already exists—good judgment or bad assumptions. Accountability puts evidence, context, permission, and ownership in place before speed multiplies the risk.
10 themes · 100 insights
The Venn diagram connects truth, systems, and people. Below it, one featured article introduces each of the 10 subthemes in Jay’s work; the complete library expands those themes into 100 insights.
The 10 subthemes
The overlap
Marketing becomes accountable when truth travels through the system and produces outcomes people can understand, question, and trust.
Accurate, traceable evidence that is permissioned and honest about what it can—and cannot—prove.
The promises and choices that connect what a business creates with what customers genuinely value.
The data, incentives, workflows, ownership, and operations that turn a promise into repeatable behavior.
Customers and employees with context, judgment, and agency—not profiles to manipulate or metrics to manage.
Marketing is accountable when its claims are grounded in truth, delivered by systems, and create defensible value for people. Leaders own—and close—the gaps between the promise, the behavior, and the result.
10 featured subthemes
A Roblox creator shows how personal narrative becomes relationship, and why parents and marketers need to take that relationship seriously.
Read on Substack · External siteI wanted to go fishing for one day.
Read on Substack · External siteListerine turned bad breath into halitosis. Marketing has done the same, turning ordinary uncertainty into urgent and curable problems. Learn how to respond to the funk.
Read on Substack · External siteI Followed TopDog’s Disclaimers to Measure the Distance Between the Law Firm Being Advertised and the Legal network operating behind it.
Read on Substack · External siteApparently, “customer service” now means creating the emergency, explaining the emergency back to you, and then recommending a solution that the company has made impossible.
Read on Substack · External siteI’ve been listening to Howard Stern for most of my life.
Read on Substack · External siteLast weekend, my car engine started steaming and smoking in Tuckahoe, New York.
Read on Substack · External siteWhen evaluating retail concepts from a brand accountability and financial efficiency perspective, few founders possess the trend-spotting instinct, artistic execution, and operational grit of Abby Taylor
Read on Substack · External siteWe talked about this the other day—how the concept of corporate “extraction” is quietly ruining everything we love. Doug Stephens was talking about his book, The Future of Competitive Advantage? He made the powerful point that for the last 45 years, corporations have been trapped in a cycle of constant extraction—squeezing workers, exploiting the environment, and draining the capitalist system itself until there is “not a hell of a lot left to extract”.
Read on Substack · External siteI'm sharing this now because systems meant to serve us no longer uphold human dignity.
Read on Substack · External siteFollow the work in progress
Sharp observations on marketing accountability, clean data, leadership, AI, brand behavior, and the systems behind what customers actually experience.
Current work
Co-founder & partner
Dāginty helps organizations replace unreliable data and guesswork with verified, permissioned human insight—so teams can make smarter marketing and AI decisions with less risk.
Founder
An independent collective examining the gap between what brands promise and how they behave.
Visit MACCo-founder
Advancing permission-based data practices across marketing, AI, and enterprise intelligence.
Visit CDAConsulting & coaching
Jay works as a brand strategy consultant, growth marketing consultant and marketing coach when the challenge calls for evidence, honest challenge and operating change—not another layer of marketing theater.
Jay Mandel is a brand strategy and brand management consultant helping leaders align positioning, customer experience, operations and culture.
Explore this work →Jay Mandel is a growth marketing consultant helping organizations replace activity metrics and guesswork with accountable strategy, evidence and learning.
Explore this work →Jay Mandel coaches marketers, founders and technical leaders on strategy, leadership communication, personal positioning and accountable growth.
Explore this work →Podcasts, interviews & media
Conversations about marketing accountability, brand strategy, clean data, leadership and AI—plus coverage of the work and the systems behind it.
Work with Jay Mandel
Jay helps leaders close the gap between what an organization says, what its systems reward and what people actually experience.
Say what needs to be said, clearly and respectfully.
Question assumptions and change course when the evidence changes.
Build with people, with clear ownership and meaningful participation.
Hold actions, decisions and systems to the standards they claim.
These are working principles, not website language. Jay applies them to his own decisions first, welcomes challenge and helps teams address contradictions before they become culture or customer problems.
Start a conversation with JayAbout Jay
I spent more than 20 years in corporate marketing, consulting, and higher education. I led digital marketing work at Mastercard and IBM before leaving the corporate playbook behind.
Today, I work with leaders who are willing to name the real problem. I connect brand, data, operations, and culture so the promise customers hear matches the experience the organization can deliver.
Author
A purpose-driven approach to branding. Published by Kogan Page.
Let’s talk