Why gold medal marketing is part artistic, part technical

Hi {{first_name}} ,

Coming to you slightly late (by my own self-imposed content calendar and deadlines), but refreshed thanks to a short Poconos getaway that let me conveniently miss the ❄ Blizzard of the Century ❄!

Each month, I cut through the marketing noise to bring you real talk from other leaders, what’s actually worth reading, and the occasional hot take that makes you think.

In today’s newsletter:

What's on my mind this month is what’s been on my TV screen: The Winter Olympics, specifically figure skating. I’ve been captivated by figure skating since I was a child, not just during the Winter Olympics—my Gram would record every tournament, competition, or professional showcase for me on VHS so I never missed a double axel or a camel spin.

As a dancer, it’s the artistic, balletic moves that draw me in, paired with the sparkle of sequins on a skirt as it flows and flutters. But figure skating is more than just artistry—it’s an athletic feat, requiring dedicated cross-training and years of practice to perfect the level of difficulty and complexity in technical elements, especially at the Olympic level.

It’s this mix of artistry and athletics that makes figure skating so irresistible. The technical elements are objective and clear; each element has a level of difficulty that’s graded, and while different judges grade them slightly differently, there’s generally a consensus on how well something was performed technically. But the creative elements are completely subjective. Costumes, music, choreography, and performance quality are all a matter of taste. There’s not one right or wrong interpretation.

As a marketer, I feel this tension between creative and technical elements constantly. There are technical foundations that objectively make marketing clear and effective—or muddy and confusing.

Take messaging. What I call the “ladder” is the technical scaffolding: your value prop at the top (your core promise—what unique outcome customers achieve), supported by benefits (what customers can DO, BE, or FEEL with the product, always framed as customer capabilities starting with an action verb), grounded in features at the bottom (the technical “how it works” details that prove the benefits—these come last, never first).

Just like you can see when a skater falls out of a triple axel or wobbles on their twizzles, it’s easy to see when messaging’s technical elements are off. Maybe it leads with features and product attributes instead of benefits. Maybe it’s unclear what problems a product or service actually solves, meaning there’s no value prop.

But messaging isn’t just graded on its technical elements. There are also the artistic elements—harder to quantify, but you know it when you see it. Is the messaging authentic, using the language of your customer? Is it relevant, solving their actual problems? Is every word doing something?

This is where it gets harder to judge. As a marketer, you need to be in lockstep with your customer to know if the language resonates and if it solves the right problems. If you’ve ever shared your messaging with peers or leaders for feedback, you know how subjective the artistic elements are—spending countless revisions replacing the same two words back and forth on a slide (not at all speaking from experience).

I remember the first time I was responsible for delivering a first call deck. I took the trainings, looked at previous examples, and reviewed all my customer feedback. I sat down with my manager to show him my first pass. I had the 5-slide opening structure, every slide title started with an action verb—it ticked all the boxes.

Then he asked, “Why did you choose ‘improve’ for the headline—’improve employee experience’?”

Me: “I…thought that’s what we wanted our product to do? Improve the experience?”

Manager: “Is that the most impactful, aspirational word? What about ‘transform’ or ‘elevate’?”

Technically, “improve” was the message. But it wasn’t the most impactful verb to convey that our product could fundamentally change their workplace. My manager, a much more seasoned marketer, saw something I didn’t—elevating the message to take our product from a “nice to have” to a “need to have.” a c

This is the work seasoned figure skaters do on the ice. They don’t just land the triple axel; they do it with a smile, with effortless flair, delivering an emotional performance that leaves the audience on their feet and at-home viewers clapping on our couches.

You need to learn the technical marketing elements to deliver good marketing. But the artistic elements—your judgment, taste, and creativity—those aren’t learned from a framework or a messaging template. They come from exposure: reading widely, studying what makes you stop scrolling, paying attention to the language your customers actually use. They come from reps: writing draft after draft, getting feedback that stings a little, and slowly developing an instinct for what lands.

And taste is personal. It’s why three different people reviewing your messaging will give you three different pieces of feedback. It’s shaped by everything you’ve lived and done and paid attention to, which is exactly what makes it yours—and exactly what makes it impossible to shortcut. It’s why three different judges will give three different artistic scores to one technically flawless performance.

The technical elements will get you on the ice. But it’s taste that gets the audience to their feet—like Alysa Liu 🥇 .

Here’s where I share what I’ve found worthwhile among the myriad newsletters, podcasts, and open tabs across my devices lately. No fluff, just the good stuff.

👷‍♀ More Fortune 500 marketing teams are hiring contractors. According to research by Assemble, 30-70% of marketing organizations are freelancers and contractors. When CMOs are tasked with finding greater productivity to achieve lofty goals without accelerating spend, they’re turning to contractors, consultants, and freelancers—not FTEs.

tl;dr: While I don’t market myself as "freelance” or “contract” because of the transactional perception, I do see a greater appetite and interest for non-FTE hiring in general. Whether it’s to make up for a skills gap on a team, accelerate a project in the short term, or provide strategic guidance to an otherwise tactical team, consultants and contractors play an important role in supplementing full-time marketing organizations, especially when long-term needs are uncertain thanks to rapid workplace changes with AI.

🧱 Is everyone over their phone? The brick, a physical device that blocks apps from your phone, is just the latest tool on the market to help people curb smartphone usage. From chaining a phone to the wall, to turning smartphone screens greyscale, people are looking for something more tangible to get them off their devices than simply screen time limits (which, let’s be honest, we’ve all bypassed).

tl;dr: The technology backlash continues into 2026, perhaps more vehemently than ever before thanks to the barrage of alerts, TikToks, texts, and emails that flood our devices. As a person, I believe doing whatever is needed to break our bad habits and form a more healthy attachment to technology. As a marketer, I wonder how much of our SMS-marketing, app push notifications, and carefully segmented email journeys have helped contribute to the overwhelm we’re all feeling, and the need to revert back to a dumb phone. I do miss snake!

A bit of my own writing, recent engagements, client updates, and things I’m doing.

💰 Announcing Hypercore's Series A! It was an honor to help my client, Hypercore, polish and launch their $13.5M Series A announcement + the launch of their AI Admin Agent. The small but mighty team had its launch assets together and brought me back in as an advisor for a Launch Sprint to guide and shape their messaging, channel strategy, and product announcement. After working on Hypercore’s initial content strategy and customer stories in 2024, it was an honor to come back to support this milestone.

🏅 Coaching a new PMM leader to step into the role with confidence. The one thing I miss about corporate is leading and mentoring a team, so I was thrilled to take on coaching a seasoned marketer as she took on an expanded scope, managing a PMM team. Through bi-weekly coaching and async reviews, I’m helping her build her confidence while getting an understanding of the PMM basics. Have a team member who could use similar support? Let's chat!

👗 BRB adding “literary analyst” to my LinkedIn page. I was honored to speak to Sarah Chapelle of Taylor Swift Styled about “Wuthering Heights” (both Emerald’s Version and Brontë’s Version!). In my debut as a "literary analyst" (adding that to my many multi-hyphenate titles!)I talked about how and where the film's creative licenses helped or hurt the novel's themes and narrative, and how fashion evoked the themes of the film, both through Catherine's on-screen costumes and Margot Robbie's off-screen promotional looks.

I'm so grateful to this network of leaders, and I’d love an introduction if you know anyone who needs Q2 strategic support to:

If you’re hiring, let me know—I know a bunch of talented marketers from Senior Manager to VP looking for their next role, and I’d love to connect you! I like helping great people work for great people.

Jodi