‘Absolute crisis’: Are marketers at breaking point?

“I’m seeing huge amounts of overwhelm and fear, because in the environment we’re in people are feeling really unsafe.”

These are the words of former Huawei global chief brand officer turned executive coach Andrew Garrihy, who isn’t surprised 65.3% of marketers have felt overwhelmed over the past 12 months. Nor is he shocked 60.7% of the 2,350 respondents to Marketing Week’s 2026 Career & Salary Survey feel undervalued and 55.1% are emotionally exhausted.

A poor economy, ruthless corporate culture and technological disruption are combining to push marketers to breaking point.

“I’m seeing a doubling of people turning up to a [coaching] session in crisis, like in absolute crisis,” Garrihy explains. “There’s a doubling of my clients who ring me saying: ‘I need to speak to you today’. The first 30 minutes are just getting them calm. I’m seeing a dramatic increase.”

His coaching work covers three types of leader – newly appointed CMOs, senior marketers keen to improve their performance and established leaders looking to confide in someone who’s been there.

It seems they’re fighting for their lives at this point and it’s survival of the fittest.

Alice ter Haar, Badass Unicorn

Garrihy encounters newly appointed marketing leaders “full of imposter syndrome and completely overwhelmed”, unwilling to admit they’re struggling because they’ve wanted this role their entire life.

“They’ve got the gig. They don’t want to let anyone know they don’t have all the answers. Imposter syndrome is off the charts and they feel the stakes are incredibly high,” Garrihy explains.

Even with seasoned leaders, he is having more conversations that start with the words: “I’m overwhelmed”.

“I’ve probably had 10 sessions in the last two months where people have come and burst into tears. They are so overwhelmed. Now that happens with coaches, because [people] feel safe. But it’s just that intense. It is a really tough time for marketers,” he says.

Garrihy understands exactly how they feel. The stress he experienced while serving as Samsung director of corporate marketing caused Garrihy to develop diabetes.

He joined the six-strong UK marketing team in the summer of 2011. Samsung was a worldwide Olympic partner and official wireless communications equipment sponsor for the London 2012 Olympics, yet plans were still relatively nascent when Garrihy arrived.

Most marketers feel overwhelmed, undervalued and emotionally exhausted

His remit spanned everything from strategy and planning to media buying, agency management, PR and analytics. He took the team from six to 70, managing 15 agencies for the Olympics alone. The highs were massive. Garrihy successfully grew the brand from number seven to first place in the space of two years, delivering 55% brand growth and winning Samsung it first Cannes Gold Lion.

However, success came at a “huge cost”. Unprepared for the level of “pressure or intensity” and operating inside a “brutal culture”, Garrihy describes the experience as bittersweet.

“I just was not ready for a role that complicated and that intense in that culture. It was a real challenge, because it was a turning point in my career, but it also cost me my health,” he explains.

He joined semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm in 2013 as EMEA vice-president of marketing. As the role shifted from building a consumer brand towards a B2B audience, he used his three years in the business to “reset completely” before taking on his next big role at Chinese telecoms giant Huawei. At this point in his career Garrihy had established his personal red lines, central to that being open and proud about his sexuality as a gay man. He had also spent the years post-Samsung learning how to better manage stress.

“When I was at Samsung, I was probably pace setting. I was too hands-on. I wasn’t trusting people enough, but by the time I got to Huawei I was really growing as a leader and learning how to lead,” he recalls.

Toxic performance

With businesses often taking marketers’ skills and commitment for granted, coupled with many receiving a lack of recognition, it’s no wonder people are burnt out, says The Whole Marketer founder Abigail Dixon.

“I’m not surprised people feel overwhelmed having more to do than we can handle. The opportunity for marketing to be what it can really be is great. However, it’s not being matched with the resource, the investment, the accountability or recognition,” she states.

Compound tiredness is being fuelled by the “permacrisis” of the past six years, from Covid to economic uncertainty to political instability. During the pandemic, in particular, businesses struggling to find solutions to the crisis explored the potential of marketing.

“It was almost like, let’s kick the door down. Which was great, we’re exactly where we want to be, which is for marketing to be leading, be the growth engine, lead the long-term commercial agenda,” says Dixon.

“We’ve got this increased accountability, but as a result we haven’t got resource, we haven’t got more investment. We’re actually having to physically do more with less – fewer people, less resource. But almost feel like we can’t say anything, because we’ve wanted this for so long.”

I’m seeing a doubling of people turning up to a [coaching] session in crisis, like in absolute crisis.

Andrew Garrihy

On top of that, she notes a dramatic shift in the way marketers operate, with bursts of campaign activity being replaced by the pressure to be “always on”.

“There’s always something that’s for market,” says Dixon. “We need to be more reactive than we’ve ever been, which means we’re having to bring things to market at a pace that we’ve never done before. It really is a lot.”

The obsession within business for ‘high performing’ teams is only making the situation worse. Dixon challenges the terminology, preferring the idea of teams that are high performing, successful and fulfilled.

“High performance conjures up images of: ‘Go again, go again, go again,’” she explains.

“It’s really unfair to talk about how we need to have high performing teams. It’s almost like, you can’t ask someone to win a Formula 1 race if you’re giving them a shitty car and you haven’t got a big enough team. The expectation stays the same. It’s not fair.”

It’s also unsurprising marketers lack trust when they are under pressure to deliver in environments with no psychological safety, Dixon adds.

Is being ‘high-performing’ too much to ask of marketing teams?

The extent to which people in the industry are struggling is deeply concerning, agrees former Deliveroo marketer and founder of Badass Unicorn, Alice ter Haar.

“It seems they’re fighting for their lives at this point and it’s survival of the fittest,” she says. “That is an environment in which imposter syndrome runs amok, because it preys on fear.”

Fear for job security is silencing marketers from expressing how they feel, exposing the number of workplaces with an acute lack of psychological safety, ter Haar notes. She cites the work of Professor Amy Edmondson, who demonstrated how psychological safety, high performance and diversity are linked.

“There are a lot of teams that are driving high performance through some of the really unhealthy mechanisms of imposter syndrome, overworking and perfectionism, going above and beyond, and never saying no,” says ter Haar.

She argues too many companies are operating in an “anxiety state”, defined by low psychological safety, high pressure, unrealistic expectations and unreasonable demands.

“Marketers are often asked to do the impossible and have ridiculous targets. Ridiculous targets that nobody can hit is not an environment in which people feel safe,” ter Haar points out.

Weaponised resilience

The uncertainty that comes with working in marketing is contributing to the strain, notes professor at the Warwick Business School, Laura Chamberlain.

“We have to sit with the ‘It depends’ an awful lot. There is no right or wrong. It is not black and white. There are not binary choices. What that means is people have to back themselves and trust their gut, and they’re petrified of getting it wrong,” she states.

Layer on a precarious job market and you have lots of people living in fear. The Career & Salary Survey finds two-fifths (42.5%) of marketers wouldn’t talk to their manager or the wider business about their mental health. Free text comments expose concerns about being seen as weak and lacking resilience.

“People are scared. They’re scared of getting it wrong. They’re scared of being found out, because if people are in a position where they do have an employed role everybody’s desperate for stability,” says Chamberlain.

We’ve got this increased accountability, but as a result we haven’t got resource, we haven’t got more investment.

Abigail Dixon, The Whole Marketer

Furthermore, she adds thinking about resilience when you’re at breaking point is “nonsensical”.

“That’s like trying to learn to deadlift while you’re running a marathon. They’re not in a place where they can actually think about how to become more resilient. It’s more about burnout prevention at that point rather than building resilience and they are not one and the same,” says Chamberlain.

The idea of “bouncing back” is particularly unhelpful, as resilience is needed when something has changed, she notes. Likewise, the idea of “toughing it out” is trapping marketers in an “exhausting, unrelenting cycle”.

“What we’re talking about here are people limping along feeling burnt out, feeling unsupported. That is not people showing their resilience. That is people on a road to burnout and it is not people being offered the support everybody needs to be resilient,” she explains.

In her work, Chamberlain has reframed resilience from a “solo endeavour” to a “team sport”. Rather than constantly having to be tough, she talks about the concept of positive resilience and how teams can build a culture where resilience thrives.

Marketers’ worth can’t be reduced to a line item on a spreadsheet

“There isn’t a resilience nirvana that we’re all heading for. A lot of it is trial and error, but there are practical things people can do to help, either as individuals, leaders or teams,” she notes.

Start on a positive note by documenting your strengths as an individual and those of your team, Chamberlain advises. Building a culture of resilience involves leaders modelling positive resilience and communicating this clearly to their team, she suggests, while creating a judgement-free environment is crucial.

This is where starting a conversation – be it with colleagues, family, friends, a coach or therapist – can make a massive difference.

“The evidence shows there are lots of people who feel the same and sometimes being brave, and being the first person to say, ‘Is anybody else feeling this way or is anybody else struggling?’ can be really powerful,” she adds.

Avoiding the spiral

Resilience is also a focus for Garrihy, who has developed a model specific to marketers. The PRESS+M (pause, reflect, evaluate, seek, sustain, meaning) process begins with realising you have a problem, which is often the hardest part. He calls this the start of “the death spiral”.

“First you get overwhelmed and then because you get overwhelmed, you can’t get clear. Then because you can’t get clear, you get more overwhelmed. Then you can’t prioritise, you make poor decisions. Then it spirals further out of control,” he explains.

For Garrihy, the trigger he was entering the death spiral was being snappy, which was out of character. When coaching he encourages marketers to notice what’s changing with their behaviour and train themselves to spot the triggers.

“The challenge is when people are really in that spiral. You hear the story about people in a fire, they get tunnel vision. The door might be right in front of them, but they can’t see it. It’s exactly what happens. People get so overwhelmed and panicked, they just can’t see anything,” Garrihy explains.

“They don’t even realise they’re in this spiral. They just know they are desperately unhappy or making themselves sick.”

People are scared. They’re scared of getting it wrong. They’re scared of being found out.

Laura Chamberlain, Warwick Business School

Once marketers get to a point where they recognise their triggers, he urges them to stop and reframe what’s happening, evaluate what’s important and try to prioritise.

“When I used to get in this, I’d be ruthless. I would sometimes clear my entire diary for a week and say: ‘There’s two things I’ve got to fix. I’m sorry, everything else is just going to have to wait for a week,’” Garrihy explains.

“It’s really hard for some marketers. They’re like, ‘I can’t do it. This meeting’s important.’ But once you do that, you get an incredible level of clarity and you get a reset. Then everything changes.”

The reset might mean embracing change, from reframing expectations and how you delegate to accepting you might be in the wrong job. In some cases, Garrihy has suggested marketers should cut their losses and leave.

He recalls one coaching client he advised to resign. They have since been promoted twice and are lined up as the CEO’s successor.

“Only two years prior, that person was on the verge of a nervous breakdown because they were in the wrong place. Sometimes you are in the wrong place. We don’t have to put up with that,” Garrihy states.

The most important thing the industry can do is normalise conversations about mental health, he argues, thereby dispelling the belief that opening up could mean the end of your career.

“That’s one of the first things I do when I get people coming to me in absolute crisis, I normalise it for them. That alone just takes a huge weight off,” says Garrihy.

“They’re like: ‘Oh my God, I thought it was just me.’ No, it’s not. This happens all the time and it’s happening a lot.”

Marketing Week will continue to explore the state of burnout and imposter syndrome in a series of forthcoming features.