Should I retrain in plumbing? Some joyful truths about responsible marketing

Siobhan Meaker, co-founder and director at Better Strategic Consultancy, ponders marketing in the age of AI now and into the future.

‘What advice would you give to people entering marketing today?’

As the mic made its way to back to me along the panel, I couldn’t resist saying, “Retrain in plumbing.” But before you swap your mailchimp for a monkey wrench I didn’t leave it there. While the tools and channels of marketing keep changing at dizzying speed, I believe the skills that matter don’t date. Approaching things with curiosity and empathy and bringing joy into the creation and delivery of our work is always in fashion.

My plenary session at the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s Leading the Digital Future conference at Henley Business School was around how we lead responsible marketing change.

I began with a story that has stayed with me for almost 15 years.

Back when I was communications and marketing manager for a hospice, I interviewed a man who was receiving hospice care, about what it meant to live knowing his time was short. I was nervous, unsure what tone to strike, braced for something profound or devastating. Instead, he smiled and said:

“Mainly it means when friends come round, I tell them to make me a cup of tea and I yell through, ‘Hurry up, I’m dying through here!’”

And in that instant it wasn’t patient and interviewer; it was simply two humans, laughing together at the absurdity of it all. He was asserting himself, his humour, his agency, his spark in the face of something unimaginably hard.

That exchange has become a quiet touchstone for me because it captures what so much of what marketing can sometimes forget: that behind every audience segment or user journey sits a real person with a life and a story and a personality that doesn’t fit neatly into a funnel. Responsible marketing, if it means anything, has to keep that person at its heart.

Why Joy is central to responsible marketing

People often imagine responsibility as heavy on strict procedures and policies and a bit grey around the edges but I think joy is actually its best engine. Joy is what makes us curious, what helps us listen properly, what keeps people open to connect with others.

Without it, we run the risk of churning out homogenous AI content that ticks boxes for hooks and keywords and leaves you cold and unmoved. (Like shots of gazpacho on a canape tray – pity the poor out of work actor circulating with those on a platter.)

Not long ago I was working with the Sussex charity Amaze, helping their team dream up ideas for a fundraising BookBench art trail. We started, as you do, with a game of Bench Bingo (TM, SM) where everyone had to put a finger down for everything they’d ever seen happen on a bench. Don’t worry, it was the PG version, though even that produced some surprising stories.

Within minutes the room was full of laughter and memory and warmth, benches as sites of first dates, quiet reflection, friendship, and, of course, the odd seagull stealing chips. Something ordinary became extraordinary simply because we looked at it together with curiosity and humour.

That’s what joy in the process looks like, and you can feel it in the work that follows.

A Better framework for marketing

I shared a four-part marketing framework which I stressed - in particular to the professor sat in front of me - was not an academic one. But it is a way that I like to keep work honest, values-led and, well, better.

Respect

Respect is where everything starts. Does the work respect people’s time, attention and intelligence, or does it quietly play on their fears? As a perimenopausal woman I’ve spent decades being told I’m too fat, too thin, too wrinkly, too shiny, too tired - and that salvation apparently comes in the form of an eye cream or supplement someone on TikTok swears is a gamechanger. That isn’t respect; that’s manipulation dressed as wellness. And we can’t talk about respecting audiences if our own teams don’t feel respected. It has to live inside before it can breathe outside.

Connect

Connection, for me, is the antidote to all that polish. The man in the hospice reminded me that truth connects far deeper than any manufactured hook. And in my work with charities and corporates alike, I’ve seen it again and again - the slightly messy, honest story always travels further than the airbrushed ones. To lead responsible change, we also have to broaden what success looks like.If our only metric is clicks, manipulation will always win. We need to measure trust, resonance, and prioritise building long-term relationships with our customers, clients and supporters. If you are hustling with hooks, you will get found out in time.

Spark Joy

Joy isn’t optional glitter sprinkled on top; it’s the current that keeps everything alive. You can always tell when a team has been allowed to laugh and play in the creation - the campaign just feels warmer.

That’s why I loved the Amaze project so much. That little game of Bench Bingo reminded me how joy can open people up, create shared understanding and spark the kind of creative flow that connects.

Joy and play are not the opposite of seriousness – they help us learn and make meaning together. And when we let that kind of energy into the process, it always finds its way into the work.

Enable Action

Finally, enable action. Don’t just stir emotion and then leave people hanging; give them clarity and choice. Tell them honestly what you offer, what it does, how it might make them feel, and then let them decide.

Sometimes that means slowing down rather than rushing, asking whether we’re building confidence for the long term or simply chasing the next click.

Leading change that lasts

So how do we lead responsible marketing change when the landscape keeps shifting? We start by modelling it - building cultures that respect and connect internally before expecting it externally. We make space for joy and humanity in the process, not as decoration at the end. And we tell our stories with dignity, empathy and heart.

Because storytelling sits right at the centre of it all. It’s how we make sense of information, of change, of each other. Whether you’re a charity, a business, or a one-person crusade trying to do something better in the world, the stories you tell - and the way you tell them - are what create connection and trust.

At Better, that’s the work we love most: helping people find the stories that feel real, the ones that align hearts and strategy, the ones that remind everyone why the work matters in the first place.

So yes, plumbing may sometimes feel like it would’ve been more technologically simple, but marketing delivered with humanity, joy, and respect can change how people see the world - and that’s a flow worth keeping any day of the week.