Ick.

In my experience -- limited, I admit -- "next level" usually means just that: they want to move up a tier in scale/quality/profile; from local to regional, regional to national; from specialty to generalist, from obscure to household name, from competent (they always think they're competent) to powerhouse. It's absurd to think they can make a quantum leap instead of earning their way up, but it's a shockingly common benchmark.

As you point out, marketing really can't do that if the company itself isn't also moving in that direction.