Question the promise.
Look at the evidence.

MAC · September 1, 2026

Alaska Violet and the Digital Life I Had Never Asked My Daughter About

A Roblox creator shows how personal narrative becomes relationship, and why parents and marketers need to take that relationship seriously.

MAC · August 30, 2026

I Wanted a Fishing Licence. New York Gave Me a Deer.

I wanted to go fishing for one day.

MAC · August 27, 2026

Marketing Has Bad Breath, Not Halitosis

Listerine 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.

MarTech · August 27, 2026

Better data starts with treating people like people

Treating people with respect improves the data relationships marketing depends on.

MAC · August 23, 2026

TopDog Law: Big Bark. Show Me the Bite.

I Followed TopDog’s Disclaimers to Measure the Distance Between the Law Firm Being Advertised and the Legal network operating behind it.

MAC · August 22, 2026

Optimum Customer Service Cut Off My Phone, Left Me Stranded Without Service, Then Told Me to Use My Phone to Fix It

A service failure shows why recovery systems must account for the customer’s real situation—and how clearer ownership can turn a frustrating moment into restored trust.

MAC · August 21, 2026

I Heard It Through the Fakevine

From Marvin Gaye to fake followers, ad fraud, bots, and manufactured consensus: what happens when the grapevine becomes the marketplace, and nobody knows what’s real?

MAC · August 14, 2026

Howard Stern, Data Brokers, and the Danger of Mistaking a Profile for a Person

I’ve been listening to Howard Stern for most of my life.

MAC · August 6, 2026

A Tale of Two Gas Stations: Ownership, Empathy, and the Hidden Cost of “Not My Job”

Last weekend, my car engine started steaming and smoking in Tuckahoe, New York.

MAC · August 6, 2026

How Playa Bowls’ Founder Engineered Bev Shack into a $5 Social-First Empire

When 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

MAC · August 5, 2026

The Business Model That Produces Sh*tty Products and Huge Profits

Ever wonder why companies seem comfortable charging more while giving you less? It's the shift in how businesses compete and why predictable customers have become more valuable than satisfied ones.

MAC · July 31, 2026

How Bad Math and Synthetic Empathy are Ruining Customer Service

Customer service is deteriorating not because AI is inherently evil, but because corporate executives are using AI to turbocharge an obsolete, extractive financial model.

MAC · July 26, 2026

The marketing industry is burning its own talent

What Stacey Duguid's job search, Andrew Bowins' pivot, and the Marketing Accountability Council reveal about marketing's real accountability problem

MAC · July 22, 2026

Why Does Every Content Strategy Just Produce Reheated Nachos?

Why does everything online feel either painfully generic or outrageously over-the-top? This article explores why every original idea eventually becomes reheated nachos.

MAC · July 21, 2026

Is This Really the Best Starbucks’ CEO Can Do?

Last weekend at Fanatics Fest, I was handed a drink that looked less like coffee and more like the New York Knicks had been melted inside a clear plastic cup.

MAC · July 19, 2026

The ROI of Obsession

Why “Fanaticism” is the Ultimate Marketing Accountability Framework

MAC · July 15, 2026

TIME’s “Best” vs. MAC’s Most Honest: The Glaring Gap in America’s Top Companies

On July 9, 2026, TIME and Statista dropped their annual ranking of America’s Best Companies. It’s a list measuring exactly what Wall Street and job hunters care about: financial muscle, employee satisfaction, and ESG disclosures.

MAC · July 13, 2026

How New York City's New Subscription Rules Will Reshape National Marketing

New York City doesn’t just pass local laws; it establishes the default standards for the entire nation.

MAC · July 13, 2026

What Used to Be True About Finding a Fair Apartment Is Now a RealPage Algorithm

When we dropped our pieces on the ticketing and travel monopolies, a clear psychological profile emerged.

MAC · July 12, 2026

The Memory Trap: Why What Used to Be True About Booking, Expedia, Priceline, and Kayak Is Now a Corporate Illusion

The Mirage of the Open Web:

MAC · July 11, 2026

How StubHub Transformed From a Fan-Friendly Alternative Into a Corporate Scalping Cartel

We 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”.

MAC · July 10, 2026

Your Next Marketing Decision Could Save Democracy

Business futurist and author Doug Stephens stops by the MAC to talk about his new book, explain why saving democracy is good business, and explore how marketers can help.

MAC · July 8, 2026

"Be More Strategic" Is the Most Useless Advice in Marketing

Most marketers think being strategic means connecting their work to revenue and learning the language. But that advice often keeps marketers trapped in execution mode.

MAC · July 7, 2026

Why Big-Box Retailers Must Align Corporate Margin with Consumer Health

Walking to the public-facing order pickup Lowe’s retail location in Yonkers, NY, one is greeted by a brightly decorated internal dashboard celebrating the store’s “Service & Sales Leaders.” Adorned with cheerful beach-themed cutouts and smiling employee photos, the board tracks localized key performance indicators (KPIs).

MAC · July 6, 2026

How gig platforms and data brokers run the same broken playbook — and what a positive-sum version looks like

Modern platforms like Uber Eats prioritize instant gratification, delivering items swiftly, boosting metrics like conversion rates and reducing costs.

MAC · July 2, 2026

This Is My Story

Why my personal life, my professional career, and my creative output aren’t three separate compartments—and why lazy assumptions miss the mark.

MAC · June 29, 2026

The age of the lazy assumptions is over.

It’s time to build for the reality of who people actually are.

MAC · June 28, 2026

Why I Still Drive Uber Eats While Building My Next Venture

I am currently raising capital, building a brand, and scaling a new venture.

MAC · June 27, 2026

The Right Message Mirage

A familiar marketing ideal can become more useful when teams replace impossible precision with sound audience judgment, respectful relevance, and continuous learning.

MAC · June 26, 2026

Why Modern Mail is Broken and Needs an Overhaul

During a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing, bluntly titled “Reforming the U.S.

MAC · June 25, 2026

Eric André’s Survival Guide to Modern Comedy

According to TV’s ultimate agent of chaos, being a comedian is 10% creative genius, 40% corporate warfare, and 50% getting your foot run over by a car.

MAC · June 24, 2026

Nobody Wants Your Whitepaper Anymore

The value exchange that built modern B2B marketing is collapsing. What replaces it will require a different kind of marketer entirely.

MarTech · June 24, 2026

Why trust belongs at the center of your data strategy

More customer data once looked like an advantage. AI is exposing the risk of data built on inference, opacity and extraction.

MAC · June 23, 2026

Why MAC Is Backing Cauldron’s ‘Slower Thinking’ Over Polymarket Hype

The Marketing Accountability Council rejects rapid, casino-style metrics to champion long-term strategy and ethical consumer trust.

MAC · June 23, 2026

Marketers Must Stop Being Card Counters

Why Our Odd Obsession With Odds Isn’t Optimal

MAC · June 13, 2026

The Syracuse University Deficit and the Great Higher-Ed Extortion

My alma mater, Syracuse University, simultaneously purged 93 academic programs, hiked total annual student costs to a staggering $95,676, and then admitted to faculty and staff that it had missed its enrollment targets and entered a formal budget deficit.

MAC · June 10, 2026

How B2B Leaders Forgot What Marketing Is. A Historiography

For decades, executives relied on marketing to understand customers and markets. So how did it become the department responsible for defending pipeline, and proving its existence every quarter?

MAC · June 2, 2026

Social Media Was Once a Community, Now It’s a Casino

And Marketers Must Adapt

MAC · May 31, 2026

These Are the Breaks

Kurtis Blow and the Lost Art of Passing Culture Down

MAC · May 31, 2026

How a Smartphone and a Tripod Exposed the Local Media Crisis

While legacy news crews gave up, one creator, my son, Gavin, captured the pulse of the 40th anniversary of the Puerto Rican Day Parade on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx

MAC · May 28, 2026

The Special Education Paywall: How New York Charges Families to Access Their Children’s Rights

I'm sharing this now because systems meant to serve us no longer uphold human dignity.

MAC · May 27, 2026

How Demand Generation Become the Only Viable Marketing Strategy in B2B. A Historiography

This article breaks down how demand gen evolved from a useful operating system into the center of modern B2B marketing and why so many companies now confuse pipeline motion with market understanding.

MAC · May 26, 2026

My Inside Look at Udacity’s Desperate Marketing Machine

I was Ghosted by the Recruiter then Spammed by Udacity's Desparate Marketing Machine

MAC · May 25, 2026

The Illusion of the Holiday Discount

Don't Trust the Brand, Trust the Data

MAC · May 25, 2026

Is That AI Barbecuing Your Burgers?

Happy Memorial Day! It’s the unofficial start of summer.

MAC · May 21, 2026

Why Asking the Right Questions Transforms Marketing Accountability

A grocery receipt became the catalyst for a data analysis that reveals the hidden tax of geography on consumer spending.

MAC · May 18, 2026

The Sirens of Modern Marketing

An essay on how leaders can recognize ethical drift, realign incentives, and give teams the judgment and support to choose responsible marketing practices.

MAC · May 13, 2026

Marketing Metrics. How Did They Get So F*@ked Up? A Historiography

We didn’t end up with dashboards, funnels, and MQL obsession by accident. The metrics marketing is measured by was decided by a series of decisions that slowly reshaped what marketing is allowed to be

MAC · May 11, 2026

GameStop's $56 Billion Prank:

How CEO Ryan Cohen Got Banned From the Company He is Trying to Buy

MAC · April 29, 2026

Marketing Didn’t Get Tied to Revenue by Accident: A Historiography

Marketing didn’t get reduced to a pipeline machine by accident. It happened because, at a critical moment, marketing couldn’t explain its value and what replaced it reshaped the entire function.

MAC · April 28, 2026

Beyond the Prompt: Why Your AI Content Needs a Context Engine

Lashay Lewis on bridging the "Trust Gap" by grounding LLMs in your proprietary Product Truth.

MAC · April 17, 2026

The Zeitgeist Didn’t Die, We Stopped Feeding It

And Marketers Must Stop Trying to Feed Off It

MAC · April 16, 2026

Why Burnout Isn’t a Personal Failure

Burnout Isn’t a Workload Problem. It’s a System That Stopped Seeing People

MAC · April 15, 2026

The Day I Realized Personas Were Useless

This article breaks down why personas suck, what they’re hiding, and what you actually need to understand if you want your marketing to stop blending in and start working.

MarTech · April 14, 2026

Marketing looks successful, but misses what matters

Marketing’s drift toward optics and internal validation disconnects teams from revenue and the fundamentals that create growth.

MAC · April 8, 2026

The Decade Meta Stopped Thinking and Started Copying

Does a company that has to buy or steal every new idea it deploys actually deserve to lead the next era of human connection?

MAC · April 1, 2026

The “Prove It First” Economy Is Breaking Marketing From the Inside

Marketing is trapped in a system that demands proof before it allows anything to work, then punishes it when it doesn’t.

MAC · March 25, 2026

The Meta Verdict Isn’t the Story. Our Dependence Is.

A New Mexico jury just determined that Meta knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.

MAC · March 25, 2026

Did Marketing Kill the BDR Role?

We’ve been asking BDRs to turn clicks into conversations, then blaming them when it doesn’t work. This piece breaks down how marketing quietly set them up to fail.

MAC · March 22, 2026

Accountability in the Age of the One-Way Mirror

Afroman and the Moment Surveillance Became Accountability

MAC · March 18, 2026

Why “Best Practices" Can Only Lead to “Average at Best”

Many B2B campaigns rely on the same underlying template. This article explores how teams can move beyond default practices and build strategy around their customers, strengths, and evidence.

MAC · March 11, 2026

Why B2B Marketing Feels Seen Yet Invisible

This article unpacks how modern, hyper-targeted marketing made B2B marketing departments feel invisible, why this frustrates marketers and confuses leadership, and what it takes to fix it.

MAC · March 4, 2026

Why Marketing Gets Disrespected in B2B Organizations

Marketing has been made "simple", so everyone thinks they know how to do marketing. That has lead to a complete lack of understanding and disrespect of the function.

MAC · March 3, 2026

The Platforms Aren’t Broken. That’s the Problem.

A conversation with Omar Oakes on fraud, trust, and what the industry keeps getting wrong.

MAC · March 1, 2026

The Backflip Economy

How the Savannah Bananas Perfected Spectacle and What Their Success Reveals About Our Dopamine-Driven Culture

MAC · February 25, 2026

Is Your Self Worth Tied to a Dashboard?

A reflection on separating professional self-worth from dashboard results so marketers can learn more honestly, make better decisions, and build work that matters.

MAC · February 24, 2026

The Business Case for Moral Marketers

Why There’s ROI in Listening to Our Better Angels

MAC · February 21, 2026

You Found the Loophole; Congratulations, You Still Look Petty.

There is a version of winning that should make you embarrassed.

MAC · February 21, 2026

Substack, Polymarket, and the Platform Dilemma

As I’ve mentioned in several essays this month, it’s been two years on Substack.

MAC · February 20, 2026

Teen Takeovers, Media Amplification, and the World We Built

Research shows that emotionally charged content, especially outrage, spreads faster and farther on social platforms.

MAC · February 19, 2026

Welcome to Sky Zone™:Where Childhood Becomes a Revenue Model

I walked into Sky Zone and immediately thought, "This building used to sell shower curtains and offered 20%-off coupons that expired but somehow didn’t." Now it sells trampoline time, tiered memberships, and $6 socks.

MAC · February 18, 2026

Why Publishing My Book, "Brand Strategy in Three Steps,"Changed Nothing and Changed Everything

I wasn’t ready. The market wasn’t ready. Now both are starting to be.

MAC · February 15, 2026

Resist and Unsubscribe

When the Only Lever Left Is the Market

MAC · February 13, 2026

How the Marketing Accountability Council changed the way I see marketing, trust, and the systems behind them.

Two years ago, I started the Marketing Accountability Council because I couldn’t ignore the widening distance between what institutions claimed to stand for and how they actually operated.

MAC · February 11, 2026

Karma Has an API Key: How AI Is Eating SaaS

B2B SaaS spent years chasing “efficiency” by cutting humans out of the equation. Now AI is doing to software what software once did to everything else.

MAC · February 8, 2026

Bad Bunny, the Big Game, and the America That Refuses to Listen

Bad Bunny isn’t some performative diversity booking. He’s the most-streamed artist in the world for multiple years in a row. He’s already mainstream. The Super Bowl is just catching up.

MAC · February 4, 2026

Making Lemonade Out of Don Lemon

This month marks two years of the Marketing Accountability Council, and over the next few weeks, I’ll be writing reflections on where we started, where we’re headed, and what’s breaking (and changing) across marketing and business.

MAC · February 3, 2026

MAC Reality Check - Paul Ruscoe on Control, Accountability, and Marketing Without Illusions

Why modern marketing’s obsession with control is making us worse at the very thing we’re trying to improve.

MAC · January 30, 2026

The Death of a Thousand Fees Economy

When Government Gets Cornered and Everyone Else Gets Petty

MarTech · January 30, 2026

No means no, even when the system refuses to listen

Silence is a signal, and ignoring it damages trust.

MAC · January 28, 2026

The Lie We Keep Telling Ourselves About B2B Sales

Buyers aren’t avoiding sales conversations. They’re avoiding the pressure, harassment, and desperation we’ve normalized and the systems that reward it.

MAC · January 27, 2026

What a Kitchen Table Conversation Taught Me About Career Resilience

Why the right traits matter more than titles, tools, or resumes.

MAC · January 26, 2026

Demand Gen Isn’t Dead, but I’m Here to Kill It and Replace it With Something Much Better

Demand generation is anti-marketing.

MAC · January 17, 2026

I was charged $150 for $25 of gas; and it made me realize how little control we have over our own money

Surprise credit card holds are more than just an inconvenience; they’re a silent, systemic way of shifting power away from consumers.

MAC · January 16, 2026

One Purple Sign; Two Broken Systems.

A $19 EZ-Pass charge shows what happens when agencies optimize for enforcement instead of ownership and force people to absorb the friction they created.

MAC · January 15, 2026

Marketing Let Him Go. Real Estate Let Him Lead.

When the System Breaks, You Build Your Own.

MAC · January 14, 2026

If Marketing Isn’t Measured on Revenue, Then What? I Got the Answer, Sway!

This article breaks down what executives really mean when they say they want to see marketing's revenue contribution and how marketers can finally replace revenue with much more effective metrics.

MarTech · January 12, 2026

The myth of brand community in the age of data agency

Clean metrics stop masking the gap between engagement and real commitment.

MAC · January 11, 2026

Thirteen Years, No Half-Stepping: What Jacob Sanders, Big Daddy Kane, and MAC Have in Common

No half-stepping shows up over time

MAC · January 9, 2026

Careless People Gave Me PTSD

But Not for the Reason You Think

MAC · January 8, 2026

When Marketing Becomes Indistinguishable from Fraud

How Personalization, Influence, and Assumed Trust Power Modern Scams

MAC · January 7, 2026

The Teleprompter Died and So Did CBS News

Tony Dokoupil’s Debut Didn’t Fail. The CBS News Model Did.

MAC · January 7, 2026

AI Has a PR Problem

The backlash against AI is a mirror, reflecting how far marketing has drifted from storytelling, empathy, and serving real human needs and why audiences are finally pushing back.

MAC · January 6, 2026

Lost at CES: A Guided Tour of Marketing’s Collective Delusion

A candid look at the CES marketing pilgrimage—and how marketers and technologists can move past performance to have more useful conversations about innovation, brand, and customer value.

MAC · January 6, 2026

When Belief Systems Override Reality

You can’t market to stupid and you shouldn’t have to.

MAC · January 5, 2026

Can Mamdani and Khan Prove the Public Still Has Power?

Behind the scenes, they mapped forgotten statutes and buried authority. If it holds, New York could become a model for rapid, people-first governance.

MarTech · December 3, 2025

How dirty data broke marketing

Clean data restores context, consent and meaning.

MarTech · October 28, 2025

Rethinking marketing’s relationship with data

Clean data offers a route back to trust.

MarTech · August 22, 2025

Marketing leadership asks for radical candor but wants compliance

Candor becomes useful when leaders reward thoughtful challenge, respond with curiosity, and turn honest feedback into better decisions and stronger trust.

CDA · August 14, 2025

Welcome to the Clean Data Alliance

Why dirty data is a business and social failure—and why people need more control over the information used to describe and decide for them.

MarTech · August 13, 2025

Why the grift economy is killing both marketing and marketers

Examining the incentives behind misleading marketing practices.

MarTech · July 28, 2025

The cost of silence in marketing is too high

Digital marketing too often rewards performance over principle.

MarTech · July 8, 2025

Why marketers are leaving and what it takes to stay

What pushes marketers away and what could help them stay.

Popular on MarTech

MarTech · May 16, 2025

Crumbl’s legal trouble shows the risks of shortcut marketing

The brand risks of taking marketing shortcuts.

Popular on MarTech

MarTech · April 24, 2025

Brand safety is BS (until it’s not)

Examining the decisions behind brand safety claims.

MarTech · February 28, 2025

How digital natives changed the game on legacy media

How digital creators compete with established media.

MarTech · February 14, 2025

Target’s DEI retreat: Inclusivity was never more than a marketing stunt

Testing the gap between inclusion promises and company decisions.

Popular on MarTech

MarTech · January 21, 2025

Are AI tools shaping your intentions more than you realize?

How AI tools influence the intentions behind your choices.

MarTech · December 30, 2024

Lessons from AI’s 2024 rise and a pragmatic path for marketing in 2025

A practical approach to using AI in marketing.

MarTech · November 14, 2024

Why marketers must move from retention tactics to customer respect

Replacing retention pressure with customer respect.

MarTech · October 14, 2024

How to move beyond performative segmentation and embrace authenticity

Moving from audience labels to authentic relationships.

MarTech · September 12, 2024

The fading third place: A reflection on Starbucks and society

What Starbucks reveals about shared social spaces.

Popular on MarTech

MarTech · August 13, 2024

Marketers must adapt to a changing world

Adapting marketing to changing customer expectations.

Popular on MarTech

MarTech · July 19, 2024

Planting seeds and building trust in a world of overnight wins

Building trust through consistent work rather than quick wins.

MarTech · June 25, 2024

How to build a B2B brand that delivers lasting value

Building a B2B brand around lasting customer value.

MarTech · May 20, 2024

Escaping the marketing circus: How empathy can realign brands, audiences and results

Using empathy to connect brands, audiences and results.

MarTech · April 10, 2024

Martech’s moment of truth: Why product excellence beats slick sales pitches

Putting product quality ahead of sales promises.

MarTech · March 22, 2024

Ethical marketing in the age of hidden fees and deceptive pricing

Recognizing the harm caused by hidden fees and deceptive pricing.

MarTech · February 27, 2024

Adapting marketing strategies for post-pandemic reality: The need for authenticity

Responding to changed expectations with authentic marketing.

MarTech · January 25, 2024

3 steps to an authentic brand: Identity, intention and implementation

Connecting brand identity, intention and implementation.

LinkedIn · November 5, 2019

Reflections from my content marketing crossroads

A consistent and repeatable approach to content marketing connects audience, story, strategy and results.