News
QVC Launches Surprise Bid for TikTok, Citing “Shocking Similarities”

WEST CHESTER, PA — Television shopping giant QVC stunned the business world yesterday with an unexpected $80 billion offer to acquire social media platform TikTok, describing the move as "the most logical merger since peanut butter met chocolate."

QVC executives reportedly became interested in the acquisition after noticing that TikTok had essentially evolved into their exact business model: attractive people frantically pushing products while a timer counts down.

"We watched TikTok transform from dancing teens to an endless stream of 'link in bio' product recommendations, and realized they're just QVC for people with shorter attention spans," said Martin Gold, QVC's Chief Strategic Repositioning Officer. "Why compete when we can combine forces? They already have the 'limited time offer' anxiety perfected."

According to leaked internal documents, QVC executives were particularly impressed by TikTok's ability to seamlessly transition from entertainment to shopping without users fully realizing what was happening.

"Their #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt hashtag has over 73 billion views," Gold explained. "We've spent 36 years trying to convince people our products aren't impulse purchases, while TikTok users proudly celebrate their lack of financial discipline. It's brilliant."

TikTok's spokesperson, Melissa Kind, appeared surprised by the offer but noted that their content creators have already mastered the QVC fundamentals of "feigned enthusiasm" and "manufactured urgency."

"Our internal research shows the average TikTok Shop creator now uses phrases like 'you need this,' 'running out fast,' and 'changed my life' approximately every 3.7 seconds," Kind admitted. "The transition chould be seamless."

The merger would reportedly introduce exciting synergies, including mandatory 15-second sales training for all TikTok creators and a new feature that automatically adds "But wait, there's more!" to any video under 60 seconds.

Early plans also include a revolutionary "SwipeShopping" feature that would charge users' credit cards if they watch product videos for more than 7 seconds without scrolling.

At press time, marketing teams worldwide were rushing to adapt their strategies for the possible merger, with one agency reportedly developing a "QVCTok Content Matrix" to help brands determine whether their content should be "high-volume shouting" or "theatrical gasping."

Editorial
If marketing was the Avengers, we need a hero

From the Mind of B.F. Spaulding

Publisher's Note: Mr. Spaulding sent this week’s editorial while flying to what he describes as “a tour through the 14th circle of Hell, alternatively known as a customer event”. He reported he will be drinking bourbon from a coffee mug labeled "Not Today, Satan" throughout the event.

In many enterprise organizations there is a special breed of professional who lives in this strange purgatory trapped between departments. A group whose very title prompts the existential question "But are they really marketers?" at least once per quarter. I speak, of course, of Product Marketers, the most criminally misunderstood members of any marketing team.

Having spent years watching this drama unfold across multiple companies, typically firing up during a reorganization. Some executive suddenly suggests: "Shouldn't Product Marketing report to Product?"

This question is inevitably followed by Product Marketing being shuffled around the org chart like the unwanted holiday fruitcake, perpetually re-gifted between departments, always belonging everywhere and nowhere at once.

Allow me to settle this debate once and for all, preferably before I finish the last airplane bourbon and really start speaking my mind: Product Marketers are marketers.

Damn good ones, too.

The "Product" in their title is a modifier, not a departmental reassignment. They're not "Product's Marketers" – they're "Marketers of the Product." The distinction matters, and it’s not just semantics.

I witnessed a spectacular example of this confusion during a go-to-market planning session. When the Product Marketing Director began discussing positioning, the Head of Product interrupted with: "Shouldn't you be focusing on release notes instead?" Meanwhile, the CMO chimed in with: "And don't forget, we need some social media posts that’ll drive new demos.” The poor Product Marketer looked like someone who'd shown up to play poker and found everyone else loading their paintball guns for a rousing game of Chase the PMM.

Product Marketers exist at the intersection of what a product does, what customers need, and what the market values. They translate technical capabilities into customer benefits without making the engineers cringe. They make feature releases sound less like a bad dream and more like salvation. They convince sales teams to actually try the messaging they've spent months perfecting, only to see it immediately revert to some homegrown analogy involving fishing metaphors that only confuse the prospect.

Product Marketers remind me of Hawkeye from those Avenger movies that are perfect for red eye back from Vegas¹. They’re standing there alongside the gods and science experiments, armed with nothing but precision and skill, yet somehow vital to the whole damn enterprise.

It’s thankless work. Essential, but thankless.

The confusion stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what Product Marketing actually does. They're not there to build another white paper (though they often do). They're not there to tweet about new features (though they're frequently asked to). They're there to ensure that what you've built connects meaningfully with why anyone should care.

In my experience, the best Product Marketers are bilingual – fluent in both the technical dialogue of Product teams and the benefit-oriented language of Marketing. They can discuss API functionality in the morning and emotional value propositions after lunch, and tell a better product story than the most seasoned sales god. They understand that a "streamlined database architecture with enhanced query capabilities" means absolutely nothing to most humans, but "finds what you need in half the time" might actually sell something.

I once watched a Product Marketer transform a 90-minute technical keynote about platform migration into a three-word value proposition that increased meetings by 47%. When the Head of Engineering complained that "it oversimplified years of sophisticated work," the Product Marketer simply nodded and said, "You're welcome." I sent that marketer a bottle of bourbon, he probably deserved a dozen.

The irony is that Product Marketing's value becomes most apparent in its absence. Without strong Product Marketing, you get sales teams making up wild claims about capabilities, marketing teams creating campaigns disconnected from what the product actually does, and product teams building features that address problems no one has.

I've seen companies spend millions developing features their customers didn't want because no one bothered to ask the Product Marketers what the market was actually asking for. I've watched marketing campaigns crash and burn because they focused on benefits the product wouldn’t deliver. I've witnessed sales decks that were so disconnected from reality that they might as well have included unicorns and time travel as core features.

These disasters don't happen when Product Marketing is respected, resourced, and actually listened to.

So where should Product Marketing report?

In my bourbon-inspired opinion: They should report wherever gives them the authority to say "no" when it matters. If that's under a CMO, great. If that's under the Head of Product, sure. Hell, in one company I worked with, Product Marketing reported directly to the CEO because she recognized their strategic value.

What matters isn't the reporting line on an org chart. What matters is whether they're empowered to be the customer's voice in product discussions and the product's interpreter in market conversations.

The next time someone questions whether Product Marketers are "real marketers," ask them this: Who else in your organization can explain complex technical capabilities in terms that make customers care, train sales teams on messaging that actually sells, launch a feature that changed the night before, create positioning that differentiates against competitors, and translate market signals into product strategy – all while being blamed for missed product deadlines they had no control over?

That's not just marketing. That's marketing on the highest difficulty setting.

So yes, Product Marketers are marketers. The best ones are also part therapist for everyone involved in going to market because the understand the whole picture. They deserve more respect than they typically get, bigger budgets than they're usually allocated, and at the very least, the professional courtesy of not questioning their departmental belonging every time someone wants to rage bait on LinkedIn.

And if you're a Product Marketer reading this – yes, I see you. Your job is impossible, your stakeholders are demanding, and no one fully understands what you do. Come find me at the bar. The bourbon's on me.

B.F. Spaulding is the Editor-in-Chief of Marketing Burnout and considers Product Marketers the unsung heroes of the marketing world. He can be found in whichever conference room has just finished a particularly contentious roadmap prioritization session, offering bourbon and sympathy to the exhausted Product Marketing Manager.

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