Today, most marketers are underprepared for the tectonic shifts that are happening across the industry.

CMO tenure has been progressively decreasing to all-time lows for the past 10 years. Inflation, tariffs, and ballooning consumer credit are squeezing both brands and the people buying from them. We look at over 500 consumer marketing P&Ls annually. Margin is tight. Budget is tighter. Profit is hard to come by.

On the cost side, both supply chain and workforce have been globalized for some time; AI is readily abundant, waiting for teams to implement technology at scale. From our perspective, operating expenses for consumer businesses cannot go lower. And in fact, they very well may go up for the unassuming operator unwilling to innovate. Naturally, businesses always look to marketing spend. But there's no slack there either. CPMs continue to rise while social advertising consumption trends down since its 2022 peaks. We expect this to continue as humans desire less time on devices. Worse of all, we know most marketing teams are unsure where is best to spend their next dollar.

What we've found over the last decade is that most advertising programs are not positioned to deliver or track profit for advertisers. And so we think the next twelve to twenty-four months are crucial. The old playbooks no longer work. And yet everybody is slow to implement the changes that are essential to compete in the age of AI.

At Darkroom, we focus exclusively on commerce and the consumer marketing ecosystem. This thesis will speak to that market, but the macro trends apply broadly across other markets to tl. We hope this helps you understand where the puck is going and how to best position yourself for success.

We’re long overdue for a serious challenge to the status quo in advertising.