Mark Ritson: When did marketers become so ashamed of managing brands?

Slouched in an exit row on a plane, on the runway, waiting to fly somewhere, I whipped out my iPhone and tried to entertain myself with LinkedIn. As I scrolled through my feed I was almost immediately depressed.
‘The Brand Manager is Dead…Long Live the Brand Activist’ was the title of the post at the top of my feed. Above it there was an image of several young, millennial-aged managers holding placards. I harrumphed into my G&T and swore under my breath.
This was not a sur