I recently became a grandfather. My grandson is a year old now — beautiful, smart, and strong (obviously!). I am mesmerized by how he meets the world with all his senses. Every blade of grass. Every beam of light. Pure, unguarded wonder.

I can’t help but look at him with immense pride and joy. But if I’m honest, there is fear sitting right next to the joy. A quiet, persistent fear about the kind of world ahead of him. An unknown, AI-dominant world.

So I’ve thought a lot about this — what it means to raise a child (or grandchild) — in a world filled with malignant uncertainty and unsettling change. How is parenting different now? What kind of world can we expect? And how do we prepare the people we love most for what’s coming next?

Let’s start at a very high level and dive down to baby level — what parents should know about AI.

Navigating the Poly Crisis

My friend Jola Burnett of Ipsos presented at The Uprising retreat last year and described our age as one of “poly crisis.” It is unique in that we’re surrounded by concern on all fronts. Environmental, political corruption, economic, and now this AI thing lurking in the shadows.

Perhaps this is small comfort, but we can recognize that the world has always been a shit show.

Who would have wanted to live in the Middle Ages? The World Wars? Through slavery, or the American Civil War, or Covid? Every generation has looked at the horizon and seen something that felt unsurvivable.

And yet. Here we are.

Humans found a way through. Overall, the world is becoming safer, healthier, and more prosperous, despite the parade of shit shows throughout history.

Humans don’t just endure hard times — we build institutions, laws, and social norms specifically designed to prevent the worst from happening again. That’s not naive optimism. That’s the solid truth of human history.

Whatever happens next, it’s just another opportunity for a resilient human race to conquer chaos.

Opposing the non-human world

We live in a deeply polarized and angry world. But here is one thing (mercifully!) we can all agree on — nobody wants to live in a non-human world.

Human beings want safety. We would like to have meaningful work. We want to have agency and the freedom to choose. And we don’t like to be bossed around.

If we reach a point where our livelihoods and families are threatened by AI, progress will certainly come to a screeching halt. Whether through legislation or resistance, we will not tolerate a non-human world. Human self-interest is a guardrail against AI dystopia.

A survey of 2,400 knowledge workers found that 44% of Gen Z employees admit to actively undermining or sabotaging their company’s AI strategies.

This isn’t dysfunction. It’s democracy working at the ground level.

This is people saying: not like this.

Watch the news for the signs. The direction of AI is now radically unpopular. The revolution, my friends, is already beginning.

The messy middle

AI will transform our lives for the better. I genuinely believe that. But we will have to earn it. We’ll have to walk through the messy middle first.

The Industrial Revolution offers us an example. It wasn’t just about job disruption, though that was real and brutal. There were many other negative outcomes through this cataclysmic economic transformation.

Foremost was pollution. In my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, the smoke from steelmaking operations was so thick that streetlights would come on midday.

And the mills were unsafe. The city had a “death calendar” during the early 1900s tracking the daily fatalities from industrial accidents. The Industrial Revolution enabled an incredible concentration of wealth (the robber barons) built on the backs of workers who risked their lives to build the country. And there was rampant political corruption.

But these were transitional setbacks that ultimately led to a better future. We cleaned up much of the pollution, created laws about working conditions, benefited from higher wages, and so on.

The AI Era will have its own messy middle. Career insecurity. Environmental costs. Misinformation. Algorithmic bias. Surveillance creeping into corners of life we haven’t yet thought to protect.

These are real. I am not asking anyone to minimize them. I am asking us to hold them alongside something else: the possibility that we are moving toward a world in which AI delivers medical, environmental, and economic miracles for society.

By the time my grandson is ready for college or is entering the workforce, I think we’ll be through the messy middle and live in a dramatically different and better world. He will take for granted that we have abundant free energy, longer lifespans, and unimaginable new work opportunities untethered from a desk, a wrench, or a computer screen.

Our fear is not their fear

As I thought through what I wanted to say in this post, I realized that I’ve been projecting my fear onto a one-year-old who has no idea any of this is happening.

AI has turned my professional world into a daily negotiation with irrelevance. The skills I spent decades building are now, in some form, available to anyone with a prompt. That’s disorienting, and it seems unfair.

My fear is about losing the status quo that I built my identity around. Reliable truth. Professional value. The sense that what I know matters. I grew up in a world that rewarded intelligence. Now, intelligence is a commodity.

But here’s the thing I keep coming back to: that fear is mine. It belongs to my generation, my context, my particular moment in history.

Our children are walking into a different story entirely. They’re not losing something. They are inheriting a new normal, and they’ll adapt to it the way every generation adapts — with a natural fearlessness that will astonish us.

We cannot protect them from their own new, unique anxieties. But we can refuse to hand them ours.

Let’s show them the world of hope that is ahead.

Easing into the future

While we watch the new world reveal itself, there are some things parents (and grandparents) can do to help our children navigate this future.

Curiosity

As I researched my book How AI Changes Your Customers (which many have told me is a parenting book!), one thing became clear: The future belongs to the curious.

If you’re curious, AI will feed you and educate you.

If you’re not curious and just want to get the answer and move on, you will wither.

So, encouraging curiosity is an important life skill. Maybe, the most important.

Comfort with ambiguity

The messy middle I described isn’t just economic — it’s psychological. While my baby grandson has time to ease into a new normal, teens who crave certainty will struggle. The skill of tolerating “I don’t know yet” while still moving forward is increasingly valuable.

When I watch my grandson play, he doesn’t need to understand something to engage with it. Eventually, AI will surround us like the air that we breathe. But in the messy middle, tolerance for ambiguity will be a plus.

Basic human skills

Perhaps I should write an entire post about this, but I am seeing research and personal evidence that young people addicted to screens for companionship are not developing basic human skills.

Empathy, storytelling, ethical judgment, the ability to read a room. These aren’t consolation prizes for people who can’t code. They’re what AI can’t replicate and what leadership increasingly requires.

These are also the skills being eroded by screen addiction and a preference for non-human relationships.

Will our children need “AI skills”? Probably not in the way we imagine. I can already do nearly anything with AI just by talking to it. It will be even more intuitive for our kids. What they will need is the ability to be human in a room full of humans. That will always matter.

Make tech part of the parenting process

Technology is an important part of life, and it needs to be an important part of the parenting process.

A view from my friend Anna Bravington:

“My son is a gamer. He’s grown up with Roblox and Minecraft, and I made a conscious decision to learn those platforms myself. I play Roblox with him. We use Minecraft Java Edition, download mods, install them, and explore it together. I wanted to understand not just what he was doing, but how these platforms work, where the risks are, and what opportunities they offer.”

If you are alongside your child as they learn about technology, you can help guide them into the world of AI in a healthy and balanced way.

The courage to be known

In a world where AI can generate anything, the people who build real relationships and a genuine reputation will have compounding advantages. Teach kids to show up as themselves, not to hide behind a screen.

Encourage your child to create and publish. I know that sets off some alarms, but the person who is “known” in their chosen industry will always have more doors open in a competitive world.

A human personal brand is our last, best defense against AI. Authenticity still sells. Real still matters. Eventually, we will need to talk to a person to navigate our world.

Grit and determination

I’m sure you’ve seen lists of jobs likely to be replaced by AI: legal, marketing, copywriting, etc.

I know it sounds trite … and I am anti-trite … but I do believe you should follow your dream, even in the face of troubling news.

If you are deeply and sincerely passionate about a career choice, go for it, but be prepared to sacrifice. To compete against AI, you’ll have to be extraordinary, and that costs something.

Side note: Law school graduates hit a record level this year. I see that as a sign that people are doubling down on a dream.

Community

For most of my life, I was a lone ranger — head down, self-sufficient, convinced I could figure it out alone. I was wrong about that. The AI Era, with all its isolation and disruption, is not a problem to be solved in isolation. I’m in the RISE community of forward-thinking marketers, and it has made all the difference.

My daughter and son-in-law have already figured out what took me decades. They are love magnets — always surrounded by people, always building something with friends. My grandson will grow up inside that. He will know, every day, that he is not alone.

That is not a small inheritance. In a world this uncertain, it may be the most important survival skill.

A world of awe

As I said, my grandson is one now. Every single movement is an exploration for him. Every leaf, stone, and stick is a new experience. Picking up a flower is a revelation. Just wait until he discovers stars!

We have a choice, every single day. We can tune into the painful world like a police scanner, absorbing the steady frequency of crisis and threat and crime. Or we can tune into it the way this boy does — as a place overflowing with miracles, where every bird and bug is a joy to behold.

The boy will be OK. And maybe I will be OK too … if I can just be more like him.

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 What parents should know about AI and their kids 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}.

Twice a year, I host a marketing retreat called The Uprising. It’s not unusual for people to call this “magical” or “transformational” as it blends actionable marketing ideas, meaningful new relationships, and a connection with food, fun, and nature. I created this event out of my own frustration that marketing conferences were overwhelming, impersonal, and focused on iterative, small thinking. This retreat is limited to 30 people and focused on the future and our relevance as marketers.

I’ve captured a few highlights from this intimate gathering. The major themes were:

• Artificial intelligence
• Personal branding
• Future of the brand
• Word-of-mouth marketing
• Megatrends

These priorities were pre-determined by the participants. Here are some highlights:

Artificial Intelligence

Of course, this theme was woven throughout the retreat. I kicked off the discussion with high-level observations about the near future, including:

• Navigating the rapid pace of change
• AI Agents and their impact on work
• Implications of relying on AI as an “external brain”
• How generative AI will lead to even more addictive behaviors

In a world where AI increasingly curates our content, there is a marketing opportunity to introduce serendipity and surprise into customer lives.

Dr. Lisa Palmer gave a stunning presentation about the “AI legal storm.” What happens when AI can produce mass complaints, employee claims, and destructive comments against an organization? The current legal system will be overwhelmed, and it’s happening now.

Robbie Fitzwater, a university lecturer and entrepreneur, provided practical tips for integrating AI into our lives and businesses. He is achieving massive productivity gains by building AI into repeatable processes like quality checks on his emails and social media posts.

Daniel Nestle and Tyler Stambaugh led open discussions on AI business integration.

Personal Branding

Before each Uprising retreat, I survey the participants to observe their educational priorities. For the first time, “personal branding” came out as number one.

Lauren Colbert of Filament led the group through a hands-on workshop on determining where each person fits in their business eco-system. One exercise encouraged participants to create a personal brand “haiku” by naming:

• Whom do I serve? (in five words)
• What do I do for them? (in seven words)
• Why does it matter (in five words)

The group also had a unique opportunity to hear the inspirational personal branding story of Amanda Russell, who discussed the evolution of her career from elite athlete to pioneering YouTube star, entrepreneur, consultant, academic, thought leader, and author. For me, there were a few lessons:

• Amanda’s intense tenacity in the face of life obstacles.
• How she was able to assess her strengths and deploy resources at each stage of her life to get to the next step (as a broke college grad, she mailed companies old running shoes as a sign of her work ethic!).
• How she was able to view her “shit jobs” as a path to a achieve a greater vision.
• How she demonstrated courage to say “no” to financial opportunities when they were not aligned with her values.

A key theme of the personal brand discussions was considering the feeling or emotion your brand elicits in others. Think beyond functional relevance.

By building meaningful connections and providing valuable, empowering experiences for audiences, creators can sustainably monetize content and thrive in a changing world.

Future of the brand

We were honored to have Claudia Sciarretta, Global Insights Director of Pepsico, return to The Uprising with views on connecting customer research with brand strategy. Claudia gave a fascinating talk that included insights on:

• Using customer data to discern changes in “slow trends” (like values and basic needs) versus “fast trends” that might represent short-term opportunities. One of her biggest challenges is figuring out which trends will last, and communicating that to Pepsico’s many brands.
• When we heard from Claudia two years ago, she talked about the end of the brand “bonfire” as companies focus on being relevant in cultural moments. This year, she talked about brands actually changing culture – a bold and interesting idea.
• She described how she is integrating AI into generating and unlocking insights, especially when it comes to micro trends in different countries.

Sara Wilson debuted a new talk on the community-powered brand. Her premise is that consumers are increasingly barricaded in “digital campfires” outside traditional social listening platforms. Somehow brands must earn their way into these communities.

Strategies included:

1) IRL (in real life) events
2) Media and Brand Partnerships
3) Creator Collaborations
4) Social content

To achieve success, brands must be clear on what they stand for, identify organic communities relevant to their customers, and activate within the communities.

Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM)

There was synergy between all of the presentations at The Uprising, but the connection to WOMM was particularly strong throughout the retreat. There is a recognition that as customers become unreachable by traditional media,  we need to connect in new ways. While trust in companies and the media might be in decline, we still trust each other – a strong business case for WOMM.

Sarah Neely is a word-of-mouth marketing expert with extensive experience with brands like Red Bull, Major League Baseball, and Chipotle. She led a workshop to help each participant explore WOMM opportunities for their own businesses.

While WOMM success can be a complex cocktail of research, data-informed strategies, and identification of customer groups, Sarah helped participants focus on the authentic, relevant, and helpful story elements most likely to create word of mouth success.

I debuted a new speech that will accompany the ideas of my book, Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World. While not strictly a word-of-mouth marketing book, Audacious describes a path to disruptive marketing that will help businesses stand out in a world swamped by AI content. All of this ultimately fuels WOMM, the purest and most trusted form of marketing.

I opened the presentation with data showing why marketing is so boring today. I then provided lively case studies that illustrated three paths to disruptive marketing:

Disrupt the story narrative

• Start with wrong
• Leverage anxiety
• Break taboos

Disrupt where the story is told

• Add awe
• Mix the media
• Lean into customer signals

Disrupt who tells the story

• Critical importance of UGC
• The math behind WOMM
• Social objects

Mega trends

It’s always an honor to host Jola Burnett, SVP of Ipsos, and learn her views of the critical mega-trends impacting our world. Jola focused on several key areas:

Consumer confidence in the economy, which is high and growing in the U.S. and other places in the world.

The AI threat to news and how this will negatively impact consumers. The lines between news and entertainment have blurred, leading to a decline in journalistic integrity. Most people cannot discern disinformation. Trust issues spill over. Most of the issues facing news and journalism apply to your brand messaging, too.

Cookies can quantify how many times a digital ad appears onscreen (“viewable impressions”). But more powerful brand tracking frameworks can evaluate campaign performance over time in recognition, emotion and retention, which Ipsos calls “memory currency.”

By focusing on memory currency, marketers can go beyond whether an ad was simply viewable. They can craft more influential attention-getting ads while centering their real target: human impact.

Most employees want to be more creative at work. There is workplace tension about having a creative outlet versus working in a “sea of sameness.” Generative AI could be a release valve for this tension.

Ipsos sees marketing becoming much more visually-oriented, driven by easily-accessible AI capabilities.

Jola showed data illustrating that most people are not worried about AI. My view is that they’re not worried because they don’t know!

Over the next few years, marketers will be challenged to navigate authenticity alongside the explosion of AI-generated and hyper-personalized content.

Jola concluded with a fascinating talk about the future of parenting, including the impact of AI, shifts in values, mental health, climate anxiety, and rising financial costs. A major opportunity is for brands to help buffer this stress of parenting:

• Help me be fully present at the key daily and life moments of my kids
• Help me seamlessly shift between work mode, parent mode and elder caregiver mode
• Prevent me from missing out on anything important (work promotions, kids’ milestones, unexpected curveballs, etc.)

The Uprising Conclusions

As you can see, The Uprising was quite an intellectual goldmine. But this is only a fraction of the professional value of the event.

Most of my “a-ha” moments came from the group discussions connected to each of these presentations. For example, I realized that AI algorithms and exposure to social media might be depressing creativity, risk-taking, and fun. Jola’s talk opened my eyes to the vast and complex new needs of parents. A talk I had with Uprising friends led me to realize the unexplored new roles for employees in word-of-mouth marketing.

That is the true beauty of The Uprising. We don’t think out of the box. We combine boxes for breakthrough ideas.

And lest you believe that all we did was hurt our brains with all these new ideas, we also had plenty of time for relaxation and fun, including hikes, meals, reflection time, and a private concert.

The Uprising is an extraordinary experience that I hope you’ll experience for yourself one day soon. Registration is now open for the next retreat. Hope to see you there!

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 The future of marketing happens here appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.