Marchand--Good News / Bad News

At long last, marketers have gained respectability for their craft, or at least for parts of it, not only customer communications but also the tools of sales and marketing automation (so-called). Cause for celebration, wouldn't you say? Well, yes…and no.

The bad news and the joke lie hidden in an innocuous phrase in the preceding paragraph: "at least for parts of it." Some important pieces are missing, and without them, the creature printing executives call marketing is blind and deaf, if not stillborn. Cruel metaphors, but applicable.