Too short for a blog post, too interesting to ignore, here are a few snippets on what I’ve been thinking about lately.

Content creator angst

I am finding it harder and harder to post on social media. I feel like it has become a performance. People are trying to out-vulnerable each other.

I just want to do good work. Spending one second of my life editing a Reel seems like a waste of a second that will never come back.

Perhaps this is why I like writing. Create. Let it sit. Make it sing. And it doesn’t disappear.

There’s no schtick to it.

Content you can create in your underwear. Now that’s livin’.

Content creator angst part deux

My friends and colleagues are constantly debating any system tweak that pleases the LinkedIn algorithm. The major theme is to post stuff that generates comments. LinkedIn wants conversations.

I generally do not write for comments, but sometimes I stumble into it.

A few weeks ago, I posted a photo of myself sleeping on a bench in the Amsterdam airport after canceled flights and a hotel foul-up. It received more than 82,000 views.

The following week, I posted a helpful, original article reflecting on Peter Drucker’s unique wisdom and how his “five questions” remain relevant to marketing today. This post, which took about four hours to write, received 2,000 views, or about 3% of the airport post.

This suggests that the key to engagement on LinkedIn is goofy personal photos. But before you follow this path of least resistance, keep asking yourself — for LinkedIn and ALL social media activity — “to what end?”

Engagement is largely a vanity metric. You can engage yourself broke. Marketing is about creating customers.

It’s all about the feeling

New research shows that 42% of teens say that talking about their feelings is important to them, and brands are responding. McDonald’s new “Draw How You Feel” Happy Meal boxes trade the classic red for a blank canvas. This ties into a broader trend of experiential and wellness-driven packaging.

Built around the finding that 85% of teenage girls aren’t meeting recommended physical activity guidelines, Nike and Spotify launched Make Moves to encourage girls to move to just one song a day, using music to make physical activity more joyful and emotionally accessible. A UK pilot with 700 girls showed a 20% improvement in confidence and a 19% decrease in regular feelings of anxiety.

Experiential marketing is such a huge opportunity and is largely overlooked.

More about experiences

My new book, How AI Changes Your Customers, details six ways AI is rewiring human psychology.

Chief among these is cognitive offloading, addiction, and a trend to form trusting emotional connections with chatbots.

But pay attention to the news. There’s a backlash trend emerging.

Young people are rediscovering the joy of gathering. I’ve recently seen articles about young people watching movies together, listening to vinyl albums straight through at parties, and a surge in the popularity of board games:

How can your company help bring people together like this and be part of this trend?

Keeping pace with AI

The AI world is changing so rapidly. I think there are three key strategies to keep up:

1. Schedule time to dabble every day. Most platforms have a free or trial version. Push the envelope and experiment.
2. Subscribe to at least one podcast, newsletter, or video series commenting on the latest updates and releases. I really love the Artificial Intelligence podcast hosted by Paul Roetzer.
3. Join a community of like-minded people who are experimenting and can teach you by association. One option for marketers is RISE. You can’t stay relevant on your own.

We need to find new channels

Here’s another reason why looking at alternatives like experiential marketing and word-of-mouth makes sense: Social media use appears to be in decline. A roud-up of research I’ve seen:

• A 2025 Deloitte consumer trends survey of more than 4,000 Brits found that nearly a quarter of all consumers had deleted a social media app in the previous 12 months (inclund one-third of Gen Z)
• Social media use has steadily declined since time spent on the platforms peaked in 2022, according to an analysis of the online habits of 250,000 adults in more than 50 countries by the Financial Times and digital audience insights firm GWI. Globally, adults 16 and over spent an average of two hours and 20 minutes per day on social platforms by the end of 2024, down almost 10% since 2022. The decline was particularly pronounced among teens and 20-somethings…
• Young people who are deleting their social media platforms cite the increasing pressures of being online as well as damage to their mental health as causes. Deloitte’s consumer survey found that nearly a quarter of respondents who deleted social apps reported that these apps had negatively affected their mental health and consumed too much of their time.

Implementing AI in your company

Long ago, I led a Fortune 100 company into the digital age.

The marketing world faced the same distractions — lots of sexy opportunities to make a splash on social media, with easy-to-measure “Likes.”

I was more successful than almost any competitor in my space by staying strictly focused on one thing: Digital applications that could directly make us money or save us money.

And, like today, measurement with absolute attribution was difficult. But you know what great managers pay attention to?” Stories, like “hey, a customer just raved about how easy it is to do business with our new eCommerce system.”

I think this is still an effective implementation playbook: 1) Focus tightly on making money and saving money instead of vanity metrics; 2) Look for qualitative measures like comments and stories as a success indicator, at least at first.

Thanks for reading along with me today. I never take you for granted!

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post Content creator angst: You can engage yourself broke. appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

On every post I’ve written for at least two years, I’ve included a badge that states: “100% Human Content.” And this is, too (as you’ll see) but I used AI to compose most of it. I’d like to use this as a teachable moment on a smart way to use AI.

This post is about my annual Uprising Retreat. Nearly everyone there noted that this event is impossible to describe unless you’re there, but I’ll try. It’s a gathering of curious and brilliant people who openly share and teach one another, creating a bond that fosters career relevance. We also have a lot of fun in a breathtakingly beautiful place.

Now, during this event, I am psychologically and emotionally immersed. There is no way I can capture all the great highlights. This is where AI comes in.

Many of the attendees used the Plaud voice recorder to record and transcribe the talks. Dr. Matt Wilkinson uploaded these transcripts to Notebook LM, where we could all slice and dice the commentary. I used this to create a first draft of a highlight post and then used Claude to massage it a bit and put it in my voice.

So … what you are about to read is fully human content, parsed and assembled by AI.

The gift of uncertainty

Before each event, I send out a survey to let attendees prioritize the agenda. This year, one word kept popping up as they wrote about their careers: Uncertainty. So, I set the tone for the event with a brand new talk called “The Gift of Uncertainty.”

We are living in a “poly crisis.” Not just a hard moment. A genuinely disorienting one, where the norms and traditions and even laws that used to orient us feel like they’re shifting in real time. We are in a world of malignant uncertainty.

I opened the Uprising by saying this isn’t a flaw in the system — it’s our fuel, especially if you’re in marketing. I encouraged everyone to explore the “courage dividends” that come from overcoming fear and acting on opportunity,  even when the outcome is uncertain.

We live in chaos. But that sets the stage for hope. And leaders who can genuinely dispense hope — not spin, not optimism theater, but real grounded possibility — are going to matter enormously in the years ahead.

The agentic economy is here, and most people aren’t ready 

Dan Nestle, Dr. Matt Wilkinson, and Brian Piper built the technical foundation for the event with a live demonstration of what an AI-orchestrated workflow actually looks like end-to-end. They showed how they used Gemini, Claude, and other tools in parallel to explore every angle of a new product launch.

They laid out the technical reality clearly: We are moving from B2B and B2C toward an agent-to-agent economy. Your customers will soon have personal AI agents filtering what they see. You will have agents producing content. The question is whether there’s anything human left in the middle.

Brian introduced what he called the “human-in-the-loop sandwich” — and the image stuck with me. Your unique expertise and stories form the foundation. AI synthesizes and organizes. But human judgment sits at the top, as the final filter. Strip that out and you get what everyone is starting to call AI slop.

Dan made a point I think is genuinely underappreciated: keep your intellectual property separate from your tools. Your brand missions, your frameworks, your SOPs — those belong in a tool-agnostic library you can plug into whatever model is performing best this month. Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT. The models change. Your thinking shouldn’t have to change with them.

Matt demonstrated a system that turns static buyer personas into interactive AI simulations. Impressive. But he noted something that grounded the whole presentation: the real reason people show up to an event is still the humans in the room. No simulation replaces that.

The scariest AI risk isn’t replacement. It’s surrender.

Dr. Jasmine Gruia-Gray named something I think we all feel but don’t say out loud. She opened with a line that landed hard: “One day I couldn’t tell which parts of my thinking were mine.”

She cited a Wharton study where roughly 73% of participants followed faulty AI advice — not because they couldn’t tell it was wrong, but because the model was confident, and they stopped checking. That’s cognitive surrender. AI doesn’t replace your thinking. It keeps you from noticing you’ve already stopped thinking.

Her solution is a Socratic framework she calls BRACED — boundary testing, reversal from stakeholder, assumption surfacing, counter-hypothesis, disconfirming evidence, decision with tradeoffs. The specifics matter less than the principle. She ran it as a live game called Prompt Arena, where the goal wasn’t to get a better AI output. It was to build better thinking habits. That distinction is the whole ballgame right now.

The body knows things the brain ignores

Nicole Donnelly, the founder of Hello Moxie, gave what I thought was the most unexpected talk of the event. She’s been studying the intersection of trauma, workaholism, and leadership — and her argument is that most of our professional systems reward us for managing our bodies like machines. We optimize for output. We suppress the signals that slow us down. And we pay for it in creativity, in empathy, in the quality of our decisions.

We don’t need to move faster. We need to stop long enough to think. Embodiment is the last moat.

You can see her TEDx talk here.

Safe marketing compounds irrelevance

Jason Dressel, CEO of The History Factory, pushed back on what he called “confidence porn” — the performance of authority that substitutes for actual expertise. The market is correcting for that. People are hungry for real knowledge delivered through real stories.

His framework is simple: great stories need purposeful characters, a three-act structure built around conflict, and what he calls touchstones — the specific language and images that make a world feel real. Stories are 22 times more memorable than talking points. That’s not a preference. It’s neuroscience.

John Kowalski of BYK-Gardner Instruments said something I want to stitch on a pillow: safe marketing compounds irrelevance. He told the story of a company whose bear-resistant trash can failed spectacularly in a field test — and turned that failure into an unforgettable brand. The gap between what an industry expects and what an audience actually craves is where brand equity gets built. He called it the Awe Gap. I’m going to keep using that term.

Emotion is the experience. Full stop.

Stacy Sherman of Doing CX Right made a case that I think is more important than ever. As AI ingests public sentiment at scale, every micro-moment in the customer journey builds or erodes a ledger. The failed QR code. The boring hold music. The email that was obviously a form letter. These small failures accumulate, and AI systems are now reading that accumulated sentiment to rank brands.

Dana Malstaff, CEO of BOSS MOM, added a critical nuance on vulnerability — the kind that actually builds connection versus the kind that undermines authority. Her distinction: share your scars, not your wounds. Processed experiences with a lesson attached. Not active pain that you’re still in the middle of. Amen to that!

Dana also led a session on the future of brand communities, driving home the point that the best communities emerge from a dissatisfaction with the status quo. What do you want to change in the world?

Trust is the only distribution strategy that scales

Sarah Stahl, VP Marketing for Lake.com, shared how a startup resort hit $2 million in revenue on a $30,000 budget by out-trusting rather than out-spending. The mechanism was micro-creators with real proximity to real audiences. Sixty-eight percent of consumers trust a creator over a brand. That number should reorganize your marketing budget.

Chad Parizman of Ader Communications entertained everyone with a brief analysis of predictive markets and the potential dangers of addictive betting markets.

His argument was that prediction markets — platforms where people bet on real-world outcomes rather than company stocks — represent an underutilized seam for brands. 8.5 million monthly users, 25 trades per day. The conversations already happening around these markets are data-rich, audience-specific, and almost entirely untouched by brand strategy. The brands that figure out how to own those conversations are sitting on something.

It was the right mix of mind-blowing information and entertainment to end the day.

The future of content marketing

What an honor it was to sit side by side with the legendary Joe Pulizzi and hold court on the future of content marketing. Over the years, Joe and I have not always agreed but we have always been friends. As always, this was a spicy, energetic, and insightful 90 minutes.

Joe and I talked about what he calls the Trust Portfolio — and I think it’s one of the most practical ideas to come out of the event. Don’t bet everything on a single brand voice. Build a diversified network of employee creators. Give them room to be specific, to be themselves, to be a little weird. The marketing team becomes a media operations hub. The employees become the signal that cuts through the synthetic noise.

Our main debate centered around the most likely role of humanity in an AI-dominant content world. Joe thinks the window is closing. I think human art will persist. We’ll have to meet again in a few years to see what happens.

The future of your brand

Sarah Neely of Signal Swell has presented several times over the years and always has a fresh and relevant message. This year, she updated her core word-of-mouth marketing wisdom with a spin for the AI Age. She introduced a new framework — the Five C’s of AI Discoverability.

• Clarity
• Conversation
• Current
• Credible
• Composition

Mary Lague of Pilot 44 ran a foresight exercise that’s worth sitting with. If AI agents are mediating $3-5 trillion in commerce by 2036, and culture has fragmented into hyper-niche communities, what signals should we be watching now?

She hosted an interactive exercise that let every attendee create a vision of their own brand emerging from a set of megatrends such as brand communities and virtual humans.

But here’s the best part

These highlights are only the tip of the iceberg. Most attendees will tell you that most of the learning came from questions and answers, small group discussions (led by Valentina Escobar-Gonzalez, Lauren Colbert, Alice Ferris, and Chelsea Rae Stuck), breakout sessions on branding and personal branding, and late-night conversations at the bar.

For example, here are some takeaways from several attendees:

“I learned to not just embrace uncertainty, but to be grounded in it.”

“The biggest shift wasn’t a tactic. It was realizing that staying still long enough to understand what’s happening is often more powerful than reacting quickly to what’s changing.”

“Growth starts to feel heavy when nothing is compounding. That was the moment I realized the issue isn’t effort, it’s what the effort is building toward.”

Sarah Stahl, Founder, Market Movers

“Community creates the space for people to feel safe enough to move toward the future.”

“What do we hold onto and what do we release — that is our wisdom.”

Brian W Piper, Founder of AIreFlow Solutions

Melanie Borden, Author, “Theatre of the Mind” · Founder, The Borden Group

Mike Carr, Cofounder of John13.org &  Autism Labs

“When Mary Lague said 44% of Gen Z workers try to sabotage their company’s AI, it reordered my worldview. Leveraging AI is far more than mastering prompts and learning tools. It also involves helping people understand and work through massive change, many fear or don’t understand, so they seek to control it, apparently often to the detriment of their employer.”

“As Mark Schaefer said, leaders dispense hope. And when he exhorted us to create pockets of hope, order, and meaning, it landed as a clarion call to action for me and my business.”

Dan Christ, Owner and founder of Dan Christ Digital Services

“It’s possible not to be completely freaked out and overwhelmed about AI.”

Lisa Kohn, International Speaker, LisaKohn.com

“When you can’t tell if you’ve become part of the AI hive mind, you realize you’ve done it to yourself. Jasmine Gruia-Gray’s session on cognitive surrender was a moment that turned the conversation inward. While every other session was about forces changing the world around us and how to respond, she asked what we might be doing to our own thinking in the process.”

“Mark opened by making the case that uncertainty is the entry point for original thinking, and John Kowalski’s awe gap session reinforced it from a different angle. Safe marketing compounds irrelevance. The seam, the real opportunity, is in the unexpected.”

Elizabeth Humphries, Marketing Strategist, Market Your Marketing

“I was in awe of the people in the room at Uprising! Inspiring and engaging. It reminded me of the importance of presence and being fully present at an event like this will allow you to get the most out of your experience. If you’re distracted and disengaged, you could miss something that could change your life.”

Sid Meadows, President of The Collaborative Network and Host of The Trend Report Podcast

“The jaw-dropping moment for me was when I was encouraged to break through a self-limiting belief about what type of speaking engagements I could get paid for. For the first time in 25 years, I saw a path forward to market myself.”

Mike Garrison, founder of Values Based Mindset and author of Can I Borrow Your Car?

“Leaders dispense hope… giving your team, your customers, and your industry permission to believe something better is possible. When you stop selling features and start offering a vision worth following, you stop being a vendor and become the reason people show up.”

“The sheer volume of knowledge, expertise, and insight in this room was mind-blowing.”

John Kowalski, Disruptive Awe Architect, Disruptive Awe

“Our humanity is being stripped from us. Each talk pointed back to specific actions we can take to be more human, including choosing to be hopeful, more discerning, actively cultivating community by creating spaces where people feel valued, and reframing failure as experimentation. The more we lean into these things, the more we will become the trusted leaders and brands of the future.”

“Nanocommunities of 40 or fewer will be the future! This affirmed our company’s strategy. Scale is not always the answer.”

Nicole Donnelly, Founder, Hello Moxie

“Personal consequence is the real work. The breakout conversations are where ideas become valuable because they become personal. The unique element of The Uprising is that we get to intentionally take the time to unpack it and ask: What does it mean for me now?”

“Malignant Uncertainty” looms over livelihoods. The time needed (and spent) to process this feeling, with other smart folks, became the difference-maker.

“The Uprising had a contagion of bravery and a level of openness that elevated everyone.”

Lauren Colbert, Principal—Strategic Facilitator of Strategy, Innovation, & Collective Intelligence at Filament

“The fireside chat between Mark Schaefer and Joe Pulizzi reframed how I think about trust at scale. Mark mentioned that Cisco had trained more than 10,000 employees to speak on behalf of the brand — certified, equipped, and amplified. Joe called this building a Trust Portfolio. Distributed authorship. Distributed trust. Distributed reach. That changes the marketing job.”

Matt Wilkinson, CEO, Strivenn

“In an era of automation, bots, and synthetic content, care becomes premium. People want guidance, reassurance, belonging, support, and human attention. This made me rethink how I show up online and how I position my own services—not just as a consultant, but as someone who helps people navigate change.”

Valentina Escobar-Gonzalez, MBA, Bilingual Marketing Consultant and Founder of Beyond Engagement

“I’m energized by Mark’s idea of ‘uncertainty as fuel.’ It’s a powerful reframe in a time of so much chaos. ‘Negative capability’ is another reframing that speaks to intentionally and patiently pausing to connect new dots. I learned so much over the two days, and I know that I will continue to learn from this circle of smart humans.”

Sarah Neely, Vice President of Strategy at Fuzz and Founder of SignalSwell

“Each courageous moment rewires you to believe in yourself. This is the courage dividend.”

“I appreciated Sarah Neely’s new perspective on the future of discoverability — the S.H.A.R.E. framework (surprising, helpful, authentic, relevant, experiences).”

Jasmine Gruia-Gray, Managing Partner at Strivenn and co-host of A Splice of Life Science Marketing podcast, Product Marketing Tips newsletter

“Courageous actions rewire who you believe yourself to be.’ —Mark Schaefer. I found this particularly pertinent because every time I have taken a leap professionally or personally, it has paid off, and helped me douse some of that imposter syndrome or lack of confidence you get when you’re in a room that you’re not quite comfortable in.”

Stacey Miller, Vice President, Communications at Auto Care Association

“I need more community in my life! (inspiration, empowerment, safety).”

“Trust = safety. Nurture messaging creates belonging.”

Knox Keith, Author of Validated

“I’m inspired by how domain experts forge and build AI solutions. Just as my agency is building AI to address concerns related to accuracy and contextualization, I was so impressed by Dr. Jasmine Gruia-Gray’s work focused on critical thinking and cognitive decline. Her Socratic method-based BRACED framework was excellent.”

“Joe and Mark’s discussion has me completely re-imagining our leaders and employees as characters of our story, and how we tell that story through both company-owned and employee-owned platforms. This will likely be the biggest actionable takeaway in my strategic and tactical shift.”

Jason Dressel, CEO, History Factory

“We shouldn’t treat AI LIKE an audience. AI IS an audience—multiple audiences, in fact.”

“Negative Capability is the skill we need to cope with chaos. Marinate in an issue before acting under pressure to respond, and that’s how insights will be revealed.”

Dan Nestle, Founder and CPIO of Lilypath

“Within the first 15 minutes, I had my first ah-ha moment, when Mark said: ‘Every time I feel afraid, I do it!’ I need a poster of this in my office.”

“We are in the eye of the AI storm, but it also presents so many opportunities. I realized that I don’t have all the answers about how businesses will assimilate or adopt AI platforms, but I do know that the most powerful force in business is still human connection. Spending three days with 39 of the most knowledgeable, forward-thinking leaders in AI and new technologies left me feeling inspired and full of hope. The Uprising was an Executive Education course on steroids!”

Anne Deeter Gallaher, Owner/CEO of Deeter Gallaher Group LLC

“In a world that constantly competes for our attention, we need to ‘control the inputs.’ In other words, be deliberate about how much news we consume, which social media we engage with, whose opinions we give weight to, and how much access the outside world gets to our inner peace. Those inputs shape our focus, our fear, our energy, and ultimately, how we show up at work and in life.”

“We’re living in a time of ‘malignant uncertainty,’ where change isn’t only constant, it’s harder to predict. Companies need to let go of overly rigid plans and pay closer attention to what customers and employees are thinking, feeling, and doing in real time. The brands that earn trust will be the ones that build emotional connection when everything else feels uncertain.”

Stacy Sherman, International Keynote Speaker, Influencer & Podcaster: DoingCXRight.com

“AI is evolving and changing how we operate at a personal and work level faster than ever before. There is opportunity in seeing this ‘seam.’ Uncertainty makes room for me for creativity, growth, and progress.”

Debra Feresten, Debra Feresten Homes

I used to believe more content would grow my business, but now I see that trust is the real currency—and content is just the vehicle to earn it. That changes everything: from chasing reach to building a small, intentional audience that actually cares.”

“My AHA moment was realizing we’re not heading toward a world with better ads—we’re heading toward a world without them. When there’s no ‘skip button,’ only brands that create trust, community, and meaning will survive.”

Yevette Lynn, Kingsport Headshot Photographer and Studio Owner, The Journal

“AI tools become personal. They are like the hammer that a carpenter uses every day. They form to his hand and are customized to his needs. There is beauty in the wear of such tools, but if you were to pick one up, it feels foreign. To use them properly, one must interact with these tools and shape them to one’s personal needs.”

“Being raw in our content gives our community permission to share. But that sharing should come from scars, not wounds.”

“The tension between the obligation to react to the world and the value of marinating in uncertainty is the obligation of leadership.”

Atom Freeman, Founder of Prana DM, Host of Comic Industry Insiders podcast

“Building a personal brand is not a project, it’s a LIFESTYLE.”

“The customer journey is the cumulative effect of every interaction, good or bad.” Every micro moment shapes perception, and people are constantly evaluating, even when you are not thinking about it. What they remember is not necessarily the process, it is how it made them feel. “Emotion IS the experience”, and that is ultimately what defines your brand.

Your most powerful, underutilized influencer channel is already on payroll. Employees are a built-in network of credible, motivated nano-influencers, but only if you replace control with trust and give them a clear, supported way to share. If your own people are not advocating for your brand, why would someone else?

Chelsea Rae Stuck, CEO Craeve, and Host of the Curiously Stuck Podcast

And … back to me.

We can’t stay relevant on our own. Everybody who attended The Uprising has a new set of tools and a professional network to help them navigate the future.

The 2026 Uprising was a call to stop trying to be “safe” and instead build a future where our humanity is our most discoverable and durable asset. I hope you will join us May 04-07, 2027. Registration is open.

Some photographs provided by Yevette Lynn Photography

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

The post Human Renaissance in the Agentic Age: Insights from The Uprising Retreat appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Is there anything more frustrating than justifying brand marketing to your boss? And yet, I’ll explain why brand is more important in the AI Era!

Maybe this post will even help your next budget request get approved.

Today I will cover:

• Brand as the AI override
• How AI erodes competitive advantage
• Brand as the Trust Anchor

Brand as AI override

AI is having a cataclysmic impact on every aspect of marketing, but none more important than search.

While a cottage industry emerges to figure out the new rules of SEO, perhaps your money might be best spent avoiding the SEO dilemma altogether.

Here’s what I mean.

Last year I had ChatGPT plan my five-day trip to Paris in every detail. It dutifully created an itinerary that included the best activities based on my budget and taste, every Metro stop I needed to reach my destinations, and restaurant recommendations that accommodated my need to be gluten-free.

It did a perfect job. I didn’t see any ads, branded content, or influencer recommendations. I just followed the plan exactly.

Except.

I decided to use Delta Airlines. I chose my hotels based on brand preferences. I stuck with my favorite brand names when it came to things like soft drinks, the clothes I packed and my favorite On Cloud sneakers.

My brand preferences are AI overrides. It doesn’t matter what AI thinks, I like what I like.

Figuring out the future of SEO and AI search will be critical for many brands. But don’t overlook an investment in brand to sidestep the never-ending battle over keywords.

AI eroding competitive advantage

How do you create a sustainable competitive advantage for your business?

• Special market insight?
• Do you react to market changes faster than competitors?
• Employees with elite levels of intelligence?
• Significant iteration and innovation?

All of these advantages can be neutralized by a competitor with AI. What do you have left? Your brand.

In my book Audacious: How to Win in an AI Marketing World, I feature a case study on Liquid Death, the fastest-growing beverage in the world — a five-year-old startup! Founder Mike Cessario said that brand is all he has as a competitive weapon:

“You’re only going to win with branding. You won’t win with some functional ingredients you can’t own. In that case, when you’re big enough, Coke or Pepsi or someone else will just produce the same thing—same ingredients, cheaper, more widely distributed, and then you lose. With water, there’s minimal, if any, functional difference between the brands. The difference is purely marketing. People want to walk around with this thing instead of that thing. None of the water brands were interesting. I did my homework. There was a huge opportunity to tell a different story.”

Brand is what’s left when the substantive differences between products disappear. When AI erodes competitive advantage, branding still creates distance between you and your competitors, paving the way for future growth.

Brand as the Trust Anchor

There’s a paradox emerging in the AI era: the more content AI produces, the less people trust what they see.

My brain hurts from trying to figure out what is real.

And, I’m not alone.

Consumers aren’t stupid. They feel it even when they can’t name it — a creeping sameness, a vague sense that the voice behind the content isn’t quite human, that the brand they’re engaging with is running on autopilot.

In this environment, trust becomes a luxury, and trust, at scale, is what a strong brand delivers.

But here’s the part most marketers miss: trust isn’t rational. You don’t earn it with better specifications or a more accurate FAQ page. Trust is emotional. It accumulates through consistent experience, shared values, and the feeling that a company sees you and stands for something you care about. That’s the domain of brand, and it’s precisely the domain where AI falls short.

Think about the brands you love. Chances are, your attachment has little to do with product superiority. It’s about how that brand makes you feel. Maybe it reflects who you are or who you want to be. Maybe it’s earned your trust through years of delivering on its promise. That emotional connection is essentially AI-proof because AI didn’t create it and AI can’t replicate it.

Liquid Death understood this intuitively. There is no functional difference between water brands. Mike Cessario built his entire competitive strategy on making people feel something when they held that black can. Rebellious. Irreverent. Part of something that rejected the corporate blandness of traditional beverage marketing.

The product is water. The value is identity. That’s pure brand.

I know the fight for your brand is never-ending. You’re constantly being pulled into the trenches of Facebook ads and proving the ROI of that Instagram post.

But try this. Ask your boss to talk about their favorite purchase of the past year. Tickets to a show? A dream car? A special gift for a friend?

Then ask them WHY they bought it. Was it because of SEO or an ad … or was it because of how the product made them feel? Because it was something that they love?

AI can optimize your media spend, personalize your messaging, and automate your content, but it can’t make someone love you.

It can’t build the loyalty that makes a customer choose you before they even start their search.

It can’t create the feeling that makes a person walk past a cheaper alternative because this is the brand that “gets them” or reminds them of the best memory.

That work is yours to do. And in a world where your competitors have access to the same AI tools, the same data, and the same efficiencies, brand may be the last remaining source of true competitive advantage.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustrations courtesy Mid Journey

The post Three reasons why brand is more important in the AI Era appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Nearly every time I read a marketing newsletter or analysis, I see a reference to something old becoming new again. If you have a brand story to tell, nostalgia marketing seems to be the wave to catch these days.

It’s been a while since I wrote about the power of nostalgia in marketing, so I decided to go down the rabbit hole. I found a new twist. Nostalgia marketing is so resonant right now that even startups with no brand heritage are using 1980s and 90s iconography and aesthetics to promote their products. Does that seem bizarre?

Let’s explore this together today. This article explains:

• Why nostalgia is such an important marketing consideration right now
• The three conditions making nostalgia a sustainable trend
• How modern brands with no heritage are tapping into the positive emotion of nostalgia
• Ten ideas to use nostalgia for your own brand
• What nostalgia might mean to Gen Alpha

Nostalgia marketing is everywhere

If you pay attention to marketing trends as I do, advertising seems to be in a time warp. Throwback products and images are everywhere:

• Fashion: Low-rise jeans, baby tees, butterfly clips, platform shoes.

• Accessories & tech: Digital watches (vintage Casio) are being rediscovered.

• Branding & marketing: Retro logos, reissues, limited “vault” drops from early 2000s design cues. Retro sneakers are the latest trend, as Adidas and Nike drop limited-edition versions of shoes from the 1990s.

• Food: More than 70% of consumers are drawn to childhood-evoking treats. Brands are leaning in with retro packaging and revivals precisely because it translates to sales lift with Gen X and younger shoppers alike.

• Media: Stranger Things. Need I say more?

Let’s keep running up that hill. Today, I’ll look at why and how you might capitalize on this trend (even if you have a new company with no significant brand history).

Side note: The generation born roughly 1997-2006 (Gen Z) is drawn to “eras before their lifetime” to find aesthetic distance or escape the present. While researching this post, I learned a new word. “Anemoia” means nostalgia for a time you didn’t live through. Don’t assume nostalgia needs to be their memory.

Anything old is new again

My friends at The History Factory created an interesting piece of free research on the new momentum of nostalgia in culture and marketing. Highlights:

• Younger adults are the loudest champions; around 70% of adults aged 18–34 show an interest in heritage.
• 74% of Americans would like to see more retro throwbacks from brands.
• Limited-edition, retro products are the most appealing type of content to Americans (among 12 possible content themes).
• Marvel leads the category for brand heritage storytelling across multiple channels, ranking No. 1 on the Brand Heritage Index with the highest overall score of 84.

So, this trend is undeniable and growing, especially with young people. Why now?

There are three main reasons nostalgia marketing is extremely relevant right now, especially with Gen Z:

1. Comfort in a period of crises
2. Historic media trends aimed at children
3. A search for shared experiences.

Let’s break each down in more detail.

1. Comfort food in chaotic times

Jola Burnett, SVP of consumer research company Ipsos, attended my Uprising retreat a few times. At a recent session, she presented on the most important global trends and said:

“This generation is not living through a crisis. It is living through multiple crises. It is a time of extraordinary economic, environmental, and social strain.”

In this context, a search for “comfort food” makes sense. During periods of unusual stress, people seek emotional regulation and a sense of belonging. The American Psychological Association notes nostalgia boosts well-being, eases loneliness, and restores meaning.

In the words of Dr. Krystine Batcho, it’s “the soothing ointment that helps people manage the anxieties from conflict.”

Nostalgia is an important part of “brand therapy” to get through the blues. And, we have a LOT of blues.

2. Media trends fuel the nostalgia marketing trend

I wrote about the influence of nostalgia in 2020 and noted that the evolution of media helps explain why old is gold.

Up until the 1980s — and the advent of cable programming — there was almost no direct marketing to children. Most of the early children’s television programming, like Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers, was on PBS — no ads. And at prime time, children watched whatever network programming mom and dad had on the tube.

Cable TV introduced fully dedicated channels for youth-oriented cartoons, movies, nature programs, and educational programming. This increased exponentially with the advent of the internet and surged again with the rise of smart devices, when children could watch anything, any time, and anywhere. An entire media ecosystem was created for kids.

Starting about 30 years ago, the golden age of children’s programming and youth-oriented product marketing began. The Millennials who grew up in this era have an incredible abundance of media-driven emotional connections compared to any other generation.

If nostalgia means longing for a happy childhood place or experience, you could say that kids growing up after 1980 have been thoroughly prepped for it.

3. The search for shared experiences

There is a third reason why nostalgia connects now — a search for shared experiences.

Our fragmented media environment means we have fewer common references than we did in the past. Everybody curates their own media experiences alone, through their earbuds.

You can’t have nostalgia without a shared past to return to — and you can’t have commonly understood jokes without a shared understanding, or even, in the truest sense, a shared language. The appeal of nostalgia is that it allows storytellers to set their adventures in the last period where we really did have that shared understanding — before the smartphone shattered our world in more ways than one.

What if you don’t have a nostalgic story?

There are many newer brands and startups that look like they dropped from a time machine. Look beyond your own timeline. Some nostalgia opportunities don’t come from your brand history—they’re cultural overlays you can tap:

• 80s arcade-style visual design
• Early internet aesthetics (pixel fonts, loading bars, Windows 98 UI)
• 90s mall culture
• Y2K chrome gradients and flip-phone culture
• Analog textures and filters (film grain, VHS distortion, cassette labeling)
• A brand pop-up shop that replicates a 1990s bedroom
• A “throwback menu” or “throwback website” for one day

Olipop is an example of a startup connecting to classic flavors and retro design elements:

My grandmother always kept a stash of Cream Soda for me, so I’m all in on Olipop!

Take a look at Vacation Sunscreen. The fast-rising brand created a 1980s world to establish the emotional connection to its product:

Vacation sun lotion even comes with its own “radio station” that plays oldie hits and commercials from the 1980s:

Cereal start-up Magic Spoon has a design that echoes 1980s/90s cereal boxes: mascots, bright gradients, Saturday-morning energy, but with keto macros and adult-friendly nutritional claims.

Many tech companies are adopting a lo-fi, pixelated look reminiscent of early video games. This is from the Nothing Electronics website:

I have suits older than the Graduate Hotel chain, yet when you step inside, it feels like you’re in the 1960s.

Their hyper-stylized retro design borrows from cultural memory, not their own brand history.

• Kitschy vintage colors straight out of a 1960s yearbook

• Plaid patterns, rotary phones, wood paneling, chandeliers, and campy memorabilia

• Guest rooms styled like nostalgic dorm rooms (complete with old-school desk lamps, varsity motifs, and needlepoint art)

• Public spaces that look like mid-century student unions or 1970s rec rooms

• Restaurant and bar concepts that feel like throwback diners, supper clubs, or old campus hangouts

I never look back fondly at my great memories at the good ol’ Walmart. It doesn’t seem ripe for nostalgia marketing. But this video is one of my all-time favorite examples of nostalgic emotions in an unlikely place. A genius commercial that became a viral guessing game:

So, you don’t need to be an old-timey brand to create a nostalgic feeling. Sometimes nostalgia is most powerful as an experience, not a product.

10 Ideas to create your own heritage moat

I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by saying the number of crises in the world won’t diminish any time soon (Hey, AI, I’m looking at you!).

Does your brand have a heritage moat, a story that connects people to a comforting memory? Here are some ideas to put this to use for your brand:

1. Audit your “dormant assets.” Most heritage sits under-leveraged inside a company: old packaging, jingles, slogans, characters, mascots, stores, uniforms, product variants, and past brand partnerships.
2. Explore what your customers are already nostalgic for. Gen Z and Millennials constantly create nostalgia timelines on TikTok and Instagram. Search for people already celebrating a past version of your brand through remixed commercials, vintage packaging collections, and fan communities sharing memories.
3. Celebrate anniversary milestones. An obvious opportunity is taking customers on a trip down memory lane in association with a brand’s birthday. Let’s be honest … nobody cares about the anniversary except your company. But it’s an opportunity to bring back milestone memories that elicit positive emotions with your customers.
4. Don’t be gimmicky. Nostalgia trends are emotional triggers. They work because they connect — so whatever you borrow, ensure the narrative is meaningful and not just surface-deep. Nostalgia marketing can backfire if it feels fake, irrelevant, or neglects how times have changed.
5. Connect it to now. Gen Z cares about authenticity and values, not just the aesthetic. So when leveraging nostalgia, tie it to something relevant (inclusion, sustainability, community).
6. Bring back “lost rituals.” Many industries have rituals that quietly disappeared. Brands can resurrect these rituals digitally or physically. Examples: Burning CDs, Family game night, popping popcorn, the mall photo strip booth.
7. Engage the senses. Nostalgia is multisensory. It can be evoked by sounds, sights, smells, touch, and tastes.
8. Recycle past products. The Coca-Cola Company restocked shelves with a blast from the past—Hi-C Ecto Cooler. Ecto Cooler was first introduced in partnership with the original Ghostbusters movie in 1987, and a movie reboot gave Coca-Cola the opportunity to revive its popular discontinued product.
9. Resurrect old icons. Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) hired a series of actors to portray its founder Colonel Harland Sanders since 2015. While actors like Jim Gaffigan and Rob Lowe don the founder’s iconic white coat from time to time, nobody says it quite like the Colonel himself. KFC’s more recent television spots splice together old film of Colonel Sanders or portray him in a modern context.
10. Explore emotional moments. Every brand has a moment where customers fell in love for the first time: “The cereal box toy I kept forever.”
    “The first time I tried a video game.”
    “The shoe I wore during a milestone moment in my teens.”
    “The logo that was on my high school backpack.”

• Identify and map those “first-love” moments. Those are the memories you want to activate.

The nostalgia of the future

I had this thought … what will be nostalgic 20 years from now for Gen Alpha (born 2010-2024)? Is it possible to create nostalgia-worthy brand characters, rituals, and cultural touchpoints today as part of a long-term brand strategy? Are there cultural patterns that seem destined to be beloved and memorable, or is it more random?

Maybe the nostalgia of the future will revolve around TikTok jokes and memes?

Have not really heard of anybody mindfully building nostalgia into a product for the next generation. If anybody is working on a nostalgia-forward strategy, drop me a line. It would be fun to hear about that.

In any event, the power of nostalgia soothes a whacked-out world, and it’s probably an idea to consider, even if you don’t have a historical brand story to tell.

Need an inspiring keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

The post The heritage moat: Why nostalgia marketing dominates today appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

For more than 15 years, I’ve studied and written about “rising above the noise” — how a business or individual can be seen, heard, and discovered amid the overwhelming wall of content competition.

Since I wrote about Content Shock more than 10 years ago, the total number of hours each day that consumers spend watching, listening to, reading, and interacting with content has barely grown. At the same time, technological innovations in production and distribution, the rise of user-generated content, and the proliferation of premium content have created a dizzying array of new choices.

This is Content Shock on steroids. There are 50 times more amateur uploaders than professionals on Spotify, 25,000 times more hours of content produced last year on YouTube than on all traditional television networks and video streaming services, and AI has flood the zone and is now the dominant source of web content.

So you can imagine my excitement when I discovered a new McKinsey Research report that offers an important new clue about how content actually cuts through effectively.

The breakthrough idea in this report is that most businesses focus on the time spent on content and the size of their audience. This overlooks a more important issue: the quality of time spent.

Not all consumer attention is created equal. Consumption and monetization vary widely across the content marketing spectrum, and the quality of the attention is the reason for that variability.

Let’s dive into this today and learn about how to measure and optimize the quality of attention on your content.

The drivers of attention value

Backed by an in-depth survey of 7,000 consumers worldwide, McKinsey developed an “attention equation” that reveals the full drivers of attention value. Attention doesn’t simply equal the amount of time spent; it equals the amount of valuable time spent, driven by focus and intent. 

Using a new equation, McKinsey measured the value of consumer attention across 20 media channels. Not all content types are created alike. The value of an hour of consumption ranged from:

$33 per hour for live sports,

$17 per hour for live concerts

$7.18 for movies

$0.37 for books

$0.25 for social media posts

$0.12 per hour for digital music

$0.05 for podcasts

This is common sense. If you’re attending a live sports event or a concert,  you’ve paid a lot of money for that “content.” You’re committed!

But looking at the “lower tier” of content we usually produce — social media posts and podcasts — there’s a massive difference McKinsey describes as an “attention quotient.”

The attention quotient consists of two primary components: 1) consumers’ level of focus, or how actively they’re engaged with the content, and 2) the job to be done, or why they are consuming the content. Taken together, these components have significant predictive power on monetization.

Let’s look at these two factors — level of focus and the job to be done — more carefully to see how this might work in practice in our own companies.

Level of focus

McKinsey’s research revealed several insights about where and how consumer focus differs across media:

• In-person experiences elicit the highest level of focus.
• Books (digital and physical) engage audiences to a comparable degree with live experiences
• Console and PC gaming is the only digital medium that gets close to live levels of focus
• Community events create a high level of focus, even in digital, where group activities elicit higher focus than more solitary activities.
• Younger consumers aren’t less attentive; they just pay attention to different media. Gen Z consumers and baby boomers report the same average level of focus, but it’s split across different media: Gen Z consumers are highly focused when playing video games, while boomers prefer reading.
• Overall, the more focused consumers are, the more likely they are to spend. Across consumers, a 10 percent increase in average focus paid across media is associated with a 17 percent increase in consumer spending. Consumers in the top quartile of focus spend twice as much as those in the bottom quartile.

The job to be done

The second factor builds on a famous framework created by Clayton Christensen. When a person consumes your content, what are they “hiring it” for? What is the job to be done?

The primary “job to be done” of media consumption falls into one of five categories (from most to least valuable):

1. To enjoy something that I love. In-person experiences—including live concerts and music festivals, theme parks, sporting events, and movie theaters—dominate this category. Physical books and (to a far lesser extent) audiobooks are also consumed primarily for love.
2. For education and information. This is the primary job to be done for newspapers, magazines, and podcasts.
3. For social connection. This is the primary job of social media sites (Facebook more so than others). Social video (including Instagram reels and TikTok but not YouTube), live events, and video games overindex on this role.
4. For light entertainment and relaxation. This is the primary job of cable television, video streaming, social video, and mobile and console gaming.
5. For background ambience. This is the primary role of radio, digital music, podcasts, and cable television.

Adding these two factors to our content analysis begins to shed light on why not all marketing-related content is created equal:

Implications for demographics

The research also allowed McKinsey to tease out three distinct customer groups based on their high level of economic value:

Content lovers

Entertainment omnivores represent 13 percent of all consumers. Curious and passionate, they spend 2.4 times more money on content and consume 1.7 times more content than the average consumer. They’re the superfans, casting their consumption nets wide to see the movie franchise, watch the spin-off show, ride the themed roller coaster, and buy the items advertised at every step.

Interactivity enthusiasts

The immersion seekers (16 percent). Competitive and lively, they love video games, sports, online betting, and comedy. They prefer endorsements to advertisements, overindex in user-generated content, and spend a reasonable amount of time on online message boards such as Reddit. Although eager consumers, they find the modern media landscape confusing, difficult to navigate, and overly expensive.

Community trendsetters

The culture creators (10 percent). Extroverted tastemakers, they seek out large communal events such as concerts, movies, and theme parks. They’re active on social media and drive online culture and fandom, often with outsize spending on their hobbies and interests. They enjoy advertisements more than any other segment, and when they’re not setting the cultural conversation, they’re shopping.

The report clusters the remaining 60 percent of consumers in groups with lower attention value, and thus lower economic value.

Implications for marketers

The competition for consumer attention has long been measured by audience size and time spent. This view misses the whole story (a point I made in my 2017 book, The Content Code).

It also reinforces the basic idea behind Content Shock: you’re probably going to have to pay more for the content types that cut through the noise.

The attention equation helps clarify what the winners in that competition have suspected: Quality and relevance, not just quantity, of attention go a long way in determining success. In a media environment defined by abundance, fragmentation, and distraction, marketers must ask themselves:

• Is my content designed for high focus or low focus?

• What job am I really being hired for?

• How can I elevate the focus or shift the job?

Think about this practical example: Google wanted to shine a light on the Nobel Prize-winning work of its genius AI leader, Demis Hassabis.

Most companies might put out a press release or a blog post — very low attention value. But Google produced a full-length documentary called The Thinking Game. It already has 14 million views on YouTube alone.

According to the McKinsey formula, this film is already worth more than $100 million in attention. Let’s say it took $5 million to make the film. This would break most content marketing budgets, but within the McKinsey model, that is a bargain. And that return on attention that will only grow as the movie is viewed over time.

Implications for strategy

This research tells us something I’ve been circling around for years: the brands that win aren’t the ones who shout the loudest, but the ones who create moments that matter. Attention is no longer a game of volume. It’s not about hacking the algorithm or flooding the zone. It’s about earning focus and aligning with the deeper job your audience needs you to do in their lives.

That’s the frontier now. Not more content … but higher-quality attention.

The companies that embrace this shift will stop measuring the wrong things. They’ll stop obsessing about impressions and start designing for immersion. They’ll stop producing noise and view content as nourishment. And in a world overwhelmed by Content Shock, that will be the ultimate competitive advantage.

I also want to connect the dots between the Attention Equation and a post I wrote about ethically-sourced marketing. If we turn our focus to higher-value content, it could reduce the social media “litter” that drives up energy costs and funds online hate and bullying.

Make something worth hiring. Make something worth focusing on. Make something worthy of the precious, finite human attention that has become the most valuable currency in the world.

Need an inspiring keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy Nano Banana

The post Research points to the “Attention Equation” behind measurable content success appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Every ad dollar we spend fuels algorithms we know are harming people, chewing up the environment, and stoking hate between neighbors.

I must face the fact that my beloved field of marketing contributes to some of society’s biggest problems.

It pains me to write about this. I mean, I’m part of the problem, too. But it’s time to start this conversation because the traditional marketing approach is at a breaking point.

• AI-driven amplification of addiction
• Deep fake, misinformation, the decline of trust
• Easy AI content requires more energy consumption
• U.S. Surgeon General’s warnings on youth mental health and social media

We need to consider what it means to lead and sponsor ethically-sourced marketing.

Let’s break this problem down into four categories today:

• ADDICTION
• DIVISION
• ENERGY / ENVIRONMENT
• OPERATING WITH VALUES 

1. Addiction

Back in my corporate days, I dreamed of creating a product or service so great that people would be addicted to it. I remember saying those words out loud.

Before the internet, the chance of doing that was slim, especially in B2B. We didn’t have the repetitive internet memes, challenges, or reels that could drive people down a rabbit hole.

But today, marketers fund a system where attention is literally the product being sold. And it’s working exactly as designed.

Here’s the basic math nobody wants to talk about. Engagement equals money. Five billion people spending over two hours a day on these platforms? That’s not accidental. That’s the entire business model. Every scroll, every like, every second you spend staring at your screen — that’s a data point being harvested to sell more targeted ads.

The platforms use artificial intelligence to analyze your emotions, habits, and vulnerabilities. They’re predicting human behavior at scale.

But here’s where it gets really interesting, and honestly, a bit sinister. The designers of these platforms have deliberately borrowed from the playbook of slot machines and casinos. Infinite scroll. Autoplay. Those little notifications that pop up right when you’re about to put the phone down? They’re triggering the same reward circuits that gambling does.

It’s the variable reward schedule that behavioral psychologists have understood for decades, now deployed across billions of devices.

Think about the “like” button. It’s a dopamine delivery system. You post something, and you get that little hit of validation when people engage. So you post again. And again. The platform has essentially weaponized human psychology for engagement.

How many of you optimize likes and engagement as an essential part of your career success?

It gets worse. Younger brains are exponentially more susceptible to this stuff because they’re still developing the neurological circuits for impulse control and delayed gratification. U.S. children generate more than $11 billion in advertising revenue for major social media platforms.

Let that sink in. $11 billion extracted from the psychological vulnerabilities of kids who don’t yet have the brain development to resist these systems.

The platforms give lip service to parental controls and safeguards, but they don’t care.

Your marketing dollars fuel the addiction machine. Digital ad dollars are hurting children.

Addiction is the foundation, but the consequences don’t stop at endless scrolling. They spill into something darker.

2. Division

In the social media world we all love, hate is good for business.

A Wall Street Journal investigative report revealed that Facebook knew that its core social media product makes the world more toxic and divided.

“Our algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness,” read a slide from an internal presentation. “If left unchecked,” it warned, Facebook would feed users “more and more divisive content in an effort to gain user attention & increase time on the platform.”

One example: 64 percent of the growth in online extremist groups was fueled by Facebook’s own recommendation algorithms!

The company assigned a high-level team to develop a plan to combat this issue … and they did. But then Mark Zuckerberg shelved the basic research and blocked efforts to apply its conclusions to Facebook products. In fact, the Facebook leader has publicly denied his company’s findings and recommendations.

Why?

An internal report said that moderating hate was anti-growth.

That makes me sick. When hate becomes a growth strategy, every advertiser becomes a silent financier of dysfunction.

While the emotional toll of division is staggering, the physical toll on the planet is just beginning to surface.

3. Energy and Environmental Impact

Last year, I was honored to be a keynote speaker at the Belgian Association of Marketing’s annual conference, a first-class event. It was there that I met Dr. Victoria Hurth. She introduced the audience to a new way of looking at marketing and its impact on the environment. I felt ashamed that I had never really considered these realities.

Marketing, she said, is the engine of demand. That’s our superpower. And it’s also part of the environmental problem.

When we stimulate desire, we stimulate production, shipping, packaging, and, too often, waste. The question isn’t whether marketing affects the environment. It’s whether we’re willing to measure it.

Even “digital” isn’t clean.

Programmatic ads ride on massive server networks that consume real energy. An industry analysis shows the carbon cost of every ad impression — grams of CO? tied directly to the ads we place. One publisher cut its emissions 70% with smarter supply-path decisions, with no revenue loss.

E-commerce? It helps when it consolidates freight … until fast shipping and high return rates obliterate any benefit. U.S. product returns alone generated 24 million metric tons of CO? last year and sent billions of pounds of goods to landfills.

Even our content diet carries a carbon footprint. Streaming and online video now account for an estimated 3–4 percent of global emissions. “Virtual” isn’t virtual. It’s powered by real data centers, real devices, real infrastructure.

And then there’s AI.

OpenAI’s planned chip network may consume 250 gigawatts of power by 2033. That’s one-fifth of America’s total electric generation capacity today. If OpenAI were a country, it would be the seventh-largest electricity producer on the planet. Energy prices are already rising nationwide, as is the environmental impact.

So yes, even creativity now carries a carbon cost.

Dr. Hurth argues that businesses must prioritize human sustainability over profits. It sounds idealistic — until you realize the alternative.

We’re not just creating demand. We’re creating emissions.

4. Operating with values

In the early days of web marketing, I attended a presentation by an SEO “pioneer.” He had hired home-bound disabled people to pose as online commenters in an effort to impact his customers’ search results.

When it came time for the Q&A, I asked, “How do you live with yourself? This is so unethical!”

He responded, “It works. And if I didn’t do it, somebody else would.”

Too often, marketers opt for “what works” and turn a blind eye to the holistic impact of their actions on the world and our customers. A brand strategist is a role in which you are effectively a cosmetic surgeon for capital.

While hiring people to fake our content seems extreme, aren’t we doing the same thing today with AI? Half the comments left on my content are AI-generated fakes.

I learned at a recent meeting that 85% of companies use AI to generate content and that, on average, their content output has increased by 45%.

To what end? To replace humans? To add to the barrage of noise we must endure to find truth? To consume vast amounts of energy and clean water to generate AI slop?

Can we keep one eye on the bottom line and one on our moral compass? If we don’t reclaim the soul of our work, the machines will do it for us.

What do we do about it?

First, let me emphasize that I’m proud to be a marketer. The marketer is the creator, the innovator, the front line of our business. We can be the beacon, shining a light on the good and the worthy.

Throughout history, advertising and marketing have played a role in positive societal change and in creating demand for life-changing products.

Second, the weight of these problems does not necessarily fall solely on us. We’re expected to work in a deeply flawed social media / digital environment beyond our control. Any real change would require complex systemic changes.

So what’s the point of this post?

I’m willing to bet every person reading this has had pain in their heart over the online safety of our children, the impact of global warming, and the divisions that are tearing countries and families apart.

Am I suggesting that we sell less? Quit digital advertising? Abandon profitability?

No. But at a minimum, we need to open this conversation and re-frame the marketing profession in a more holistic context. Any change begins with awareness.

What if marketing became the world’s most powerful engine for human flourishing instead of manipulation? What if innovation, storytelling, and creativity were measured not just by impressions but by the impact we have on the people we serve?”

I don’t have the answers. But here are a few ideas I picked up from Dr. Hurth and others.

Reframe success.

Replace metrics like engagement and impressions with impact: well-being, trust, sustainability, and authentic connection. Isn’t this why we love the Patagonia brand? It can be done.

Track “advertised emissions,” addiction time, and content energy use alongside ROI. Transparency changes behavior. Above, I cited the Scope3 research. One publisher cut average CO2 per thousand impressions by about 70% through supply-path optimization, with no revenue loss.

Design for restraint.

Use creativity to promote durability, repair, and reuse. Ask: “Does this campaign help or harm long-term human flourishing?” Re-use is a significant priority for Gen Z shoppers. A positive trend!

Invest in ethical tech.

Support platforms and partners committed to transparency, safety, and carbon-neutral operations. The energy efficiency of most technologies (especially AI) is increasing at a breathtaking rate. Are you aware of the relative energy use of your tech stack?

Lead with humanity.

Make ethics a competitive advantage. Reward teams for doing the right thing, not just the fastest or cheapest.

“Ethically Sourced Marketing” is a new idea. Corporate culture doesn’t change without a leader who makes this a priority. If this idea catches on, it will likely be because one person embraces the change and sets an example.

Dramatic change is possible

Here’s a point of inspiration.

Madewell, a German-based clothing retailer, is working to eliminate plastics, aiming to have 100% of its packaging be sustainably sourced and free of virgin plastic by the end of this year. The brand is also reducing plastic in its products by increasing its use of sustainably sourced fibers and recycled materials, such as recycled insulation and recycled nylon, and is committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2030. 

I read that the CEO is even trying to eliminate plastic pens in their offices.

Can you imagine how difficult it would be to eliminate all plastic in your company? But one leader is driving this change, shaping a company culture that makes a difference on a vast scale.

If one company can eliminate plastic, I have hope that somebody out there can eliminate marketing and advertising that contribute to hate, polarization, addiction, and waste.

There has never been a better time to re-evaluate what we do and how we do it.

If positive change seems unattainable, here’s a good place to start: If you are directly or indirectly doing things that people hate, STOP IT.

Double down on what people love. Trust. Transparency. Humanity. Community. Ethics. A responsible, measurable environmental impact.

Eugene Healey wrote:

“We have to fight under the contradictions of capitalism. That’s non-negotiable. But we should still get to do so by creating beautiful things. In that, we can find meaning.

“If you’re a marketer, make things you believe should exist. If you’re a senior marketer, make the case for the existence of beautiful things. Look at your brand advertising, your out-of-home, hell, even your performance ads, and ask yourself: does this make some meaningful contribution to public space, or at the very least not deplete it?”

The Most Human Company Wins. Keep fighting the good fight.

Help me start this conversation by sharing this post with your marketing and advertising friends. Thank you.

Need an inspiring keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post Is it time to embrace ethically-sourced marketing? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

These days, it seems like every marketing conversation swirls around the latest AI tool, the newest social channel, or some fresh “growth hack” promising overnight results. Don’t get me wrong: staying current is vital. But as my recent Marketing Companion episode with Andy Crestadina reminded me, we might be so dazzled by the new that we forget the timeless fundamentals of marketing that built the very house we’re renovating.

As we shared a few laughs (and introduced “sex” into our podcast conversation for the first time), Andy and I unpacked a few marketing truths that are more relevant than ever.

To listen to the conversation, just click here!

Click here to enjoy The Marketing Companion Episode 327

An AI-generated summary of the conversation:

1. Persuasion is (Still) the Science at the Heart of Marketing

Andy kicked things off by quoting the copywriting legends: “It used to be all about persuasion.” And he’s right. Classic marketing was rooted in psychology—understanding why people take action (or not) and how to tip them toward us.

Everybody’s obsessed with optimizing for algorithms, but if your copy can’t persuade, all the traffic in the world won’t help. Marketers often overlook handling objections, using cognitive biases, and “nudging” consumers (thanks, Richard Thaler). It’s not all that different from decades past. Andy and I both agreed: re-read Cialdini’s Persuasion, crack open “Scientific Advertising,” and revisit Nancy Harhut’s work on behavioral science in marketing. These classic texts are treasure chests of techniques that’ll never go out of style.

2. Your Brand Is Still Your Moat

The switch was flipped 20 years ago and has never been turned off: we optimize for everything — Google, Facebook, conversion rates, clicks, Likes, and SEO. But the “soul” of marketing is still your brand. Distinctiveness, emotional resonance, and memorability — these are the long-term drivers of growth.

Look at the world’s best brands: they don’t win just by being good at Facebook ads, but by creating an emotional expectation and meaning around their name. Is your brand working as hard as your SEO?

3. The Power of Human Connection: Live Events & Community

Here’s a bit Andy and I always come back to: business is personal. Community, relationships, and the magic of in-person interaction will *always* be a goldmine for marketers. Andy’s network — and mine — comes from years of shaking hands, swapping stories, and sharing meals at conferences and industry events. COVID might have shaken up the landscape, but live events are back, and the impact is real.

Brands can (and should) host their own events. The potential for networking, relationship-building, and, indeed, sales is immense.

4. The Unexpected Luxury of Paper

In our endlessly buzzing, swiping, and scrolling digital age, few things cut through the noise like a handwritten note or a printed newsletter. Andy and I swapped stories of thank-you cards and beautifully crafted newsletters that made it past the digital trash heap and straight into someone’s heart (or office).

Paper feels like a luxury now. It’s rare, a little surprise and delight that says, “I put in extra effort for you.” For the right audience, a physical touchpoint can generate deeper loyalty than a thousand “likes.”

5. Stop, Iterate, and Focus on What Works

With every new tool or channel, marketers pile on more and more — TikTok, threads, Snapchat, Reels. But Andy’s right: the best marketers aren’t everywhere. They stop, iterate, and have the discipline to quit what’s not delivering. If you can’t go deep, you can’t be great.

Audit your time. Are you spreading your attention too thin across too many channels? Cut loose the underperformers and double down on what *moves the needle.* It’s about high-impact focus, not omnipresent mediocrity.

What are you doing that’s become a drain? Put something “to bed,” and reinvest those hours into upgrading your best work.

6. Sex, Beauty, and the Importance of Design

No, this isn’t clickbait. As much as culture changes, the human brain still processes beauty, sexual attractiveness, and design as signals of quality and trust. Whether you’re selling a service, a SaaS platform, or a new book, your visual presentation matters.

From an evolutionary standpoint, humans are wired to notice beauty because it historically signaled health, fertility, and good genes. Symmetry, clear skin, and proportionate features were reliable indicators of well-being and reproductive fitness.

When an ad feels aesthetically pleasing, the brain interprets that fluency as truth and credibility. It’s a shortcut: if it’s beautiful, it must be good.

When society repeatedly portrays certain faces, bodies, or aesthetics as “ideal,” people internalize them as signals of success, happiness, or desirability.

Advertising plays on this loop: we want to be like the beautiful people we see, so we buy what they use. It’s not rational; it’s associative learning—our brains connecting the brand with the desirable identity it projects.

This extends beyond “sex sells.” It’s about quality design, brand aesthetics, and the perception of credibility—online and off. Even as influencer brands experiment with minimalist sites and direct channel links, most of us still need a killer, beautiful website that instantly builds trust.

At the core, marketing hasn’t changed as much as we think. Persuasion, branding, human connection, standing out with tangible experiences, disciplined focus, and a sharp eye for presentation: these aren’t relics. They’re the secret sauce, even in an age of AI and infinite screen time.

Take a beat. Step back. And ask: which OG marketing moves are missing from your playbook?

Please support our sponsors, who make this fantastic episode possible.

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A recent Semrush study found that AI search traffic is projected to surpass traditional search by 2028. That makes now the time to prepare your brand for the future of search.

With Semrush AI Search tools, you will lead this transition.

• Track your AI visibility score: See a single, clear benchmark of your share of voice across AI search platforms.
• Identify AI mention opportunities: Uncover sources where your competitors are cited—but you’re not—including social media, forums, and more.
• Benchmark against competitors: Find the exact prompts, mentions, and sources where your competitors appear in AI responses and you don’t.
• Discover trending prompts: Spot the real questions your audience is asking AI platforms—and build content around them.
• Shape your brand narrative: Monitor the sentiment and context tied to your AI mentions, and make sure your brand is being represented the way you want.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

The post Rediscovering the OG Fundamentals of Marketing appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I have a new baby grandson. He is an angel and an extraordinary pooper. So, his talents demand a steady supply of diapers.

The boy is the end customer for any company selling diapers. But of course we can’t market directly to him. Mom and Dad are the decision makers. So, if you’re in the diaper business, you need to create an expert marketing appeal that targets the person between you and the final customer.

A similar dynamic is now occurring with AI and it will impact every business in the world.

Chapter 6 in my new book How AI Changes Your Customers digs into the rapidly increasing trust people place on AI platforms to make decisions for them.

I provided an example in the book where ChatGPT planned a detailed vacation trip to Paris for me, including hotels, restaurants, attractions, and transportation. I used the plan exactly … without seeing an ad, an influencer, or a piece of branded content.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth. When AI becomes your customer’s brain, AI becomes your customer. More precisely, Big Tech becomes your customer.

The moment your content is summarized, rated, or recommended by a machine, you’re speaking to the algorithm instead of a person.

In essence, we’re marketing to an intermediary decision-maker. We’re all in the diaper business now.

The dirt on “diaper marketing”

If you’re in marketing, you already know that AI is chipping away at the search engine business.

For now, Google still reigns supreme. In fact, search on the site is still growing.

But even Google uses an AI-assist that answers at least 20% of user queries.

Another mind-blowing fact is that if your business shows up as a recommendation on ChatGPT, it converts to a sale at a rate 23 X compared to traditional search on Google.**

As more people lean on AI for answers, context, and judgment, their buying decisions will become passive reactions to algorithmic cues. And this is not just for low-risk decisions. People are increasingly using AI to influence major purchases and life decisions.

** I’m sorry I don’t know the exact source of this fact. It was verbally reported at a conference and I could not record the source fast enough!

AI versus SEO

Perhaps the greatest question of our time is: How do we influence this powerful AI recommendation engine?

The answer is evolving day by day but here is one perspective informed by new research and expert advice from Rand Fishkin and Andy Crestodina.

The main themes are emerging day by day, but I think at a high level this is a pretty good summary (please drop me a note if you disagree!).

Top Factors Influencing SEO Success

(In no particular order)

• Backlinks and authority signals – Credible, high-authority websites linking to your content.
• Keyword relevance and intent matching – Aligning with what people are truly searching for.
• On-page optimization – Title tags, meta descriptions, headings, alt text, internal links.
• Relevant, original content – Depth, clarity, and usefulness for the searcher.
• Technical SEO – Site speed, crawlability, mobile-friendliness, proper indexing.

Top Factors Affecting AI Referrals

• Clarity of brand positioning — Easy-to-understand description of what the business does. Extreme detail about what you do.
• Content presence in high-quality sources — Indexed articles, interviews, studies, or reviews that the model can reference.
• Topical authority  — Demonstrated expertise in a niche (books, blogs, media presence). Harmonized messaging across website, social, press, and reviews.
• Reputation and trust signals – Recognized as credible, respected, and reliable. News articles, podcasts, thought leadership citations.

The Intersection!

Both SEO and AI search depend on authoritative brand content, positive social signals (validation), and content freshness (publish regularly!). The latest research shows that AI puts more weight on “newness” of the content.

Every business should be working on this, and by the way, if your internet security system is blocking AI platforms from crawling your site, stop that. I explain why here.

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Many businesses will dutifully work on their content and AI signals but overlook the overrides. What is an override? The marketing power that transcends an AI recommendation:

Let’s break these down. Why are these elements of marketing important in the AI Era?

Brand preference — Brand is more important than ever. I might ask ChatGPT to plan a trip to Japan for me, but I might require flights on Delta, or a hotel stay at Hyatt because those are brand preferences. Brand love overrides whatever AI has to say.

Word of mouth marketing (WOMM) — WOMM is the most trusted, purest form of brand advocacy there is. I might consider what AI says, but I will absolutely act on a recommendation from a trusted friend. Now, increasingly that trusted friend might be AI, but that’s a story for another day.

Advertising — Great storytelling through ads can reach through the noise and connect with targeted customers.

Brand communities — About 80% of new business startups rely on a brand community as their most important form of marketing. The reason is simple. There is no stronger form of brand loyalty.

We’re all in the diaper business now

Well, there’s never a dull moment on the marketing scene, is there?

I hope today’s advice was interesting and useful. Please act on it. Think about how SEO played out. The early adopters of SEO strategy likely had an advantage and a premier place in search results.

The window will be closing on AI recommendation preferences in the same way.

Google search is still the most important marketing factor for some businesses but start considering the “diaper sales” mentality that is needed to win in the AI Era.

If you benefited from this post, you will love my new book How AI Changes Your Customers: The Marketing Guide to Humanity’s Next Act.

Need an inspiring keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Image courtesy Mid Journey

The post Why every business is selling diapers now. AI versus SEO appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

OpenAI just turned chat into a checkout line. That might sound like another hype-y tech headline, but if you sell products online, this could be an e-commerce re-set in real time! It’s not for everybody at this moment, but you can see the direction here: AI as eCommerce.

OpenAI is building native shopping into ChatGPT conversations.

A customer asks for the best hair routine for an oily scalp, and can see product cards inside the answer. If the merchant is enabled, the purchase can be completed right within the chat. No tab hopping. No leaky funnels.

The customer journey is compressing. Google shortened the path from question to answer. Amazon shortened the path from decision to delivery. TikTok collapsed discovery and purchase into a single scroll. Now, OpenAI is turning customer curiosity into commerce.

Here’s what’s happening and how to capitalize on it in these early stages.

Why this matters

OpenAI has introduced Instant Checkout within ChatGPT for select U.S. merchants. The first wave is Etsy sellers, with Shopify merchants on the way. Payments run through Stripe using an open protocol that lets an agent complete a purchase on your behalf.

Product cards and carousels appear in ChatGPT Search results when the system detects shopping intent. While OpenAI was not specific about what “shopping intent” means, when I asked ChatGPT, it said that direct commerce would be triggered when users query with words indicating an imminent purchase, like “best diet plan for my overweight cat.”

OpenAI said results are ranked based on relevance and quality, not ads. The company charges a small fee when an order is completed.

This is the beginning of conversational shopping at scale. One place to ask, learn, compare, and buy. OpenAI said additional capabilities will be introduced later, including multi-item carts and expanded regions, but the direction is clear. This is going to scale.

Clear purchase intent

Azeem Azhar observed this week in his excellent Exponential View newsletter that:

“The unit economics could work for OpenAI if LLM discovery actually surfaces better options (early personal evidence is positive) and merchants compete for citations rather than purchases. Our researcher Chantal Smith saved $2,000 on a travel package to Mongolia she found through Deep Research that traditional Google search did not even surface.”

Google is not going to sit still. The race to conversational commerce is on.

How to get on board

The retail shelf has moved. If your products don’t appear inside AI answers, you’ll be invisible at the exact moment of intent. What an opportunity: Education, recommendation, and transaction can happen within a single conversation.

How to win product placement with zero media spend:

1. Make sure you’re eligible. If you sell on Etsy, enroll items you want to be eligible and keep inventory data accurate. If you sell on Shopify, prepare to connect the new channel when it opens. Have payments and shipping policies buttoned up.

2. Let ChatGPT see and understand your catalog. Don’t block OpenAI’s crawler in robots.txt. Use clean schema.org product markup. Keep titles, prices, availability, and variant data up to date. The model pulls this current information into product cards.

3. Build conversational SKUs. Customers ask questions. Bundle products as jobs to be done with clear outcomes. Think “frizz control for 48 hours” or “starter shoes for a new runner.” OpenAI suggests using short titles, three crisp benefits, and a simple how-to. These convert well inside a single product card.

4. Feed the model proof. Publish an ingredient and claims explainer in plain language. Include what an ingredient does, evidence, and safety notes. Add short demo videos and before-and-after photos to product pages. These assets often appear in cards and increase click-through rates.

5. Treat ChatGPT as a new retail channel. Set up reporting in your e-commerce platform. Track clicks, Instant Checkout orders, conversions, refunds, and repeat purchases from this source. Tighten fulfillment and service levels. Availability and quality are likely ranking signals.

6. Write for answer engines. Create Q&A pages that match the way people speak. Compare and contrast guides work well. The cleaner your explanations, the more likely the model will quote you and surface your products.

A complete OpenAI FAQ about this process is available here.

New kings, same castle

Month by month, ChaGPT is eating into Google’s share of search. Google is still the industry gorilla, but the trend is clear:

Search and social moved us from websites to feeds. Agents move us from feeds to results. We are entering an era where customers no longer browse. They ask. The answer is the retail shelf.

Last year, Perplexity introduced a similar in-chat shopping and payments feature. Microsoft also offers merchants the ability to create in-chat storefront capabilities with the Copilot Merchant Program.

This type of frictionless experience has the potential to spark a new movement in online shopping — one that shifts away from search engines like Google and e-commerce platforms like Amazon toward conversational agents with curated recommendations, comparisons, and seamless checkout experiences.

It’s also setting the stage for new power brokers to emerge in eCommerce. Google and Amazon have long been the gatekeepers for retail discovery. If more purchases start inside AI chatbots, the firms behind them will suddenly have more control over what products are surfaced and what commissions or fees they charge.

If your brand can be a helpful teacher at that moment, then the sale becomes a service. That’s a significant mindset shift.

Will this shift the balance of power between retail marketplaces and individual merchants? What about free shipping and next-day delivery? What about lenient return policies that consumers expect? There is much work to be done, but this marks the beginning of a new world where AI agents will become the operating system for online commerce and daily life.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustrations courtesy Mid Journey

The post OpenAI Instant Checkout: Conversations just became eCommerce appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I’ve been immersed in the world of social media marketing since the beginning. It was so exciting to be part of those early pioneering days!

It took us years to determine how authentic creativity and real human engagement blended (or didn’t blend) with the stodgy culture of traditional corporate marketing.

It took a lot of patience and experimentation to prove that we fit a marketing department. The biggest question we always faced: “How do you measure the value of this stuff?”

I lost one of my first customers because I couldn’t measure the ROI of a tweet!

We’ve come a long way, and social media marketing has evolved into an independent skill set and budget item. However, according to new research from Sprout Social, we’ve made little progress in terms of measurement and legitimizing our work.

This chart from the report made my head spin:

So 68% of social media marketers define Return on Investment … by engagement???

No wonder some regard the field as fluffy.

ROI is a financial measurement. Period. Always has been. Always will be.

If you came to my office justifying the ROI of your effort by engagement, I’d throw you out.

Social media marketers have been at this for more than a decade. Shouldn’t we be aligned with the real language of business by now?

To make matters worse, there is little to no correlation between engagement and the business’s revenue, conversions, or brand loyalty. Social media marketers are literally picking the worst possible measurement — engagement — to justify their existence.

The purpose of marketing is to create customers. If you’re driving engagement without conversions, you’re “engaging” your company into the poor house. Let’s look at a better way.

What “Measurable ROI” Looks Like

When we say “social media,” do we mean ads or Instagram Reels? Sprout probably needs to do a little better with the question because a good marketer will use both, and “ROI” lands in different ways.

When we consider social media advertising, we can generally measure ROI with precision — Conversions, CPA, ROAS.

When you run paid campaigns with clear calls to action, you can measure cost per acquisition, return on ad spend, and lead generation. This is where social media behaves like any other performance channel.

So for the “bottom of funnel” or “middle to bottom funnel” activity, social media is highly measurable. You can put in dollars, get out hard numbers, rinse and repeat.

This success requires collaboration with a trusted, experienced ad partner, but on the performance marketing side of the business, the real ROI of social media is easily measured. So why not say so?

Brand Marketing is Critical, Too

Now to the less measurable, but equally crucial side: awareness, trust, brand equity. This represents brand marketing, and these benefits matter deeply, but they don’t always show up on the next quarter’s P&L in obvious ways.

Direct ROI attribution for organic TikTok videos, thought leadership posts, and podcasts is notoriously difficult.

My friend Martin O’Leary put it well in his excellent newsletter:

• 77.5% of sharing is invisible (Dark Social data)
• 93% of attribution died with iOS 14.5 (Dashboard data)
• Most metrics don’t drive revenue anyway (Vanity metrics data)

If you’re obsessed with attribution and engagement, you’re not seeing the full picture. And that might be the best thing that’s happened to you.

Because once obsession over attribution dies, you have to look elsewhere.

• Do people remember you?
• Are they talking about you?
• Do they come back without needing a discount code?

That’s marketing.
Not math.

This is where we usually fumble the ROI discussion. It’s hard to find the money, so we revert to “engagement” because it’s easy to measure.

But not all measurements are important. And, in this case, all things important cannot be easily measured.

Brand marketing — and I would include almost all organic posting in this category — is essential because it builds a company’s emotional connection with its audience, fosters long-term trust, and ultimately drives sustainable growth. In a world flooded with noise, choice, and copycats, a brand is the one thing nobody else can replicate. It’s your reputation, your signal, and your promise all wrapped into one.

The Brand Equity Imperative

Your reputation and brand equity is hard to quantify on a month-to-month basis, especially for smaller companies, but it is no less important than the advertising side. Done right, social media can propel awareness, foster brand conversations, and cultivate a community that can significantly increase revenue.

Brand equity is a proxy for trust. People don’t buy from faceless companies. They buy from those they feel understand them. And trust is earned through consistent, human-centered communication. When your marketing focuses on reinforcing your values and emotional resonance, it accelerates the building of trust.

Second, brand marketing creates differentiation. In fact, it is probably your only differentiation. Competing on features or price is a race to the bottom. The best brands compete on emotion, identity, and belonging. Apple, Patagonia, and Nike aren’t just companies. They’re symbols of aspiration and identity.

Third, a well-developed brand becomes a growth engine. Studies show that brand-loyal customers spend more, refer more, and forgive more. They become your marketing department (see my book Marketing Rebellion to do a deep dive on that idea).

Brand marketing builds resilience. When economic conditions shift or new competitors enter the market, it’s not just your product that keeps you afloat — it’s your brand equity. A well-loved brand gives you margin, customer loyalty, and relevance when everything else is uncertain.

Finally, brand marketing has a compounding effect. The more people encounter your message in a clear, emotional, and consistent way, the more brand momentum you build. Like investing, the returns grow over time.

Measuring Social Media Brand Marketing

Just because social media brand marketing is harder to measure doesn’t mean it’s unmeasurable. But folks, we need to move beyond engagement.

The truth is, there are reliable indicators that show how your brand-building efforts contribute to ROI over time. These may not appear to be instant sales, but they are leading indicators of future financial health.

Here are a few:

Share of Search

This is one of the best proxies for brand awareness. If more people are typing your brand name into Google compared to competitors, you’re winning mindshare. Les Binet’s famous research shows that share of search is a strong predictor of future market share.

Branded Traffic

Website visits that come directly from brand-related keywords and links are another sign of brand equity. Growth in branded search volume indicates that customers know you, remember you, and are actively seeking you out.

A side comment — When customers care enough about you to include your name in a search, you are “overriding” the automated decision-making of AI. In the AI world, brand is more important than ever.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

A strong brand doesn’t just attract customers; it keeps them. CLV grows when your brand fosters loyalty and repeat purchase behavior.

Referral Rates and NPS (Net Promoter Score)

People are more likely to recommend brands they trust. Tracking referrals, reviews, and NPS is a way to connect emotional equity to bottom-line growth.

First-Party Data > Everything

If you don’t own the relationship, you don’t own the result. Attribution models that rely on third-party data are dead. What works now:

• Email capture with progressive profiling
• Customer accounts with behavioral tracking
• Direct website visits through branded searches
• SMS opt-ins for immediate communication

Pricing Power

Strong brands can command a premium price. If you can maintain margins or raise prices without losing customers, that’s a measurable ROI of brand strength.

Subscriptions

Especially for small businesses, building an email list is everything. These are the people who love you and will buy from you.  Subscribers are a leading indicator to revenue.

It’s hard to attribute brand marketing to a precise dollar amount on every social media post, but you can measure whether your social media efforts are moving the levers that ultimately lead to revenue and customer acquisition.

So yes, social media is both advertising (measurable today) and brand marketing (measurable over time). Budget for both brand AND performance marketing. When you account for both sides of the equation, you’re not just justifying social media — you’re proving its role as a powerful business driver.

Just don’t ruin it by telling your boss that an increase in engagement is the ROI of your marketing! Are you with me on this?

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

The post This is Why Social Media Marketers Struggle appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.