Introduction to The Marketing Pinball Machine™

For decades, marketers relied on the funnel: neat, linear, and predictable.

Awareness flowed into consideration, consideration into purchase, and purchase into loyalty. Clean in theory, easy to measure, and comforting to present on a slide.

But here’s the problem: Customers do not live in funnels. They live in real life… and for better or worse (worse, I think, but more on that another time), that increasingly means they live on their screens in a constant state of shifting attention.

Today’s customer journey looks less like a funnel and more like a pinball machine; chaotic, unpredictable, and shaped by countless bounces across platforms, devices, and, just as importantly, human touchpoints. Someone might hear about your brand from a teammate, read about it in an AI-generated answer, see it in a TikTok scroll, spot it in a local store, and finally decide to buy after reading three reviews and texting a friend.

I call this the “Marketing Pinball Machine™”. It’s the framework I’ve developed to describe today’s reality. And I’ve lived it, leading teams through wholesale and DTC transformations, scaling a start-up to 9-figure growth, and repositioning a legacy apparel brand for omnichannel success.

This isn’t about abandoning measurement or discipline. It’s about changing the game we think we’re playing. In pinball, your job is not to control the ball. Your job is to keep it in play.  With credibility, with content, with consistent touchpoints… keep it in play long enough to build trust and then earn the ability to keep it.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll break down the rules of the Marketing Pinball Machine™; what you can control, what you can’t, and how to build the kind of credibility that keeps customers playing. I hope you’ll join the conversation!