Marketing has become a circus of titles without substance, and it’s high time someone called out this bullshit. The latest trend—creating new roles like Chief Growth Officer or Growth Marketer—is being paraded as a revolutionary shift. But here’s the ugly truth: without real organizational change, these fancy titles are just window dressing. MarketingWeek’s recent piece highlights how companies are slapping new job descriptions on the same old departments, expecting magic to happen. Spoiler alert: it won’t.
The problem is that these roles often exist in a vacuum, with no real power or budget to back them up. They’re designed to signal innovation to investors or clients, but inside, the same siloed teams and outdated processes keep churning out mediocre campaigns. Growth isn’t a department you can create by decree; it’s a cross-functional muscle that requires aligning product, sales, data, and marketing—not just hiring a “growth guru” who’s essentially a glorified project manager.
Let’s call out the lazy agencies and consultants who push this narrative. They sell “growth” as a standalone service, packaged neatly with jargon and KPIs, while ignoring that the real blockers are structural. Google’s self-serving mantra that growth is all about “leveraging new tools” misses the point entirely. Without cultural and operational shifts, no amount of AI-driven dashboards or fancy funnels can fix a fundamentally broken setup.
If you’re serious about growth, stop chasing the next shiny title or plugin. Invest in breaking down silos, redefining ownership across teams, and empowering people to make decisions with data and accountability. Otherwise, you’re just playing dress-up with job descriptions and hoping no one notices the emperor has no clothes. The industry needs to stop treating growth like a buzzword and start treating it like a hard-earned outcome.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: if your “growth team” can’t point to concrete wins tied to organizational change—real shifts in how your company builds, markets, and sells—then you’re wasting money and talent. The next time you hear about a new growth role, ask who really owns growth in your company and what’s actually changing beneath the surface.