James Hurman Challenges Scott Galloway's Assertion That Traditional Advertising Is Dead

New Zealand marketer and co-founder of brand health tracking SAAS business Tracksuit James Hurman, has disputed American marketer and Section founder and chairman Scott Galloway’s recent assertions that traditional branding and advertising is dead.

Speaking on the Uncensored CMO podcast, Scott asked, “What do the companies that have added over $100 billion in the last decade all have in common? They don’t advertise,” and suggested that “Don Draper has been drawn and quartered.”

“The sun has passed midday on traditional advertising,” Scott said.

“This notion that you can have a mediocre product and instill it with great emotion and just sell a lot of it … That’s done, that’s over. If you have a truly better product, people will talk about it online and word will get out. So a lot of the capital has been taken out of marketing and re-invested in things like supply chain. ‘Can I get you something within 48 hours for free?’”

Speaking in his role as programme director for WARC’s Master of Advertising Effectiveness, James has strongly disputed this hypothesis.

“I'm pretty sure that's not true ... but maybe he doesn't really believe that -- he was just having a kind of memory lapse that day,” James said.

As part of an evidence-based rebuttal, James systematically dismantled Galloway's assertions with market data, noting that Amazon spends roughly $20 billion annually on advertising, making it the world’s largest advertiser at $3.57 billion, while Google's parent company Alphabet spends $9 billion.

James also noted that Google’s $9 billion ad spend is proof that even digital natives invest heavily in traditional media.

Data shows Amazon ($20 billion), Apple ($7 Billion) and Google ($9 billion) dominate global advertising – contradicting Scott Galloway's claim that ‘billion-dollar brands don't advertise.

“Amazon spends about 3.5% of revenue on ads – a bit below the 5% average but still massive.

“When you're already spending more than anyone else ... the gains you'll see by spending more will diminish very quickly. Smart people at Amazon have figured that out.” He contrasted this with Nvidia’s $100m spend. “He's not being untruthful about his own experiences, it's just that you can't apply those experiences to everything and see those same things happen.

“Scott's right about open AI and Nvidia, they have relatively low advertising spends, but Nvidia still spends about 100 million dollars annually ... and even OpenAI ran a Super Bowl ad in 2025.”

The hotel industry provided another key counterpoint. Despite Scott’s claim that he books through TripAdvisor or AI prompts like 'best gym in Berlin', data shows Marriott and Hilton grew market share from 3% in 2000 to 8% today. Marriott's revenue jumped from $14 billion to $25 billion since 2014.

“From $14 billion in revenue in 2014 to $25 billion today ... all while increasing ad spend. I like so much of what Scott has to say ... but when it comes to marketing, brand building and advertising, the sensational stuff that he says just doesn't hold water in most cases. it's obviously and very provably wrong.”

He dismissed Galloway’s AI-booking claims as “statistically irrelevant next to millions of brand-loyal customers.”

“It's very unscientific to look at what's happening in our own lives and in our small circle, extrapolate that out and expect that to be the pattern that holds true across the whole market," James said, "And that's what's happening here."

James also challenged Scott’s use of Nike as an example of advertising's declining value.

"The thing is, Nike's downfall came after they significantly reduced their advertising spend, especially in traditional media and brand-building ads," James said.

"They were a great advertiser, doing very well, and then they turned away from advertising, and their financial success plummeted. It wasn't just the lack of advertising -- they also reduced their physical availability by pulling out of retail stores, but we know from all the evidence that if you shift your spend away from brand-building advertising, your growth and profitability will suffer exactly as it has for Nike. “

While he stressed that Scott’s interpretation ignored these compounding factors, James did praise Scott’s thoughtful, insightful perspectives on many important topics. James cautioned professionals, “enjoy [Scott’s] societal commentary, but take his marketing advice with a grain of salt."

With even historically light advertisers like Tesla now embracing campaigns, James’ analysis underscores advertising's enduring role in scaling enterprises.

“My programme teaches principles backed by empirical evidence – not opinions,” James reiterated.

"In my programme, I teach the evidence-based principles of advertising effectiveness.

"There is a very broad base of empirical evidence behind those principles. They're not my reckons or my anecdotal observations about how I personally relate to advertising, or my predictions of how advertising may or may not go in the future. These are generalisable patterns that we see across loads of data from every category all over the world., and that's important.

"It should be the academic standard that educators like me and Scott are held to, to ensure we're not misinforming people about how brands and advertising work."