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How to use AI to become a genius

Mark Schaefer — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 12:00:25 +0000

I know this seems like a very weird topic for a blog post, but I assure you, there is logic and a practical marketing application ahead.

My story starts with Walter Isaacson.

Walter is a renowned journalist and historian. Most notably, he has carved his niche writing bestselling books about geniuses like Steve Jobs, Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, and Elon Musk.

A few years ago, I met and interviewed Walter at the annual SXSW conference. I asked him, “What are the personality traits that create a genius?”

He thought for a moment and said, “Two things: insatiable curiosity and an ability to connect the dots in a new way.”

I’ve met a few geniuses in my life, and I would concur that this definition is as good as any. It also points to an opportunity for you to leverage AI to reach for something greater. My thinking goes like this … AI is not curious, at least not yet. This is a uniquely human function. However, with the intelligence of all humanity at its disposal, AI excels at recognizing patterns and connecting the dots.

Let’s look at how we might put this together for you and your business.

The essential importance of curiosity

One of the conclusions I made in my book How AI Changes Your Customers is that curiosity is an essential human trait in the AI Era. If you’re curious, AI will feed you. You’ll gain wisdom. But if you’re lazy and just seek “the answer,” you’ll whither.

I am a massively curious person. Perhaps I am curious to a fault. I’ve certainly left money on the table over the years by pursuing interests rather than niches (and am much happier for it).

Here is what I have been curious about lately. My theory is that no matter what happens in the AI future, human art will persist. This suggests that a survival strategy for human marketers is to have our content approach the level of art. Not just stories … AI can do that. But a true, unique interpretation of the human experience, like the best musicians, poets, and painters.

Let’s test my latest curiosity flow and see if it can make me a genius.

Connecting the dots

For AI to connect the dots, I need to give it some dots to connect.

Here is my input to Claude:

You are the world’s premier marketing consultant and an expert in the history of consumer behavior, creativity, and business success. I have a theory that I’d like you to test for me. Even with the increasing intelligence and sophistication of AI, human marketing creativity will still stand alone as long as it digs deep to explore the singularly unique aspects of humanity — like an artist. Please create a 750-word opinion on this idea and how it might relate specifically to content marketing success. Do not be afraid to criticize me and alter my position. My goal is to gain unique insights and wisdom I can use to teach others. Here are thoughts from my books and blog posts to help you connect the dots:

Art is our last, best expression of hope.
When we don’t know what to trust in a world of deepfakes, we will turn to the people and organizations expressing themselves in ways that are resonant, compassionate, and authentic.
To stand out, we must be original. To be original, we have no choice but to tell our own story.
As people seek meaning, this will not come from scientific explanations. The only adequate response comes from art. Art is a way for people to explore and celebrate their unknowing.
If most of our human experience becomes AI-generated, authentic human expression will become a luxury and point of differentiation.
With the glorious output of AI, we will become de-sensitized to the sensational and be attracted to content that seems to come from a familiar human friend. The all-consuming razzle-dazzle of AI slop does not bring us into a relationship with others.
Similarly, with AI’s exceptionally persuasive capabilities, we will tire of constant manipulation. Art moves us while AI tries to make us move.
AI output is built on conformity. Great marketing is built on non-conformity. Attention requires an element of chaos, something that shatters expectations. AI is built to eliminate the anomalies. Art is built to focus on the anomalies.
The most human company wins.

The results

The output from Claude (I added the reference link):

Let’s start with where the theory holds. You named Content Shock years before anyone else saw it coming—the moment content supply outstrips human attention and volume stops working. AI didn’t soften that curve. It ended the argument. Anyone can now produce an infinite amount of competent, on-brand, search-optimized content for the price of electricity. The strategy that built most content marketing careers, including parts of yours, is now worthless. On this, we agree completely.

So scarcity moves. The rare thing is no longer the content. It’s the human behind it. Fine.

Here’s where I want to push you, because your theory is half-built, and the missing half is the part you can actually teach.

You’ve located the scarce, defensible thing in the output—in art, in expression, in content that “seems to come from a familiar human friend.” But that’s a look. And looks are exactly what AI counterfeits best and cheapest. The warm, vulnerable, hand-made-feeling personal essay is already being mass-produced. Authenticity as an aesthetic is being industrialized as we speak. If your edge is that your content feels human, you will lose that contest to a machine that can feel human on demand, at scale, for free, in any voice you name.

Art is not safe because it looks like art. Vulnerability is not safe because it sounds vulnerable. AI can fake all of it, and will.

So what can’t it fake?

Stakes.

AI generates vulnerability infinitely because it risks nothing. It has no body, no mortality, no customer who can leave, no reputation that can burn. It cannot take a position that costs it something, because nothing costs it anything. That is the structural gap, and it is the only one that doesn’t close.

This reframes your best line. You wrote, “Art moves us while AI tries to make us move.” True—but ask why art moves us. Not because it’s expressive. Because someone paid for it. There was a person who chose this and rejected that, who staked a reputation, who could be wrong in public. We are moved by evidence of cost. The brushstroke matters because a hand that could have failed made it.

Authenticity, then, is not a property of content. It is a property of accountability. It lives in the relationship, not the artifact. A familiar human friend isn’t trusted because their writing has a certain texture. They’re trusted because they’ve been consistent over time, because they have skin in the game, because they can be held responsible when they’re wrong.

That’s the anomaly that survives. Not stylistic chaos—AI does chaos now; “be weird” is already a prompt. The surviving anomaly is conviction with consequences: a point of view you would defend even when it costs you customers. Patagonia telling people not to buy its jacket worked because the sentence was expensive to say, and they meant it. No model will ever generate that because the words are free, but the position is not.

Now the criticism you asked for. “Art is our last, best expression of hope” is a beautiful sentence, and it is one prompt away from becoming its own slop. The romantic frame gives marketers permission to be self-indulgent—to mistake personal expression for customer value and call it courage. The artist who ignores the audience is, in marketing terms, a failed artist. Marketing has a job: it must arrive at a human need. Pure self-expression isn’t marketing; it’s a diary. Your theory, taught carelessly, produces a generation performing depth while forgetting the person they’re supposed to serve.

So here’s the synthesis I’d hand your students, sharper than where you started:

The most human company doesn’t win by looking most human. It will lose that fight. It wins by being the most accountable—by holding a conviction it would pay to keep, in service of a customer it actually understands. Art is the medium. The moat is the stakes behind it.

For content marketing specifically, this rewrites the whole job description. The work is no longer producing volume, or even producing beauty. It’s earning the right to be believed—through consistency, through positions that could cost you, through being a person your audience can hold responsible. Everything else is texture, and texture is now free.

Stop performing authenticity. Start risking something.

That’s the line AI can’t cross, and it has almost nothing to do with art. It has to do with whether there’s a person on the other end with something to lose—and whether your audience can tell.

Did this produce wisdom?

This Claude result should prove to anyone that AI does NOT have to be a sycophant! I laughed out loud at this sentence:

Now the criticism you asked for. “Art is our last, best expression of hope” is a beautiful sentence, and it is one prompt away from becoming its own slop.

Ouch!

Of course, we must approach AI output with discernment. Just because it says something doesn’t make it true. But I did learn a few things:

Claude pushed back on the sentimentality of “being human.” AI can replicate this. It forces me to accept an uncomfortable truth: Authenticity is being industrialized. If we can’t tell the difference, there is no difference.

“Vulnerability is not safe because it sounds vulnerable. AI can fake all of it, and will.”

I’m not sure I agree with this, but Claude is pushing me to realize that no matter how spammy AI is today, we must consider the capabilities of tomorrow. Can AI seem vulnerable? Yes, I can accept that possibility. It certainly replicates empathy.

Now we get to the critical insight:

So what can’t it fake? Stakes.

Essentially, Claude is saying, “You’ve dug deep. It has to be deeper. To stand out, you must risk something.”

Conviction with consequences. This is actually aligned with what I teach in my personal branding class. I call it spiky content — a provocative position that is defensible. So this puts a new name to something I have already been teaching.

I work with many large brands. I can tell you with certainty that creating “marketing with stakes” is a distant dream for any company with a legal department.

The work is no longer producing volume or even producing beauty. It’s earning the right to be believed.

Am I a genius now?

Here’s my view of AI. It’s Ripley in the movie Alien, climbing into the cargo loader to fight the intergalactic monster.

The exoskeleton makes her bigger, stronger, more effective. But notice what it doesn’t do. It doesn’t decide to go back for the child, Newt. It doesn’t choose the fight. Ripley does that in her own skin, before she ever straps in. That is the risk. Those are the stakes.

In this post, I’m inside the suit. AI didn’t transform me. It connected my dots and put a finer point on my teaching. It made good ideas better. Scarier, but better. And I’m the one putting my name on the line to publish something like this.

Let’s go back to Walter Isaacson’s definition of genius: curiosity plus connecting dots. This post was an illustrative exercise, and it proves something. AI might connect the dots better than I do. Maybe half of genius just got automated.

What AI can’t do is collect the dots. Jobs and Da Vinci didn’t connect a few; they connected a lifetime’s worth — gathered in arguments and failures and endless experiments. And then they bet on them. The collecting and the betting are still ours.

AI did not make me a genius. It came up with a nuanced insight that makes me better. But maybe someone could be a genius if they keep collecting dots over a lifetime and get a nudge over the line from AI.

But here’s an achievement: AI helped me produce something spiky today — content with stakes. Some people will hate this post. Good. I have a defensible position, and I enjoy the pushback. That stake (my reputation) is the part that was never coming from a machine.

Perhaps this one post will stand out, but the hard question is scale. Every large enterprise is engineered to strip the stake out — legal, brand safety, the approval committee. In the past, they’ve succeeded by killing anything that threatens “the stakes.”

So the real challenge isn’t a smarter AI. It’s whether a company can find the nerve to ship risky marketing on purpose — and protect the person willing to put their name on it.

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 Google Gemini.

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Content creators don’t start with “the room”

Mark Schaefer — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 12:00:58 +0000

Joe Pulizzi and Mark Schaefer

My friend Joe Pulizzi attended my Uprising retreat and was so moved by the experience that he wrote a beautiful lesson about it in his newsletter for content creators, The Tilt.

Joe and I are aligned on most marketing ideas, and his conclusion at the end of the post was profound and eloquent: “You don’t start with the room.”

He was reinforcing the idea that nobody just starts with a premium event, a smash YouTube channel, or a must-read newsletter. You have to earn that “room.” Or, in the case of my retreat, literally a room.

He wrote this so elegantly that, with his permission, I’ve quoted some of his highlights here. I think you’ll love his wisdom:

Last week I spent three days at Mark Schaefer’s The Uprising marketing retreat in Tennessee. It was small, around 40 people, and that was the point.

The room was filled with smart marketers, entrepreneurs, authors, consultants, and creators. But what stood out was not just the intelligence in the room. It was how quickly people became useful to one another. Helpful. Honest. Shockingly vulnerable.

That does not happen by accident. It happens when the right people are brought together around the right idea, with enough trust already in the room for something meaningful to happen.

Over three days of conversations, presentations, sidebars, meals, and big questions about where all this is going, one idea kept coming back to me.

In the next 12 to 18 months, small, trusted communities will matter more than ever.

Not because community is trendy. And not because AI is going to destroy everything tomorrow.

Because uncertainty is rising.

Search is changing. Discovery is changing. Content is exploding. Trust is harder to earn and easier to lose. People are overwhelmed, distracted, and suspicious. At the same time, they are desperate to find other people who understand what they are dealing with. That is where community becomes incredibly powerful.

But there’s a problem.

Everyone now wants to “build a community.”

That sounds wonderful. It is also mostly wrong.

Community Is Not the First Step

You do not build a community first. You build the reason a community should exist. That’s the part most people want to skip.

They launch the group. They open the Slack channel. They create the Discord server. They announce the membership. They schedule the webinar. They build the event page.

And then they wonder why nobody shows up.

The mistake is simple. They built the campfire before anyone had a reason to sit down in front of it.

A community is not a Facebook group. It is not a LinkedIn group. It is not a membership site. It is not a monthly Zoom call. It is not an event. Those are containers.

The community is the trust inside the container.

It is the shared language, shared struggle, shared progress, and repeated interaction. It is the feeling that says, “These are my people.” It is the sense that if you disappeared, someone would notice.

Mark Did Not Start With a Room

This is what made The Uprising such a good reminder.

Mark did not just rent a space, invite some people, and magically create a community. He had already done the work.

For years, Mark has published, spoken, written books, shared ideas, challenged assumptions, and built trust around a clear point of view. People came to The Uprising because they already had a reason to believe the room would matter.

The event was not the beginning of the community. It was an expression of the community. It’s where the community happened to be at that particular moment.

This is what so many people miss. They see the outcome and copy the container. They see the event, but not the years of trust. They see the membership, but not the audience.

Back to me.

Joe and I preach from the same hymnbook when it comes to community and its importance in the AI Age.

So how do you get there?

There is a process. It is not quick. It is not easy. But it works. This is the process I teach in my personal branding master class:

1. Where do you fit in your industry or marketplace?

Figure out your unique angle. What problem do you solve, and how do you uniquely solve it?

How do you finish this sentence: “Only I …”

That might seem intimidating but I’ve never had a class participant where we haven;t been able to figure that out. There’s still a big world of opportunity out there.

2. Find Your Space

Now you have the story to tell the world?

Joe was also very specific on this advice: Pick One Main Platform

“This is where people get overwhelmed,” Joe wrote. “They think they need a podcast, newsletter, YouTube channel, LinkedIn strategy, Instagram Reels, TikTok presence, webinar series, book project, and community all at the same time. Do not do that. Pick one main platform. One.”

To stand out, you have to be great. And you can’t be great in 12 places.

3. Stick to a Consistent Schedule

If you take my class, you will hear one word more than any other — “consistency.”

Consistency is more important than genius.

Once you begin, give yourself 18 months at least to see if it’s working. You can build your “room,” but you have to keep showing up. This also has powerful SEO and AI visibility advantages, of course.

You’ve implied to your audience that you’re going to help them solve a problem.

“The promise does not need to be clever, ” Joe said, “It needs to be clear.”

Over time, you become part of your audience’s weekly routine. Your goal is to become a habit.

4. Build Your Audience

Joe advised, “Audience building is not just publishing. It is relationship building. This is the part that gets missed because it is not scalable at first.”

He offered specific advice:

Make a list of 20 people who matter to the future of the audience you want to serve. They could be peers, customers, readers, event organizers, authors, podcast hosts, niche experts, future collaborators, or people already gathering the audience you care about.

Then help them. Share their work. Comment with substance. Interview them. Send the useful email. Introduce them to someone. Buy their book. Attend their event. Meet them in person when you can.

The future may be AI-powered, but trust is still built person by person.

5. Audience Precedes Community

Most creators miss the biggest opportunity. Once they build an audience, they stop there. But the most value, the most fun, the most connection comes through a community.

A community differs from an audience in three ways:

There is communion. People know each other and become friends.
There is a shared purpose.
There is a shared direction (which might change over time as the community pulls you forward).

This is the room. This will matter the most in the AI Era.

How do you know you’re ready? Do you have a few super fans? It doesn’t have to be a big group. Maybe 5-10 people who just want to know more. They comment on your posts. They ask questions. They’re excited about your ideas.

If you want to know a whole lot more about community-building, please take a look at the book Belonging to the Brand: Why Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy.

Build the Reason First

I’ll let Joe Pulizzi take us home on this post. Here are some of his concluding comments:

I keep thinking about that room at The Uprising.

The trust. The conversations. The openness. The willingness to help. The feeling that the people there were not just attending another event, but participating in something that mattered to them.

That is rare. I believe more of us are going to need that.

The people who have real trust with a specific audience will have an advantage. The people who have direct relationships will have an advantage. The people who are known for something will have an advantage.

Start with the person you want to serve. Start with the problem they are embarrassed to admit. Start with the one platform you can commit to. Start with the 20 people you can help. Start with a promise you can keep every week.

Do that long enough, and the community has a chance to appear.

Build the reason first. The campfire comes later.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

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Content creator angst: You can engage yourself broke.

Mark Schaefer — Mon, 18 May 2026 12:00:55 +0000

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:

Schedule time to dabble every day. Most platforms have a free or trial version. Push the envelope and experiment.
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.
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!

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

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A dozen huge marketing ideas sitting right in front of you

Mark Schaefer — Mon, 11 May 2026 12:00:29 +0000

A few years ago. I had the famed author Tom Peters on my podcast. He was retiring and had written his last book.

Two years later, he was back on the show with another book!

“What happened?” I asked. “I thought you had retired!”

“I’m still desperate to get my ideas out,” he said. “I don’t think enough people have heard me yet. In fact, I think the best authors and speakers have this quality — they’re desperate to get their ideas out into the world.”

And, I believe this is true and wise. I feel the same way. I am driven to publish because I’m desperate to get ideas into the world that can help people … and not enough people are listening.

The math works like this: A respectable open rate for a newsletter is about 20%. I am fortunate to have eager and loyal readers so my open rate is typically above 40%. But that means that 60% of the people who love me most, my subscribers, may miss what I had to say that week.

So I feel desperate to try again.

This post is different. It’s a reflection on the ideas I’ve repeated often, and yet I think most people haven’t heard me yet.

Like Tom Peters, I will probably keep trying until the end (whatever that might be). Here we go with some primary ideas. I’ve provided links in the posts for more information if you want to read more (please do).

1. Your personal brand is your last line of defense against AI

I’ve been shouting this from the rooftops for years. In a world saturated with AI slop, the only messages that will rise above the noise carry meaning. You have to mean something to your audience.

Look, we’re in a tough world. AI might be nipping at the heels of your skill set or career. But if you’re KNOWN in your industry, more calls will be returned, more doors will open, more opportunities will come your way. Investing in your personal brand is like making deposits in an insurance policy for your career.

In any message, the “from” line is more important than the “subject” line.

Best resource: My book KNOWN, the world’s bestselling book on personal branding.

2. Give in to the bots.

The introduction of AI as our friend / co-worker / companion / enemy heightens the emotion in our marketing discussions, but perhaps nothing has fanned the outrage more than the idea that AI only exists by stealing our content.

Protecting our content from AI has become a global obsession.

But our own businesses and careers face an existential crisis if we are NOT seen by the bots. We have to put our egos aside and recognize that yes, it hurts that Ai is stealing our content, but in the long-term, our businesses are in a better position if we are in the game.

Give it away, give it away, give it away now.

3. Universities need a dramatic and immediate overhaul

I’ve taught at a university for 15 years and have lectured at dozens of colleges that use my books as texts. I care about these institutions, and they are in big, big trouble.

It gets down to this. Colleges are no longer the gatekeepers of knowledge. AI makes intelligence abundant and free. Colleges need to radically overhaul their systems, and in this post, I show how it is possible.

For most career options, it no longer makes sense to fork over so much money for four-year degrees that are becoming obsolete. Instead of the traditional four-year model, I proposed an affordable lifelong learning university subscription.

The university can still have a role in our future careers, but it must start an urgent transformation now.

4. Competence doesn’t cut it

Over the past year or so I’ve had to dig deep to discern how humans will survive and thrive in world of AI content and marketing … if at all.

Many marketers and creators are perilously close to crossing The Milli Vanilli Line. They’re not enabled by AI. They’re using it to fake their presence, their careers, their influence.

I went on a global journey to discover how the best creatives were rising above the noise in a way that was uniquely and sustainably human. The result is my book Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World.

If you’re merely competent, you’re about to be replaced. The key idea is creating ideas that are truly disruptive. This is a book of hope filled with hundreds of ideas, inspiring case studies, and a framework for human effort to survive in the AI Era:

Disrupt the story
Disrupt where the story is told
Disrupt who tells the story

5. It’s time for ethically-sourced marketing

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

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 can’t keep burying our heads in the sand. It’s time to consider what it means to lead and sponsor ethically-sourced marketing.

6. The False Hope of Content and SEO

From Content Shock to the creator economy and SEO scams, I’ve tried to communicate realistic expectations for content marketing.

I’ve worked with dozens of diverse companies, and nearly always, they’re producing content because they’re afraid not to. Content marketing and a storytelling industrial complex seem to have taken on a life of their own.

Without a strategy and realistic, achievable goals, these random acts of content suck up time and contribute to an unwinnable content arms race. Breaks my heart to see this massive waste. And it’s getting worse in the AI Era.

There is a place for content and SEO. But marketing does not begin with TikTok videos, podcasts, and LinkedIn posts. It begins with strategy.

7. You’re not in control of the marketing message

The overarching theme of my popular book Marketing Rebellion is that most marketers are asleep and not connected to real consumer realities. The foremost concern is thinking that your marketing team is in charge of your marketing message.

A brand used to be what we said it was. Now, it’s what other people say you are (online, in reviews, in posts from influencers).

This trend is simply accelerating as employees walk off the job when they disagree with commercial contracts, and organized rage farms decide to take down brands at will.

8. Community is the future of marketing.

In 2018, I began predicting that brand communities would play a bigger role in mainstream marketing efforts. I dedicated an entire chapter to this idea in Marketing Rebellion and believed this was probably the most important chapter in the book.

Then the pandemic happened, and this idea accelerated as online communities became the primary form of human connection. People dropped me notes saying my predictions were coming true before our eyes.

I decided this was important enough to devote an entire book to the subject: Belonging to the Brand: Why Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy.

A bold claim. Look around. I’m right. Dive in.

9. Momentum is a process

A great deal of my consulting practice is devoted to people and companies that are stuck. You can’t count on luck to rise to the next level. You need momentum, and that can be managed.

There is a whole field of sociology dedicated to momentum, but it hasn’t really been applied to marketing before. I did that for the first time in a book called Cumulative Advantage … in hindsight, a terrible title, but a beloved book nevertheless.

Having an idea, career, or business stuck in the mud doesn’t have to be destiny. There is a process behind successful people.

10. Influencer Marketing is just beginning

I suppose I was a pioneering voice in the area of influencer marketing, writing the first book on influencer marketing in 2012 — before anybody was even talking about it.

There has probably been no idea more battered, misunderstood, and left for dead.

But here’s what the pundits miss. An influencer isn’t just some kid hawking an energy drink. They are regarded as a trusted friend — a meaningful parasocial relationship.

And in a time filled with misinformation, polarization, and deep fakes, we will want to buy from trusted friends more than ever. Influencer marketing is jsut beginning.

11. Awe as marketing strategy

Let’s connect a few dots. In the AI Era, we’ll long for human connection. We are already in a period of unprecedented isolation, loneliness, and depression.

Bringing people together for experiences isn’t just good business, it’s great brand-building.

Recently, I gave a speech in New York and people were cheering and laughing out loud. I asked them, “If you were watching this online at home, would you have the same, vocal reaction to my talk? No. They wouldn’t. The most I could hope for would probably be a muted chuckle here and there.

What’s the difference? When we bring people together, it creates an emotional contagion of awe called collective effervescence. These great feelings transfer to the brand.

What would it look like to have a marketing strategy of “add more awe?” You can read more about this in the Audacious book.

12. The Most Human Company Wins ™

Perhaps my most durable argument, a theme that runs through every book, blog post, and speech — The Most Human Company Wins.

This is not a Pollyannaish “Go, Humans!” cheer, and I’m not anti-tech. I’m pro-humanity. I’m a realist. The paradox is that as automation rises, human connection becomes more valuable, not less.

By the way, going forward, the most human company isn’t necessarily all “human.” It will undoubtedly be a combination of AI trained on best practices and human connection.

Add your smile, your face, your personality. Add your story, your passion, your compassion at every customer touchpoint. The most human company wins.

So, those are a few ideas that burn in my heart every day. If you follow me, you’ll probably hear about them again because these ideas help people, and I’m desperate to get them out into the world.

Have you thought about the ideas and stories that you’re desperate to get into the world? Reflecting on that is a useful first step in building your own personal brand.

See? There I go again : )

Illustrations a combination of prompts from Midjourney and Claude.

The post A dozen huge marketing ideas sitting right in front of you appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

The audacious marketing genius of Angine de Poitrine

Mark Schaefer — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 12:00:08 +0000

If you haven’t heard of Angine de Poitrine, you probably soon will.

The duo is the most viral musical meme on the internet (by far). Today, I’m making an important and fascinating connection between their success and the reality of effective modern marketing. To get us on the same page, watch at least a few minutes of this video, which has had millions of views in just a few weeks:

Pretty crazy, right?

Now, there are many technical nuances to this band that make them interesting, such as a musical style described as “micro-tonal math rock.” And of course, their outfits are over the top. How do they even play those instruments?

But today I want to show how their success is right out of the playbook I described in my book Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World. This is a relevant and inspiring case study for every marketer — even if you hate the music!

Let’s set the scene.

In the book Audacious, I provide evidence that the world of marketing is BORING. Very boring.

Research shows that about two-thirds of marketing and ad campaigns elicit a negative or neutral emotional response from customers, whether B2B or B2C. And AI is making it worse, creating a pandemic of dull.

The same thing is happening in the music industry.

In the last few months, music critics like Ted Gioia and Rick Beato noted the lack of innovation on the current music scene. Beato compared 2025 Grammy-nominated songs to songs from 1986 and noted that eight of the top 10 songs last year were remakes of old tunes. 1986 featured timeless songs from Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, and Lionel Richie, to name a few. Both critics pointed out the horrible impact of AI slop on the quality of today’s music innovation.

So, just like the marketing world, music fans are begging for something new in a boring world.

And, when something like Angine de Potrine finally comes along, magic happens!

Where did this band come from?

Before I plot out the marketing formula that propelled the band, it might be useful to know a little background.

Angine de Poitrine is a two-piece band from Quebec. They seemed to appear from nowhere, but Khn (guitar, bass, looping) and Klek (drums) have played together since their early teens. That’s around 20 years of musical partnership before the world caught up with them.

In early February 2026, Seattle indie radio station KEXP uploaded footage of Angine de Poitrine performing at a festival in Rennes, France. In two weeks, the video passed 3.5 million views. Excited reaction videos flooded in.

Why did it spread so fast? There is actually a method to their madness.

The repeatable creative formula that works

I’ve been obsessed with discerning how humans will thrive in an AI-dominated world. For two years, I trotted around the globe talking to the most acclaimed creative geniuses in search of answers.

In my discussions, a pattern emerged. The best marketing and advertising work leveraged one, or more than one, of these strategies:

Disrupt the traditional story or narrative
Disrupt where the story is told
Disrupt who tells the story

The book provides hundreds of ideas on how to do this, but the formula really is this simple.

A small example: I uploaded the book to AI. An agent created abstract art images based on the stories in the book. The only thing on the book cover is a QR code. If you hover over the QR code, the book cover endlessly changes as the AI-generated images form an “infinity cover.”

Why is this an innovation that rises above the noise (and receives mainstream news coverage)?

I told the story of the book in a new way — through AI abstract art.
The story was told in a new place — a book cover.
I disrupted who told the story. There was no human involved. The book told the story!

Now, let’s examine how this same formula worked for this band.

The Angine de Poitrine edge

In a sea of sameness, Angine de Poitrine disrupted its niche. And it did it precisely along the Audacious formula.

1. Disrupting the story

Today’s music is a sea of sameness. While the Angine de Poitrine hints at prog rock tunes from the past, it is wholly unique by combining noisy riffs with undeniable grooves that keep you engaged.

Commenting on the band, Rick Beato said: “Amazing. This is what I imagined the future of music would be. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”

This is a man who has been around the industry for decades. and he was hearing an entirely new “story.”

Disrupting the medium

While the band is still going viral on common channels like YouTube and Instagram, the story is narrated in a different way.

The guitarist plays an instrument that is both lead guitar and bass. And he is manipulating the music and the two instruments by controlling pedals with his bare (polka dotted) feet. This is far from any mainstream approach to playing music.

Microtonal music utilizes alternative tuning systems that create new harmonic colors and are foundational to many non-Western traditions, including Indian, Turkish, and Arabic music. So they are mashing styles and cultures together.

Even the band’s rhythms are bizarre yet mesmerizing. It seems like the musicians mindfully disrupted every single way they could tell their story.

Disrupting the storyteller

This is the most obvious innovation. Even if you didn’t know anything about music, the costumes, the strange symbols, the dancing, and their made-up language demands attention. This is even beyond the personas of David Bowie or KISS.

The story is being told by strange polka-dotted aliens … who shred.

The marketing lesson of Angine de Poitrine

A few months ago, I wrote an article about unhinged marketing and why this is a timely and important trend. Brands like Liquid Death, Nutter Butter, and Duolingo seem to be breaking every marketing norm with their nightmarish campaigns.

But really, they’re not. Great marketing is not about conformity. It’s driven by non-conformity. They aren’t succeeding by telling everyone how great they are, pumping the next holiday sale, or search engine optimization. They’re lovable, relatable brands because the world desperately wants something to talk about.

Arguably, Angine de Poitrine is the Liquid Death of music. It’s a good product, but that is secondary to the unhinged brand image.

Finally, we have a musical act that makes you pay attention. What about your brand? Who is stirring up the shit in your industry? Is it time for a little audacity?

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

The post The audacious marketing genius of Angine de Poitrine appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Three reasons why brand is more important in the AI Era

Mark Schaefer — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 12:00:23 +0000

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.

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}.

Your Content Marketing Survival Plan: Abandon the Attention Economy

Mark Schaefer — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 12:00:26 +0000

My career has a clear dividing line.

For most of my professional life, I was a marketing executive with a Fortune 100 company. To drive the stock price, we needed to make great products and continuously innovate. In my marketing role, I created more customers so we could ship more stuff, more often, at higher prices.

Act 2 (the dividing line) started when I launched my own company about 17 years ago. Most of my income now derives from earning the attention of an audience through blog posts, podcasts, keynote speeches, and books. This is the promise of the creator economy. Anyone can monetize attention, and I’ve taken full advantage of that opportunity.

But the days of the attention economy are coming to a close, and we need to embrace a new mindset to succeed in the AI Era.

Let’s dig in.

From attention to intimacy

The term “attention economy” is widely attributed to Herbert A. Simon, the Nobel Prize–winning economist and cognitive psychologist.

In a 1971 paper titled “Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World,” Simon wrote:

“In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

Blogging pioneers like Chris Brogan, Julien Smith, and Gary Vaynerchuk codified this radical business model: Give away all your best ideas. If you earn attention, the money will come.

This became the foundation of the modern content marketing movement. In 2006, “Inbound Marketing” was coined by Hubspot founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah. The strategy: Overwhelm a niche with relevant content, and it’s game over for competitors.

In 2014, I characterized the downside of this new dynamic as Content Shock — once a niche becomes saturated, the cost of winning a content arms race forces some companies to drop out. Content becomes commoditized.

Here we are in the AI Era. The cost of creating excellent content is near zero, or heading that way. The attention economy model, which drove so much success, is nearly obsolete. Marketers are battling:

Fragmentation of media channels
Ability to massively scale custom content through AI
Lack of competitive content “moats” — everything is easy to copy and steal
Heightened competition due to low (or no) entry barriers
Diminished importance of SEO due to AI and knowledge panels

The cumulative pressure is so severe that even Joe Pulizzi, the “godfather of content marketing,” declared:

“Most creators who build audiences that monetize generally take between 18 and 36 months. We may not have that kind of time. The major platforms are bending more to synthetic content (of course, they are and will). Synthetic creators (AI’s) are booming and will continue to boom where they will outcreate humans at an unfathomable rate. It will simply be near impossible (not impossible) for a new creator to break through and build momentum in 2-3 years (I think).

“Synthetic content is going to move from slop to amazing in a very short period of time.And then, our devices will begin to create content on demand for us … original stuff (well, from the LLMs original) that will be like magic. No creator needed for that stuff.

“But we have the now. And right now that hasn’t happened yet. And right now businesses need to be leveraging their employees as creators and building their own personal brands because now it’s possible.”

Human content will survive and thrive. But we’ll need to re-focus and tap into something new: intimacy.

The intimacy economy

I was in conversation with my brilliant friend Mitch Joel when we first tossed around this idea. When everyone is chasing attention, perhaps the future is intimacy.

“I care less about what everyone else is obsessed with and more about what deepens what I already care about,” he said. “It’s about how deeply one message can land… and where it leads me next. Content that moves from viral reach to emotional proximity.”

There is a word for that type of intimate content: Art.

No matter what happens in the world of AI, art will persist.

I will always love the human creator named Bruce Springsteen. An AI song that sounds like Springsteen might be a curiosity, but I will only pay my money to see The Boss, not a bot pretending to be Bruce.

I have an emotional connection to the way Bruce’s songs interpret the intimate human experience. Our content must do the same. It will have to be intimate. It will have to be vulnerable. And that takes courage, especially if you work for a company that is still focused on battles over keywords.

Anyone, or anything, can earn attention. AI created an oil painting that sold for over $1 million, won writing contests, and mimicked the works of our greatest musicians. Tragically, organizations are creating rage farms that industrialize attention.

But intimacy … humans can always win that game.

The imperative for art

The idea that corporate content must approach the level of art is probably uncomfortable. Maybe this post is the first declaration of this new reality.

But take a hard look at our world. What choice do you have?

If you’re competent, you’re vulnerable. AI is more than competent, and it will overwhelm you. Worse, if you’re merely competent, you’re ignorable — the worst marketing sin.

But as the world moves inexorably toward AI slop, real, raw, vulnerable human stories will be a luxury.

I don’t see AI as a competitor. The world is already overrun with content. What does it matter if I have a million competitors or a billion? I’m never going to win at SEO.

But I can win with intimacy. I can earn your trust and love, just like Bruce Springsteen. He’s real, he’s honest, and he gives his all. When I publish content for you, there is only one sentence pounding in my brain: “I will never let you down.”

I was interviewed on a podcast this week, and the host — with emotion in her voice — said, “We’ve never met, but I feel like I know you as a friend. I’ve read your content for so long.”

I doubt she will ever gush those words to an AI bot. I have achieved intimacy with her. I am part of the fabric of her life. I am her trusted friend.

Every post I write carries a badge that says “100% Human Content.” It’s my pledge to you that this is me. I am here. You can count on me. And isn’t that rare? Isn’t that the assurance we all want in this world?

Now, how are you going to achieve that intimacy for your business?

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy Mid Journey

The post Your Content Marketing Survival Plan: Abandon the Attention Economy appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Ten ways to create an AI-shaped career

Mark Schaefer — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 12:00:40 +0000

You and I are living in an era of magic. I use AI nearly every hour of the day to be wiser, bolder, and more creative.

In a way, AI has even become my mentor.

That might sound strange, but hear me out.

I wrote a post recently noting that this question: “Who decides the safe limits of superintelligence?” could be a turning point in human history.

As I wrote the draft of this post, I felt angry and even scared about the prospects of weaponizing AI, and this was apparent in the tone of the article.

I uploaded the draft to Claude before I published and asked, “Is this post balanced? Did I miss anything?”

Claude responded, “Mark, this is not you. Your thesis is emotional and underdeveloped. You are known for your fairness and intellectual honesty. Here are some ideas to make it better.”

And the ideas were pretty harsh … and much appreciated.

I generally work alone. In this case, AI wasn’t just a muse or editor; it intervened as a wise friend, keeping me on brand. AI is helping me to be wiser, bolder, and more helpful in this world.

I have neither turned my life over to AI and nor do I feel threatened by it. My career has become AI-shaped, conforming to the new superpowers and opportunities of a magical technology.

Instead of doomscrolling about layoffs, how can we all create an AI-shaped career?

Creating the AI-shaped career

Let’s start with some advice from my friend Azeem Azhar. Azeem is probably the most connected person I know, and so he’s able to tune into the priorities of a wide range of industries. and his supremely interesting Exponential View Newsletter.

Here is his advice:

1. Ship end-to-end projects

Choose or create multi-step projects with real stakeholders; practice owning the plan and delivering it to a finish line. If AI takes on more of the execution work, the value for humans lies increasingly in coordination around those tasks, specifically in orchestration. It’s the ability to decide what needs to be done, in what order, and with which tools, and then keep a project moving.

2. Grab managerial experience early

Run standups, lead sprints, and coordinate small teams if you have a chance. Volunteer to own small scopes like roadmap reviews and stakeholder check?ins, to build judgment and trust.

3. Build domain fluency and networks

Learn how people in your field think and speak. It signals maturity and reduces perceived hiring risk. Read primary sources and talk to operators. Join a niche community or meetup and ask specific questions.

4. Choose costly and credible signals, such as an MBA

Managers want evidence of commitment. If a degree isn’t feasible, pick rigorous alternatives – selective fellowships, competitive certifications, or shipping a demanding public project.

5. Use AI well

Build agents, audit outputs, and integrate them into real workflows. You could be the person who sets the AI standard at your next company – we’re still early, and practical expertise is scarce. Track gains (time saved, error rates, throughput) and document playbooks so others can adopt them. Push for small, safe pilots and iterate fast.

The implications for sales and marketing

Let’s get more granular. Most of the people reading this article are in sales and marketing. How do we have an AI-shaped career in that profession?

6. Become impossible to replace in customer relationships

AI may automate tasks, but trust, empathy, and emotional resonance are still the human differentiators.
People want to buy from, partner with, and follow humans they feel connected to.

Build a personal brand in your niche—be findable, memorable, and known.
Develop deep customer fluency: their worldviews, their blockers, their aspirations.
Become the person who delivers difficult news well, handles nuance, and reads a room.

This is the “Most Human Company Wins” applied at the individual level. AI can crank out emails, landing pages, and pitches. But it still can’t feel the customer.

7. Build a Portfolio of Evidence, Not Just a Résumé

AI is making hiring faster and more automated, but that also means résumés look more similar. Portfolios, demonstrations, and proof-of-work become far more powerful signals than job titles or bullet points.

Publish case studies, screen recordings, agent demos, prototypes, or thought pieces.
Document your projects in public spaces (LinkedIn, GitHub, Notion, Substack).
Practice “building in public”—it shows momentum and reduces perceived hiring risk.

8. Become the human face of your brand

The personal brand is our last line of defense against AI. If you are KNOWN in your industry. AI can mass-produce content, but it can’t replicate an authentic, trusted, known human.

No matter what happens in this AI world, we will seek verification, validation, insight and comfort from real humans. The only career equity we can carry with us is our personal brand. Are you known or not?

I teach the best personal branding class in the world to help you determine:

Your place in a crowded business eco-system
Establishing the presence, reputation, and authority to break through
Strategies to get your story out to an audience that matters
Specific ideas to give your brand an edge

Being “Known” is the strongest career moats in the AI era.

9. Become an experience designer

Your customers are hungry for connection and live experiences. This is a uniquely human acitivy.

We’re already seeing a backlash as young people seek more shared experiences in their online world.

Learn to design workshops, events, roundtables, and customer communities.
Study experience design, service design, and community management.
Become the person who can create moments of belonging and transformation.

10. Lead a brand community

In Belonging to the Brand, I boldly predicted that community will be the last great marketing strategy, and that is backed up with evidence.

Here’s the good news. AI is not going to build and run a human community. Community might be the only type of marketing people actually seek out because we need human connection.

This book goes into detail about how to build and nurture a brand community, but the main ideas are:

Find an intersection of the purpose of your company and the purpose of your customers
Create an online and/or offline space of trust and safety
Reward community members and assure they are seen and heard

The AI-shaped career

Here’s the simple truth: none of us can fully predict where this is going, but we can decide how we’re going to show up for it.

An AI-shaped career isn’t about becoming more machine-like. It’s about becoming the most unmistakably human version of ourselves — more curious, more connected, more courageous.

If you build trust, create experiences that matter, show your work, and become known in a meaningful way, you won’t just survive this transition. You’ll stand out in it.

The future doesn’t belong to the people who race against the machines. It belongs to the people who double down on the humanity the machines can’t touch.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustrations courtesy Mid Journey

The post Ten ways to create an AI-shaped career appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Ten ways to create an AI-shaped career

Mark Schaefer — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 13:00:40 +0000

Are you concerned about the AI impact on the job market? I mean … who isn’t?

Nearly every bank and economic forecast is expecting some downturn in the job market, and we’re probably on the cusp of this change. The recent flurry of corporate layoffs was the highest in 20 years.

At the same time, research shows that entry-level opportunities are shrinking, and new entrants to the job market face greater challenges than most.

And managers are risk-averse because they expect workflows to change because of AI in the near future. Firms don’t want to hire someone into a process they know will be redesigned.

Today, let’s examine what we can do about it. Let’s assume profound change is at hand and we need to embrace an AI-shaped career. Here are some practical ideas to get ahead of the curve.

Creating the AI-shaped career

Here is his advice:

1. Ship end-to-end projects

2. Grab managerial experience early

Run standups, lead sprints, and coordinate small teams if you have a chance. Volunteer to own small scopes like roadmap reviews and stakeholder check?ins, to build judgment and trust.

3. Build domain fluency and networks

4. Choose costly and credible signals, such as an MBA

Managers want evidence of commitment. If a degree isn’t feasible, pick rigorous alternatives – selective fellowships, competitive certifications, or shipping a demanding public project.

5. Use AI well

The implications for sales and marketing

Let’s get more granular. Most of the people reading this article are in sales and marketing. How do we have an AI-shaped career in that profession?

6. Become impossible to replace in customer relationships

AI may automate tasks, but trust, empathy, and emotional resonance are still the human differentiators.
People want to buy from, partner with, and follow humans they feel connected to.

Build a personal brand in your niche—be findable, memorable, and known.
Develop deep customer fluency: their worldviews, their blockers, their aspirations.
Become the person who delivers difficult news well, handles nuance, and reads a room.

This is the “Most Human Company Wins” applied at the individual level. AI can crank out emails, landing pages, and pitches. But it still can’t feel the customer.

7. Build a Portfolio of Evidence, Not Just a Résumé

Publish case studies, screen recordings, agent demos, prototypes, or thought pieces.
Document your projects in public spaces (LinkedIn, GitHub, Notion, Substack).
Practice “building in public”—it shows momentum and reduces perceived hiring risk.

8. Become the human face of your brand

The personal brand is our last line of defense against AI. If you are KNOWN in your industry. AI can mass-produce content, but it can’t replicate an authentic, trusted, known human.

I teach the best personal branding class in the world to help you determine:

Your place in a crowded business eco-system
Establishing the presence, reputation, and authority to break through
Strategies to get your story out to an audience that matters
Specific ideas to give your brand an edge

Being “Known” is the strongest career moats in the AI era.

9. Become an experience designer

Your customers are hungry for connection and live experiences. This is a uniquely human acitivy.

We’re already seeing a backlash as young people seek more shared experiences in their online world.

Learn to design workshops, events, roundtables, and customer communities.
Study experience design, service design, and community management.
Become the person who can create moments of belonging and transformation.

10. Lead a brand community

In Belonging to the Brand, I boldly predicted that community will be the last great marketing strategy, and that is backed up with evidence.

Here’s the good news. AI is not going to build and run a human community. Community might be the only type of marketing people actually seek out because we need human connection.

This book goes into detail about how to build and nurture a brand community, but the main ideas are:

Find an intersection of the purpose of your company and the purpose of your customers
Create an online and/or offline space of trust and safety
Reward community members and assure they are seen and heard

The AI-shaped career

Here’s the simple truth: none of us can fully predict where this is going, but we can decide how we’re going to show up for it.

An AI-shaped career isn’t about becoming more machine-like. It’s about becoming the most unmistakably human version of ourselves — more curious, more connected, more courageous.

If you build trust, create experiences that matter, show your work, and become known in a meaningful way, you won’t just survive this transition. You’ll stand out in it.

The future doesn’t belong to the people who race against the machines. It belongs to the people who double down on the humanity the machines can’t touch.

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Illustrations courtesy Mid Journey

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The heritage moat: Why nostalgia marketing dominates today

Mark Schaefer — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 13:00:34 +0000

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:

Comfort in a period of crises
Historic media trends aimed at children
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:

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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Engage the senses. Nostalgia is multisensory. It can be evoked by sounds, sights, smells, touch, and tastes.
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.
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.
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.

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