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Future 50 Marketing

Future 50: introducing the most extraordinary new marketers in an extraordinary year

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By Cameron Clarke, Editor

November 17, 2020 | 4 min read

The countdown to find out who has made it into this year’s Future 50 is over. We can now reveal our list of 2020’s best new marketers. But first, let us explain why our global search for outstanding talent has taken on even greater significance this year.

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The Drum has revealed the 2020 Future 50 list

As soon as we saw the reception to our first Future 50 in 2019, we knew we had to make this project an annual event. And so as a bright new year dawned, full of endless optimism, we started 2020 by once again inviting our readers to nominate the world’s best new marketers. By February, a deluge of testimonials had poured in. But by March, many of those tipped as unstoppable high-fliers were suddenly fearing for their futures.

The Future 50 went on hold, but marketing didn’t. The troubling months that followed forced marketers to push their skills to the limit, rapidly embracing new ideas and making good old-fashioned marketing work in a world that simply wasn’t working.

That marketing has found a way to not only survive but in some cases even thrive during this turmoil is a tribute to the industry’s manifold talents. Navigating the pandemic has not been a triumph of youth over age any more than it has been of experience over exuberance. It has been a triumph of marketers young and old working individually and collectively to find the solutions their businesses and customers so desperately need.

But we are choosing to celebrate new talent (those under 30, or in marketing for less than 18 months) here. Why? Because, quite simply, this is a generation of marketers whose induction to this industry has come during one of the most unwelcoming business climates many of us can remember.

And on top of that, they just do not get recognized enough. Senior colleagues can always count on our industry to revel in their achievements and offer a podium for their wisdom. Yet for too long, the next generation has not been able to say the same.

The Future 50 allows us to give outstanding emerging marketers the acclaim and the platform they deserve, and over the coming days we’ll be handing over thedrum.com to our fantastic 50 to tell us how the industry can overcome its biggest challenges and steel itself for the future.

But this isn’t just about fleeting acknowledgement. Throughout the coming year, we’ll be routinely calling in on our alumni to find out what life in marketing really looks like today for those who’ll shape its tomorrow.

But first, you need to meet them. And you can do so here. Our final 50 have been whittled down by our global editors from hundreds of nominees. They have been chosen on account of their accomplishments and – especially this year – their perseverance in the face of professional adversity. They not only hail from all around the world but from all across the world of marketing, from household brands Netflix, Spotify and McDonald’s to game-changers including Save the Children, TikTok and Pomelo.

Meet all of this year’s inductees on our Future 50 hub.

All that is left to be said is a huge congratulations to all those featured this year. And a huge thank you to everyone who took time to nominate and participate in our research. After a brutal year quite unlike any other, knowing that the future of our industry is in such good hands should give us all cause for hope.

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