The Brand of Suffering: How Marketing Got Addicted to Being Misunderstood

Marketers love to say it.

“The exec team just doesn’t get marketing.”

As if that’s a revelation.

As if that’s the reason your campaigns don’t land,
your budgets get slashed,
and your strategy gets stalled in Slack.

It’s not.
It’s a shield.
A crutch.

And the longer you lean on it, the less anyone should trust you to lead.

The Myth of the Misunderstood Marketer

Somewhere along the way, “they just don’t get marketing” became a badge of honor.

It’s whispered in backchannels.
Posted on LinkedIn like it’s brave.

Worn like a scar by marketers who want you to think they’re fighting the good fight—when really, they’ve just given up.

Let’s be clear: Being misunderstood is not a strategy.

It’s not proof of depth.
It’s not an excuse to avoid accountability.

It’s a signal that you’ve lost the room.
Or worse—that you never owned it to begin with.

Because if your entire function revolves around shaping perception, influencing behavior, and commanding attention—and you can’t even do that inside your own company?

That’s not a sign of brilliance.
That’s a breakdown in leadership.

But instead of confronting it, too many marketers turn it into an identity.

• “They don’t understand us.”
• “They don’t respect the craft.”
• “They don’t trust brand.”

Maybe.

Or maybe they’ve just never seen you lead with clarity.

Maybe they’ve only seen decks that feel defensive. Metrics that feel vague. Campaigns that can’t be defended without five rounds of context.

This isn’t martyrdom.
It’s marketing malpractice.

And the longer you hide behind the idea that “they don’t get it,” the more you prove you don’t know how to make them care.

CEOs Aren’t Stupid—You’re Just Scared

It’s easy to say the CEO doesn’t get marketing.

It’s harder to admit you don’t know how to explain it without a 42-slide deck and a half-hour of preamble.

But let’s drop the act.

Most CEOs don’t need to “understand marketing.”
They need to understand you.

They need to believe:

• You can make noise in a crowded market.
• You can protect the brand while moving the needle.
• You know when to take a risk—and when to double down.
• You can link a story to a strategy, and a strategy to a number.

That’s it.

They’re not asking you to run creative by them.
They’re asking: Are you the kind of leader who knows how to turn marketing from a line item into leverage?

And if your answer is to sigh and complain they “just don’t get it”, you’re not a strategist.

You’re a liability.

Because here’s what most marketers won’t say out loud:

They’re not afraid the CEO doesn’t understand.
They’re afraid the CEO might push back—and they won’t know how to hold the line.

So instead, they soften.

They stall. They throw around “dark social” and “modern buyer journey” and wait for nods instead of demanding conviction.

And when the message dies in the boardroom, they don’t own the failure.

They whine.

They post about how misunderstood marketing is—again.

It’s not a knowledge gap. It’s a nerve gap. And no amount of jargon is going to save you from the truth:

You weren’t supposed to be liked.
You were supposed to lead.

The Sales Validation Scam

You want to know the most exhausting subplot in modern marketing?

Trying to win the approval of a function that has no idea how yours works—but somehow feels entitled to comment on it anyway.

Sales doesn’t “get” marketing?

Listen to me when I say this...

Who gives a shit.

They don’t sign your paycheck.
They don’t own your KPIs.
They don’t speak for the buyer.

And yet, too many marketing teams are still building decks, rewriting messaging, and redesigning entire campaigns—not because the market asked for it, but because sales “didn’t like the vibe.”

Let me be crystal clear:
You don’t owe sales your deference.
You owe the buyer your impact.

If your campaign can’t survive a Slack message from sales, it sure as hell can’t survive the market.

And if your strategy gets derailed every time a rep raises their hand and says “I wouldn’t respond to this,” maybe it’s time to ask why you’re still designing your motion around people who sell the product instead of the people who buy it.

This obsession with sales validation is a scam.
It’s the final form of marketing insecurity.

Because the second you start calibrating your creative to keep sales comfortable instead of keeping the market engaged, you’ve already surrendered your seat at the table.

You want sales to trust marketing?
Then stop building for them.
Start building for the outcome.

Because the buyer doesn’t care who’s aligned.
They care who earns their attention.

And if sales wants to weigh in on marketing?

Great.

Tell them to hit quota first.

The Real Job of a Marketing Leader

The job is not to be understood. The job is to make things so clear that misunderstanding doesn’t matter.

That’s what leadership is: Not performing your pain, but commanding the room anyway. Leadership is not defending your calendar. It's defending the vision in public, even when the room flinches.

And if you’re waiting for the CEO to magically “get” marketing before you act…
You’ve already failed. So don’t ask for a seat at the table if you’re just going to nod through the meeting.

Because the real job of a marketing leader isn’t to educate.

It’s to translate with authority.
To distill complexity into conviction.
To speak in business, build in story, and execute in market.

Not explain.
Not soften.
Not rewrite every KPI in three formats just to avoid questions.

You know what strategy is?

It’s when someone challenges you—and you don’t flinch.

Alignment is not leadership.

Alignment is the thing you seek when you have no authority—and no proof you should.

You know what leadership is?

It’s when the CRO asks if this campaign will drive pipeline and you don’t roll your eyes.

You show them the plan.
You hold the line.

And you fucking ship it.

But too many CMOs today aren’t leaders.
They’re handlers.

Trained to anticipate boardroom anxiety.
Trained to remove sharp edges before they’re even seen.
Trained to make sure no one gets uncomfortable—even if that means nothing gets done.

And they wonder why nobody trusts marketing.

You don’t earn that trust by explaining harder.
You earn it by acting like the function has a spine.

Because the second you act like marketing needs permission to exist—
You just gave everyone else the power to erase it.

The Identity Trap

There’s a moment—quiet, subtle—when a marketer stops trying to lead,
and starts trying to be understood.

It feels noble.
It feels like advocacy.
It feels like, “If I just explain it better next time, they’ll finally get it.”

But what it really is… is surrender.

Because once you define yourself by how misunderstood you are,
you’ve already accepted that power lives somewhere else.

You’ve turned your credibility into a coping mechanism. You’ve built a personality around being the one no one listens to. And worst of all?

You started to believe it’s normal.

That marketing is supposed to be the underdog.
That creative should always be a fight.
That brand is just “what the CEO doesn’t get.”

No.

That’s not the job.
That’s not the bar.

That’s the lie you tell yourself to survive a system you’re too scared to challenge. And the longer you play that role—the Misunderstood Marketer—the harder it becomes to be anything else.

That’s not resilience.
That’s rot.

At some point, 'they don't trust marketing' stops being a complaint and starts being a consequence.

And if you stay in that identity too long, you’ll forget you were ever capable of doing anything but explaining yourself.

This victim mentality bullshit has to stop.

Take the Blame, Take the Room

Here’s the truth nobody wants to hear:

If you want the power to lead,
You have to be willing to take the blame.

Not because you deserve it. But because the only way to own the outcome—is to own the room.

If marketing keeps begging for understanding instead of delivering conviction, it won’t just lose budget.

It’ll lose the right to exist.

You want execs to trust marketing? Good.
Then stop speaking in riddles and start drawing a line in the sand.

You want to be seen as strategic?
Then stop trying to make everyone comfortable
and start making decisions that actually move the market.

Because the CEO isn’t going to save you.
The CRO isn’t going to suddenly care about brand.
And no boardroom on Earth is going to say,

“Wow, they were so aligned… let’s give them more budget.”

That’s not how this works.

You want trust? You earn it by stepping into risk, owning your voice,
and doing what this industry has forgotten how to do:

Lead.

Because when marketing leads, you don’t have to convince people to believe in it. You just make them feel what happens when it’s done right.

So stop marketing the excuse.
Start marketing the truth.
And if they still don’t get it?

Ship it anyway.

You don’t need to wear suffering like a brand.
You need to build one that survives without your pain.

And if you’re waking up six months in asking why your CEO “doesn’t get it”—

Maybe the problem wasn’t the strategy.
Maybe it was the hire.

Because if you walk into a room full of people who don’t trust marketing—and your first instinct is to explain yourself instead of prove them wrong

then maybe you never should’ve been hired in the first place.