MARKETERS
THERAPY

01 — the insight

There is no shortage of opinions on Nigerian marketing Twitter: hot takes, frameworks, threads. But beneath all the performance is the feeling that marketing and its operators don't get the flowers they deserve.

In 2023, while people were burnt out, struggling with difficult managers, questioning their careers and trying to figure out how to do good work in a chaotic environment, Michael Oriade and I realised that there weren't many spaces where marketers could simply talk about their struggles. So we decided to start Marketers Therapy. We didn't want to create just another event. We wanted to create a room where marketers could stop performing and just be.

02 — the product as the format

I owned content, social media and brand communications, while Michael led operations. The first edition was intentionally small: 25 people in a room. We wanted to test whether people would actually open up if we gave them the right environment. They did.

Conversations emerged around workplace conflict, data-driven marketing, career uncertainty and the relief that comes with discovering that other people struggle with the same things.

That first room gave us the validation we needed. People talked, connected, and asked for another edition, and so we built more.

03 — scaling without losing the idea

Growth often presents an important question: how do you scale effectively without losing the thing people came for? People wanted intimacy, but the idea was spreading and more people wanted in. How did we preserve the safety of the group, while also ensuring that the number of attendees stayed manageable and each person in the hall felt seen?

For the second edition, we invited 50 people just to test what our bandwidth would be. We knew then that the core experience must be kept conversational, a principle that shaped Edition 3.0.

By June 2024, Marketers Therapy had grown to 150+ attendees. We also secured our first major ecosystem partnerships:

• WiiCreate — merchandise
• TechCabal — press
• SmarketersHub
• Contech
• Blurpe
• TEMSI
• The Garage

The event featured a keynote from Peace Itimi and an open AMA with Feranmi Ajetomobi. But the format remained deliberately human. The keynote focused on actual lessons rather than a highlight reel. We broke into conversation circles so people could connect with each other. The AMA allowed attendees to ask questions that wouldn't necessarily survive a conventional conference programme.

The room was bigger, but our premise stayed the same.

Marketers Therapy, editions 1.0 – 4.0 — ← scroll →

04 — building the brand around the community

My role wasn't limited to event-day execution. I owned the content and social media layer that gave Marketers Therapy a recognisable identity between editions. From the colours, to the fonts, to the content that was usually fun and relatable, we tried to sell the message that Marketers Therapy was about belonging.

That distinction shaped how we communicated the event and the kind of community we wanted to attract.

05 — results

what I learned

Marketers Therapy taught me that community can be a product. Understanding what people are missing, and creating the perfect conditions for them to experience it, is so important. The most important strategic decision we made was also the simplest: we refused to turn the thing people loved into something conventional just because it was getting bigger.

Twenty-five people gave us the first signal. One hundred and fifty gave us evidence that the signal was real. And somewhere between those two rooms, I learned that sometimes the best brands are built around what people need to feel.