Welcome to Silicon Valley, where everyone thinks they invented marketing, and every department thinks they’re the only one doing real work. If you’ve ever wandered through the open floor plan of a Bay Area tech company and wondered why there are six different teams all doing “growth,” congratulations: you’ve entered the magical maze of modern marketing.

Let’s break down who’s who, what they pretend to do, and what they’re actually doing.

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1. Product Marketing

What they say they do:
“We’re the voice of the customer.”

What they actually do:
Sit in meetings with Product, write one-pagers no one reads, and argue over the difference between “go-to-market” and “launch.”

Core skill: Making Venn diagrams and pretending they control pricing.

Their arch-nemesis: Product Management (who thinks they can write their own messaging because they “talked to two customers once.”)

Graphic idea:
A Venn diagram titled “PMM Responsibilities” with overlapping circles labeled: “Strategy,” “Messaging,” “Suffering.”

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2. Demand Gen (aka Growth Marketing)

What they say they do:
“We drive pipeline.”

What they actually do:
Send 14 nurture emails that end up in spam, complain about Salesforce hygiene, and obsess over cost-per-lead like it’s a religion.

Core skill: Turning whitepapers into gated content nobody wants.

Their arch-nemesis: Sales, who never follows up on the MQLs anyway.

Graphic idea:
A chart showing “Marketing Funnel” with stages labeled:

1. Awareness
2. Consideration
3. We spent $500K and got 3 leads

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3. Brand Marketing

What they say they do:
“We build emotional connection.”

What they actually do:
Hire expensive agencies to create vague mood boards with gradients and make up new brand guidelines every quarter.

Core skill: Saying “it doesn’t feel on-brand” while wearing hoodies with the old logo.

Their arch-nemesis: Demand Gen, who wants to put “FREE TRIAL” buttons on everything.

Graphic idea:
Side-by-side comparison of “Before Brand Refresh” (sane logo, readable font) and “After Brand Refresh” (5 shades of blue, no one knows what the company does).

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4. Content Marketing

What they say they do:
“We educate and inspire.”

What they actually do:
Write 2,000-word blog posts no one finishes reading and spend hours in Notion arguing over whether to use an Oxford comma.

Core skill: Ranking #4 on Google for a keyword no one searches.

Their arch-nemesis: Legal, who removes everything remotely interesting from their work.

Graphic idea:
A laptop screen with tabs open:

• “How to Write Thought Leadership”
• ChatGPT
• Grammarly
• “10 Best B2B Blog Examples”

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5. Comms / PR

What they say they do:
“We protect the company’s reputation.”

What they actually do:
Panic-write press releases for funding rounds, field angry reporter emails, and tell execs not to tweet.

Core skill: Burying the bad news in paragraph six.

Their arch-nemesis: The CEO’s LinkedIn.

Graphic idea:
A Slack thread with:
PR: “Can we run this by us first?”
CEO: posts anyway

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6. Social Media

What they say they do:
“We humanize the brand.”

What they actually do:
Battle the algorithm, reply to customer complaints with “So sorry to hear that! 💙” and beg for video budget.

Core skill: Creating memes during product outages.

Their arch-nemesis: Engineers, who won’t explain anything in less than 12 paragraphs.

Graphic idea:
Tweet mock-up:

User: “Your app is broken.”
Brand: “We’re looking into this now! 🧑‍🔧 Thanks for your patience!”
Internal Slack: “What is even happening???”

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7. Marketing Ops

What they say they do:
“We make everything run.”

What they actually do:
Live inside Marketo, break forms, fix forms, cry about attribution, and get blamed for everything.

Core skill: Speaking fluent acronyms: UTM, MQL, SFDC, API, WTF.

Their arch-nemesis: Everyone who doesn’t know what they do (aka everyone else).

Graphic idea:
A giant flowchart labeled “Campaign Workflow” that’s 90% red error symbols.

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8. Customer Marketing

What they say they do:
“We turn customers into advocates.”

What they actually do:
Harass CSMs for case study quotes, run events no one RSVPs to, and overuse the word “community.”

Core skill: Pretending webinars are fun.

Their arch-nemesis: Customers who don’t want to be referenced publicly.

Graphic idea:
Bar graph titled “Number of Customers Who Agreed to Be in Case Study”
Y-axis: Number of Customers
Bars:

• “Asked” – 58
• “Said Maybe” – 5
• “Actually Participated” – 1

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Final Thoughts:

If you’re confused about who does what in your company’s marketing org — good. That means you’re paying attention.

The truth is, marketing in Silicon Valley is a beautiful mess of overlapping charters, ego-driven roadmaps, and buzzwords masquerading as strategy. But hey, at least we all get to argue in Google Docs with pastel avatars.

So the next time you hear someone say, “We need to align on this cross-functionally,” just smile and nod. And prepare for five weeks of meetings that could have been an email.