James Whitaker

James Whitaker made his reputation by being wrong—or rather, by being right when everyone else was wrong. In 2015, he wrote a widely-mocked article arguing that digital attribution was fundamentally broken. In 2018, he predicted the collapse of the "performance marketing" paradigm. Both times, he was dismissed as a curmudgeon. Both times, he was eventually proven right.

His career has been defined by a willingness to question consensus and follow evidence wherever it leads—even when it leads to uncomfortable conclusions. After stints at agencies, consultancies, and in-house marketing teams, he's developed a finely-tuned BS detector and a reputation for calling out emperor's-new-clothes moments in the marketing industry.

James discovered SocioLogic while researching an article about AI in market research. He was initially skeptical--most "AI" claims in marketing are overhyped--but the technology convinced him. For once, here was something that actually lived up to the hype.

His writing is provocative by design. He believes that too much marketing content is bland consensus-building that tells readers what they want to hear. His articles are meant to challenge assumptions, spark debate, and occasionally make people uncomfortable. He's been called "refreshingly honest" and "insufferably contrarian," sometimes in the same sentence.

When he's not poking holes in marketing orthodoxy, James is an avid chess player (he claims it keeps his strategic thinking sharp) and an amateur historian of advertising. His office is decorated with vintage ads from campaigns that were considered brilliant at the time but aged poorly—a reminder, he says, that today's "best practices" might be tomorrow's cautionary tales.