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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The drivers of attention value

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

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

$33 per hour for live sports,

$17 per hour for live concerts

$7.18 for movies

$0.37 for books

$0.25 for social media posts

$0.12 per hour for digital music

$0.05 for podcasts

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

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

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

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

Level of focus

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

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

The job to be done

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

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

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

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

Implications for demographics

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

Content lovers

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

Interactivity enthusiasts

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

Community trendsetters

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

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

Implications for marketers

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

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

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

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

• What job am I really being hired for?

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

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

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

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

Implications for strategy

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

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

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

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

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

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

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy Nano Banana

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

I made a significant announcement on my new podcast episode, show number 328 of The Marketing Companion.

In this 13th year of the program, I’m stepping down and handing the reins to a new owner. You can listen to the episode for the details. I’m not going away quite yet, but beginning in January 2026, there will be a new owner and show host.

Having a podcast that has lasted more than a decade — and I’ve never missed an episode — certainly beats the odds. More than 2 million downloads later, I’m moving on to new projects.

I’m not one to dwell on the past, and this show is no exception as I plow forward on a discussion of key tech considerations for marketing with my friend Sandy Carter.

You can enjoy this show and hear my announcement by clicking here:

Listen to Episode 328 of The Marketing Companion

Here is an AI-generated summary of the show highlights:

The Nvidia Deepfake: A Cautionary Tale for Brands

Something jaw-dropping happened during Nvidia’s big corporate event. I hopped on LinkedIn and saw the video of Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, who always delivers inspiring talks. But, to my shock, the replayed video had more views than the actual livestream — and it turned out to be a fake.

This wasn’t just a prank. Thousands (including some Nvidia employees and even CNBC) tuned in, believing it was Huang, only to discover it was an AI-crafted forgery pushing a crypto scam. Even veteran marketers like Sandy and me were fooled, clicking legitimate-looking links that led to the fake event.

What’s really unsettling is the precision and organization behind this attack. This wasn’t a lone hacker; it was an orchestrated crime with marketing-level sophistication. They timed the fake stream perfectly, hijacked search and social placements, and created something so convincing that even close colleagues were swindled.

Here’s the big lesson: authenticity in branding now demands proof. We’ve crossed into an era where merely sounding or looking authentic isn’t enough — brands must invest in new forms of verification.

And here’s the kicker: platforms have the technology to detect and verify truth, but won’t use it. Polarization, outrage, and viral fakes drive more views and, unfortunately, more ad revenue.

Are You Ready for Humanoid Robots?

That’s only half the future. The other revolution speeding toward us is the age of humanoid robots — not just as factory workers or distant sci-fi dreams, but as customer-facing agents.

We’re already seeing this in places like Korea and Japan, where robots are stepping in to care for the elderly or providing personalized services. In Silicon Valley, there’s already a humanoid robot in beta that will deliver pizza, serve you at dinner, pour drinks, and even clean up afterward. That sounds like an upgrade to my hosting skills! However, it has profound implications for marketing.

The robot selects the brand of soda. The robot chooses which cleaning product to use. Suddenly, Coke, Pepsi, P&G — their customer might not be the humans in the household, but the robot company or its AI!

And what about architectural design? If your home can’t accommodate the robot’s width, maybe it’s time for a renovation. Marketers must start thinking about scenarios that were pure fantasy just a few years ago.

More than that, physical AI opens the door for a whole new specialty: “robotic trainers.” Soon enough, marketing educators and consultants might be training robots (not humans!) on how to greet guests in a restaurant or care for patients.

Speed Becomes the Ultimate Advantage

One theme kept coming up again and again in the discussion: speed. AI is compressing the time between idea and impact. We used to run A/B tests for months; today, that luxury is gone. Real-time analysis, constant adaptation — this is survival now.

Some businesses, like those in Dubai, aren’t just keeping up; they’re redesigning their cities for the age of AI and global branding. Dubai has a CEO for the city, not a traditional mayor, and they’re combining storytelling, authenticity, and technology to build global icons like Dubai Chocolate. Makes me realize how far traditional campaigns and approval cycles must evolve.

Management consultants and big agencies like McKinsey are facing tough choices as their data-driven cultures collide with the urgent need for rapid experimentation. Smaller brands and startups get it faster — but larger organizations must shift, too.

I’ve never been this excited — or nervous — about what’s next. If you want to keep up, embrace the uncertainty, stay endlessly curious, and get comfortable with the uncomfortable.

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

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Now, any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customers to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence to strengthen their customer relationships.

Go to https://www.brevo.com/marketingcompanion to sign up for Brevo for free and use the code COMPANION to save 50% on your first three months of Brevo’s Starter & Business plan!

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

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

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

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

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Image courtesy Mid Journey

The post The Marketing Companion Podcast: Beginning of a New Era appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

There has been a flurry of new evidence emerging about mysterious Rage Farms and their relentless attacks on politicians, businesses, brands, and individuals.

The Cracker Barrel example was just the most recent meltdown. Companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Boeing, McDonald’s, TD Bank, and American Eagle have suffered withering attacks from legions of coordinated, fake social media accounts.

“Disinformation-as-a-Service” has become a profitable, global criminal enterprise: low-cost, high-impact bot networks hired to attack and destroy businesses and individuals … like you. And the social media platforms that could stop them won’t, because chaos is profitable.

Propelled by AI, these strikes are targeting brands big and small. And the financial consequences are real — sliding stock prices, damaged brand equity, ruined careers.

There has been a lot of online chatter about the anonymous AI agents wreaking this havoc, but I wanted to know more. WHO is doing this? WHY are they doing it?

I’m alarmed that any of us can be attacked by these anonymous criminals. So I went down the rabbit hole to find out who’s behind this … and what we can do about it.

Today I will cover:

• How these bots attack controversial issues at blinding speed
• The evidence that these are coordinated attacks 
• How AI bots “prepare” for their next fight
• How momentum from fake bots enters the culture and becomes amplified by real people
• The probable goals of Rage Farms, including financial gains from stock market manipulation
• Why Rage Farm controversies are disconnected from true consumer sentiment
• Expert views on preparing for a Rage Farm attack

A clue: The speed of attack

The first clue that we’re observing sophisticated, coordinated efforts at Cracker Barrel and other brands is the speed of the online attacks. Once a small amount of negative sentiment circulates about a brand, the disinformation ramps up immediately and relentlessly.

According to The Wall Street Journal, AI-powered bots rapidly spin up “grassroots-looking” campaigns around incendiary or divisive issues (like culture-war topics), and keep them trending.

Fake bots authored 44.5% of X (Twitter) posts mentioning Cracker Barrel in the 24 hours after the new logo gained attention on Aug. 20, 2025. That number rose to 49% among posts calling for a boycott.

Within a few hours, X saw around 400 negative Cracker Barrel posts per minute. Seventy percent of the accounts promoting boycotts at that point used duplicate messages, a key marker of coordinated bots, said Molly Dwyer, director of insights at PeakMetrics.

Rage Farms: The business of creating chaos

A Cyabra investigation revealed more specifics about the coordinated Cracker Barrel attack. By analyzing thousands of profiles engaged in the conversation, Cyabra mapped inauthentic behavior patterns and exposed a coordinated strategy.

The data show a substantial portion of the negative discourse was manufactured by fake accounts working to amplify hostility, promote boycott narratives, and undermine public trust.

• Multiple reports found that about 35% of online activity criticizing Cracker Barrel was driven by fake accounts, with at least two organized bot groups fueling much of the outrage.
• Fake profiles created hundreds of posts and comments specifically crafted to damage Cracker Barrel’s reputation, and the manufactured campaign had nearly 5 million potential views.
• These fake profiles also triggered 3,268 direct engagements from genuine profiles. This is important because when real people engage with fake information, it gives fake posts a powerful boost on the X algorithm.

Fake profiles pushed hashtags like #BoycottCrackerBarrel and #CrackerBarrelHasFallen, creating the impression of a massive consumer revolt … that was not happening in real life.

The attack momentum

These accounts made exaggerated claims about an imminent financial collapse, often stating that the company’s stock price would “crash” and that restaurants would soon close nationwide.

They promoted deleting the Cracker Barrel app and announced they would never set foot in any of the chain’s stores or purchase any of its products. By falsely portraying the boycott as successful, these profiles created a self-fulfilling prophecy of declining consumer confidence.

Noting the online wave of attention (and unaware that most of it was fake), prominent political accounts like Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) and Donald Trump Jr. piled on with their own takes on the controversy and began targeting the company’s CEO, Julie Messino.

After his son’s post, President Trump weighed in on Truth Social against the new logo. And when that level of celebrity contributes to the conversation, the illusion of failure becomes reality.

On Aug. 26, Cracker Barrel reversed course and cancelled a $700 million rebrand.

This effort, primarily backed by two organized Rage Farms, succeeded in:

• Creating an illusion of consumer rejection: Flooding platforms with negative content manufactured the appearance of widespread customer abandonment.
• Framing a routine change as catastrophic: What might have been viewed as a standard brand refresh was positioned as a devastating mistake through coordinated messaging.
• Generating mainstream media coverage: The manufactured outrage attracted attention from most major news outlets, further amplifying its reach.
• Establishing persistent negative narratives: Strategic hashtag deployment ensured negative framing dominated search results and social conversations about the brand.

The obvious question is, who did this?

Who is behind a Rage Farm?

Cyabra CMO Rafi Mendelsohn told me that his research firm checks 600 to 800 parameters, including location, posting frequency, and the use of AI-generated avatars, to declare whether accounts are human or not.

Some of these fake accounts “prepare” for attacks by posting real content for months to build credibility and attract an audience. The accounts within a Rage Farm also interact with each other, further enhancing their status within the X algorithms.

But who is creating this coordinated mayhem?

“The answer to that is — who is behind all crime?” said Mendlesohn. “It could be a range of different actors, including state-backed crime or organized crime, syndicate crime, political crime, or small networks of lone individuals. It could even be competitors or financial players looking to impact the share price.

“The anonymity that malicious actors are allowed through fake social media accounts enables them to operate without much risk. We can detect fake accounts, but we can’t tell exactly who is behind them. We can look at the behavior of those accounts and their content, and if it’s manipulated, but we can’t tell you the IP address because we don’t have access to that information. We can’t say, ‘this is an office block in Moscow, or it’s a group of angry people in Texas.’ It’s impossible to do that, and that’s by design, right? That’s why it’s so effective. The anonymity is powerful.”

According to Rafi, the main motivations behind coordinated brand attacks include:

1. Money, power, and influence
2. State-backed actors looking to cause chaos and disrupt social harmony
3. Financial manipulation (e.g., targeting ticker symbols)
4. Ideological reasons and culture wars (e.g., “go woke, go broke” narratives)
5. Amplifying emotional or controversial topics to sow chaos
6. Commercial adversaries creating false narratives about a brand’s stance on social issues to harm the brand’s reputation

In addition to the obvious “anti-woke” ideological amplification in the Cracker Barrel example, there could have been stock market manipulation since this is a publicly traded stock (CBR). If a Rage Farm can manufacture a rapid change in brand sentiment, it increases the odds of gap-downs and forced follow-on selling — the environment where short sellers make the most money in the least amount of time.

Criminals behind the attack could have manufactured the online sentiment slide, and made millions by shorting the stock.

The disconnect from consumer reality

I think it’s critical to add that there is probably no correlation between online rage — whether real or manufactured — and true customer sentiment.

In a comprehensive analysis, researchers Brad Fay and Rick Larkin compared the online sentiment of 500 brands versus the sentiment of everyday consumers. They concluded that there was “no meaningful correlation between online and offline discussions for brands.”

Of course, this also means that brands can’t rely on “social media listening” as a proxy for broader consumer sentiment or to evaluate the complete impact of any decision or campaign … but that’s a story for another day.

In summary, AI-propelled, fake social media accounts created and amplified a national controversy, and even if some of the online discontent was genuine, it almost certainly didn’t reflect the sentiment of the company’s real customers.

“In any other crime, you can see it being committed,” Rafi Mendelsohn said, “You can see the act. But in this case, you are consuming content in your feed. You can’t grasp the big picture. You have no idea the crime is being committed, and you might be part of it.

“We’re just this passive victim, not even knowing what it is that we’re seeing, but we know it made us feel angry, or it tapped into a certain emotion, and we might even want to move on from the brand … and that’s what it’s designed to do.”

While companies like Cyabra can’t pin down IP addresses and eliminate bad actors, X can. But they won’t. Controversy of any kind drives engagement. Engagement drives advertising. In summary, hate is good for business.

“Brands can find themselves in hot water, not just because of something they’ve done, but purely by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Rafi said. “Fake accounts can escalate a situation to the point that it gains media attention and impacts the brand’s reputation.”

What can we do about Rage Farms?

So the only organizations that can protect us (like X and Facebook) won’t do so because it would hurt their businesses. What are our options?

In addition to Rafi from Cyabra, I solicited advice from corporate communications experts Kami Huyse and Daniel Nestle. Here is the advice:

Keep your head down.

If a controversial topic is brewing, Rage Farms are looking for anything they can grab onto in order to amplify chaos. Brands are easy targets. (Rafi)

Prepare.

If you’re launching a rebrand, product change, campaign, or major announcement — map out how it could be framed negatively. What narratives could be constructed? What emotional triggers (tradition, identity, politics) exist? (Rafi)

Monitor as if you’re NORAD.

Invest in the right listening platforms that flag anomalies and suspicious activity in real time. Spot the patterns before they explode. (Dan)

Be proactive.

It has reached a point where brands must have a bot-attack crisis plan. Even if they aren’t in a traditionally controversial company or industry. We now have a decision tree in all of our clients’ communication playbooks, from large to small. We have pre-written some messages that allow our team to quickly without waiting for multiple approvals. This allows us to identify patterns early, remove harmful content, and escalate issues when needed. (Kami)

Run crisis simulations using AI.

Create and maintain personas for all of our audiences (especially media and investors), and if we have synthetic data, even better. We can use these to role-play scenarios, test messages, and get feedback. Learn from the simulations, load pre-approved messaging, and accelerate response speed and accuracy. (Dan)

Relentlessly build trust and credibility with audiences.

This should be what we already do, but most of the time it’s just lip service. We should create experiences, invest in brand marketing,  deploy frequent and authentic executive communications, treat our employees as our most important audience. All the important stuff. We won’t stop the bots, but we can short-circuit them with a durable, believable, well-loved, and very human brand. (Dan)

Show active listening.

If a crisis hits, acknowledging legitimate concerns, showing willingness to listen and adjusting (rather than doubling down blindly) helps reduce amplification of negativity. (Kami)

Don’t engage.

AI bots comment on each other’s posts to trick algorithms into thinking there’s an authentic conversation, which then makes the malicious conversation start to appear to people who might have the same or opposite point of view, or both. Engaging with bots rarely helps and often amplifies the problem. (Kami)

Activate fans.

When bots rush in, your best defence isn’t more bots — it’s real people. Loyal customers, brand advocates, influencers who genuinely care and share. Build and mobilize this community ahead of time so that when something hits you, the “real counter-voice” is already in place. (Rafi)

Don’t treat this as a “PR problem.”

This is company-wide reputational security. (Rafi)

In this environment, every brand must assume it could be next. Preparedness is no longer optional. The networks, the bots, the narratives are waiting. The brands that win will be those who anticipate and build resilience now, not just after the storm hits.

Rage Farms: Final thoughts

Everything above is good advice.

It’s also exactly what the attackers want.

They want brands to be bland. Executives to be scared. Marketing to play it safe. Democracy to be fragile. Trust to erode.

The Cracker Barrel case is not an outlier — it’s a harbinger. This is our new, true reality, and I am concerned on three levels:

1. Great marketing is not about conformity. It is about non-conformity. Will surviving in this Rage Farm world mean that everything is vanilla now? What level of creativity is worth an attack like this?
2. Marketing has changed the world for the better by taking risks, by helping people speak up and stand out, by calling attention to societal problems and new solutions. Will that aspect of our profession wither?
3. I am deeply sad and concerned that the Rage Farm attacks focused on individual executives. These are hard-working people with families and careers, trying to do their best for a company. We all make mistakes. But nobody deserves to live in fear of physical attacks on their families because of a logo redesign.

When anonymous criminals can destroy careers over a brand re-launch, they’re not just attacking our businesses. They’re attacking our ability to speak truth and stand for something.

There is hope

Let me end this article with a ray of hope.

I’ve been around long enough to say with authority that every technological development is eventually weaponized. But we figure it out and neutralize it over time.

Regulating technology to protect our personal and business interests is a slow process. But it does happen, every time. Remember … Rage Farm attacks on our brands are a secondary concern. They are also attacking our democratic processes.

Watch the news. Countries will begin to fight back.

• A few years ago, Singapore introduced a statute that explicitly targets what it calls “false statements of fact” disseminated online, signalling a governmental willingness to treat bot campaigns and manipulated networks as more than mere marketing or PR mishaps.
• The EU requires the biggest social platforms to report and act on manipulation campaigns and bot-driven disinformation, providing a blueprint for how law can begin to counter Rage Farm attacks.
• In the U.S., law enforcement isn’t just watching. The DOJ recently announced the seizure of nearly 1,000 social media accounts tied to an AI-powered Russian bot farm that spread disinformation.

A solution is not easy or imminent, but I don’t think Rage Farms will be free to sow their chaos forever.

And remember, the best defense against synthetic rage is authentic trust, earned one customer at a time.

The Most Human Company Wins. Stay strong.

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

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Image courtesy Mid Journey

The post Rage Farms: The Hidden Industry Weaponizing Outrage Against Brands appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

As a marketing educator, writer, and entrepreneur, I’m obsessed with understanding the impact of AI on marketing and sales.

On the latest episode of The Marketing Companion, I was fortunate enough to speak with Sandy Carter, who has a broad global view of the new realities.

Sandy, currently leading a high-growth tech unicorn and author of the new book AI First, Human Always (yes, I had the honor of writing the forward!), brings a rare blend of hands-on leadership and futurist perspective.

You can listen to this amazing show just by clicking here:

Click here to enjoy The Marketing Companion Episode 323

And here are a few of the highlights from our talk:

From Counting Clicks to Decoding Intention

For years, marketers have focused on measuring attention, including views, clicks, impressions, and dwell time. We optimized content and spent ad dollars based on where eyeballs went, striving to interrupt or insert ourselves into the customer’s stream of consciousness.

Thanks to AI, that entire playbook is already getting upended. As Sandy pointed out, with advanced predictive tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity, customers are now going straight to an agent who can not only surface information but also predict their needs.

Here’s the revelation: AI moves us from being marketers of “attention” to marketers of “intention.” When someone asks an AI assistant for recommendations, they’re stating exactly what they want—think “Give me the best CRM for a startup with $X budget and these features”—and bypassing traditional marketing funnels entirely. The agent already knows how to filter, rank, and recommend based on actual needs, not just exposure or interrupted attention.

The New Gatekeepers: How (and Where) AI Picks Its Winners

Naturally, our conversation turned to the practical question on every marketer’s mind: How do you become one of the five “recommended” brands that AI agents surface? When attention alone is no longer enough to get you into the consideration set, what signals matter?

Sandy’s real-world experiments and research laid it out:

Wikipedia Is Back in Style: AI tools routinely use Wikipedia to validate and select which products or companies to recommend. If you haven’t yet built or maintained a Wikipedia page for your business (or yourself!), you’re likely invisible to these agents.

Social Proof via Reddit: Surprisingly, Reddit threads and subreddits have become an influential social signal for AI. If your brand is being discussed positively in relevant Reddit communities, you’re more likely to make the cut. But beware: unresolved issues or complaints, even from years ago, can hurt you if your brand doesn’t participate actively and transparently.

Rich, Fact-Based Content Wins: AI loves structured, fact-heavy lists and articles — “five reasons to choose X,” “top ten features of Y” — even more than traditional SEO tactics. This means your blog’s FAQ pages, listicles, and data-driven content don’t just help search engines, but are directly picked up by generative models when responding to user prompts.

Authority Still Matters: Recent research (as discussed in a past episode with Andy Crestodina) shows AI privileges brand mentions in non-sales content, press articles, and academic references — pushing the importance of classic PR and media strategy back to the top.

The message is clear: if your brand isn’t showing up in these AI “source” locations, your odds of even being considered are catastrophically reduced.

Brand: The Ultimate “Override” in the Prompt Era

Yet, despite the surge of AI-powered decision-making, our conversation reaffirmed one crucial truth: brand still matters more than ever. AI might present five options when a user states their intention — but which one do they pick?

Often, the tie-breaker remains human: a personal recommendation, a powerful story, a reputation for exceptional service. I shared the story of my own Paris trip, where a friend recommended a gluten-free bakery that didn’t make it onto AI’s list, but immediately became my top pick. That’s the “brand override, ” an emotional shortcut humans still use to filter, select, and even instruct AI agents. Sandy reinforced this with her own experiences and evidence that many enterprise buyers, even after narrowing down their options via AI, still seek out word-of-mouth or social proof before making a commitment.

Even more fascinating: How do you become the default choice mentioned in AI user prompts? (“Book my trip on Delta,” “Research this with Salesforce,” etc.) This is the new holy grail — being so well-branded that you bypass the recommendation filter altogether.

Marketing to Machines (and Machine Influencers)

This doesn’t mean we can coast on reputation. We’re at the dawn of a future where, as Sandy observed, entire teams will be dedicated to “marketing to agents,” not just to human customers. Walmart is already experimenting with this, building strategies to influence the agents (and even humanoid delivery robots!) that are quickly becoming intermediaries for everyday purchasing decisions.

Imagine a robot delivering your pizza, choosing your drink, setting your table … Who is the true “chooser” in this experience: the human or the algorithmic assistant? Will P&G start marketing dishwasher soap to the pizza robot’s parent company, or keep marketing to households? The lines are already blurring.

The Next Generation: AI as Brand Builder (and Best Friend)

There’s another layer: The next generation of buyers — raised on Roblox, TikTok, and personalized AI companions — are already developing affinities through digital worlds. Sandy’s daughter knew to ask for Adidas after encountering it in-game, not through traditional ads or family habits. In many cases, the most influential “friend” or recommender may be an AI personality.

Let’s not underestimate the psychological shift underway. As AI companions move from functional assistants to social confidantes, their product recommendations carry new emotional weight. In fact, social AI companions already outpace ChatGPT in certain engagement metrics. That’s a transformational shift in the trust landscape—one that marketers must start preparing for now.

So, Where Do We Go from Here?

We’re moving from a world of *interrupt and persuade* to one of *predict and facilitate*, with AI agents as both gatekeepers and guides. As marketers, the urgent priorities are:

• Build and maintain accessible, accurate, and richly detailed references (Wikipedia, Reddit, media hits)
• Double-down on authority and co-occurrence in natural language (not just backlinks)
• Lean into transparent, conversational engagement with your audience and communities
• Embrace the necessity of “marketing to agents,” not just customers
• Never lose sight of the human: generate enough love, trust, and loyalty for your brand that customers ask for you by name — even when AI presents alternatives.

If there’s one lesson I took from our conversation, it’s that the era of “attention as currency” is giving way to intention, and the path from intention to purchase is no longer a straight line—nor is it exclusively under human control.

Stay sharp, stay engaged, and keep your brand both technologically visible and unmistakably human.

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There have been two passionate and vocal camps when it comes to the AI impact on marketing employment.

Some insiders like Demis Hassabis of Google are optimistic that AI will create an abundance of jobs. Sam Altman has been clear that AI will aggressively replace jobs (including 95% of marketing!). Marketing guru Rand Fishkin says poppycock to that and claims marketing will thrive in this well-researched post.

What is true? Having an idea of what’s coming next seems pretty important to our companies and jobs! In this post, I provide my view of what I believe is likely, followed by some possible safeguards for our careers.

Guiding observations about AI

Some people have characterized me as a “futurist,” but what I really do is take observable facts and think deeply about the implications of what comes next. If you cut through the AI hype, there are three guiding observations we can reliably build on:

1. AI drives the economic value of intelligence to near zero.
2. AI is an enabling technology, but also a replacement technology
3. Companies are incentivized to adopt new technology when there is an immediate and measurable ROI

Unfortunately, extrapolating these ideas leads me to believe that there could be significant job losses. I could be wrong, and I hope I am, but let’s explore each of these ideas and then consider what you can do about it.

1. The economic value of intelligence

Every human organization is based on intelligence. We hire “human intelligence vessels” for HR, Finance, Engineering, and other functions. Competitive advantage derives from the acquisition and deployment of specialized, even scarce, human intelligence.

Similarly, our compensation and careers are based on intelligence. As we learn more, gain experience, and earn new college degrees, our value goes up. Acquiring intelligence might result in a promotion, a raise, or a call from a recruiter.

But what happens when the economic value of intelligence is zero? This is exactly what is happening with AI.

The unit costs of AI are plunging exponentially. ChatGPT’s inference prices have roughly halved every six months, outpacing even the recent cost declines in technologies like batteries and solar power. This steep drop stems from relentless algorithmic improvements and fierce competition among providers. Lower prices, in turn, drive wider adoption: the cheaper an AI agent becomes, the more extensively it can be deployed.

We already see entry-level jobs being eliminated, and as the level of intelligence advances, general marketing employment could become vulnerable. When the cost of intelligence becomes zero, the traditional organizational structure and career path become a house of cards.

As AI progresses at a breathtaking speed, it’s reasonable to conclude that many specialized “human intelligence vessels” will no longer be needed.

2. The replacement technology

There is a line about AI going around that drives me nuts: “You won’t be replaced by AI. You’ll be replaced by people who use AI.”

That is false. In fact, AI will replace many jobs all on its own.

I’m not saying don’t learn about AI. Absolutely, you need to learn as much as you can.

But in 1908, if you were in the horse and buggy business and you saw a Model T Ford chug down the street, no amount of knowledge about cars would save your business. An automobile is a replacement technology, not an enabling technology.

Using this same car analogy, the advent of the car also created massive new industries — roads, petroleum, maintenance, and more — and tremendous job growth. There will certainly be entirely new business models created by AI, and we will be lucky for that … unless AI creates jobs that AI can handle!

AI is not just a Model T; it’s also the GPS, the Uber app, the electric engine, and the roadside assistance bot. This explains why there is already a decline in postings for many types of traditional jobs, including coders, customer service, and entry-level marketers, for example.

I have a friend whose auditing department just got wiped out by AI. No amount of knowledge about AI would have saved his job or department.

Futurist Azeem Azhar states, “A new consensus is forming: AI is a sufficiently general-purpose technology to disrupt, invert, and ultimately reinvent nearly every sector of the economy. I’m convinced that incumbents have not yet grasped the scale or imminence of what is coming. Many are sleepwalking into a series of Blockbuster–BlackBerry moments that will unfold over the next two decades.”

I concur.

3. Incentives to change

I’ve observed technology adoption for decades and led change efforts at a Fortune 100 company. And I learned that tech adoption is arduous. The technology might change quickly, but company culture changes slowly. McKinsey reports that nearly every company is investing in AI, yet only 1% claim they have fully integrated it into workflows and achieved meaningful business outcomes.

However …

The one thing that speeds tech adoption like nothing else is a rapid, meaningful, and measurable return on investment, especially if it means cutting jobs. A sad reality, but true.

We are in a time of economic uncertainty and turmoil. A responsible company must cut costs, and that is likely to mean rapid adoption of AI.

Of course, emerging AI regulations, energy needs, ethical guidelines, and compliance requirements could slow adoption. But cutting jobs is seen as an easy win by most companies.

How to become future-proof

Here are the working people I encountered in my life this week:

• A person who has cut my hair for 20 years
• Dozens of workers on a road construction project that delayed my drive
• A post office employee who helped me mail a book to Singapore
• A person who helps me with landscaping
• My family doctor for an annual check-up
• The person who changed the oil in my car

I can’t imagine that any of these individuals will be replaced by AI any time soon. AI will impact their jobs in some way (especially the doctor), but for many, life will be business as usual, at least for a few more years! So no, not every job is threatened by AI.

Specifically, let’s focus on marketing careers. What kind of marketer survives the great reshuffle?

Nobody really knows at this point, but here are a few thoughts:

Relationships

Some jobs will always be relationship-oriented. A B2B account manager who understands a client’s unspoken fears is irreplaceable — at least for now. I think people will still want face-to-face interactions when compassion and deep understanding are needed. We’ll need humans in the loop when the financial and legal stakes are high. Humans will manage AI functions/agents and remain accountable for performance and problems.

Insights

We will always value human insights. Are you in a job that delivers information or insights? If you only regurgitate reports and data (like my auditor friend), you’re vulnerable. But if you’re a creative director, subject matter expert, or have special star status in your industry, you’ll probably have a protected niche. You have vision.

Entrepreneurship

If you’re a curious person with drive, there is no better time to be alive. You don’t have to hire a coding team to build your business. You can direct AI to do it. Ideas + AI agency = Opportunity

During the pandemic, I predicted there would be an unprecedented new number of startups. That came true, because every fracture in the status quo creates new customer needs. We are at that same kind of inflection point.

Specialized marketing functions

I will be writing about this topic in an in-depth future post, but there are three areas of marketing that humans will still dominate in the AI Era.

Personal brand — When AI-generated content floods the zone with misinformation, we’ll need industry experts to help us navigate the truth and the future. Are you known in your industry? Are you the go-to authority? In many cases, the personal brand IS the brand.

Community — People long to belong. Brand communities will be uniquely bot-resistant.

Transcendent content — This is the subject of my book Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World. To stand out in this pandemic of dull, we’ll need disruptive new stories and storytellers. It will take a unique human touch to create something so interesting, so compelling, and so worthy that people want to spread the word about your business and products.

Final thoughts on marketing employment

Almost every marketer describes AI as “exciting and terrifying,” and this is indeed the case. While there might be some scary stuff coming on the job scene, AI also creates a time of unprecedented marketing magic and fun.

I’ve presented a case today showing how some marketing jobs will be vulnerable. It’s a short article meant to start conversations. The outlook for AI is complex, and the future of marketing employment is not binary. While I do think a significant disruption is coming,

• Many jobs will be transformed rather than eliminated
• AI often augments human capabilities (like creativity) rather than fully replacing them
• Different industries and company sizes will adopt AI at different rates. AI job loss might be years away for some industries.

I believe the best attitude to adopt going forward is one of open-mindedness, determination, and positivity. Let’s not dwell on what we wish for. Let’s create businesses and new opportunities for ourselves based on what IS.

• Embrace AI at every turn.
• Build relationships and community.
• Deliver insights.
• Build your personal brand.
• Create something remarkable.

My friend Mike Moran and I debated the AI/employment issue, and he wisely concluded: “What really happens in the future will be complex. And I think it’s impossible to know how all of these factors will adjust to each other, so it’s perfectly valid to be optimistic or pessimistic, but it’s very dangerous for us to be certain.”

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

Image courtesy Mid Journey

The post How marketing employment might be disrupted when the economic value of intelligence is zero appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

The introduction of AI as our friend / co-worker / companion / enemy has heightened the emotion in our marketing discussions, but perhaps nothing has fanned the outrage more than the idea that AI survives by stealing our content. Protecting our content from AI has become a global obsession.

One company just posed a solution that raised eyebrows. Cloudflare, a technology company that helps websites secure and manage internet traffic, introduced a new permission-based setting that enables customers to automatically block artificial intelligence companies from collecting their digital data.

The company, which handles about 20 percent of all internet traffic, has seen a sharp increase in AI data crawlers on the web. It has proposed setting up “toll roads” where AI companies would pay to access content.

A cry of “YEEESSS!” undoubtedly echoed through the halls of many publishers and authors. Finally, the mighty economics of this revolution are tilting in our favor. But has it?

Before you sign up for this sheath of protection, consider the big picture.  If the crawlers refuse to pay for your content, do you want to be out of the search index? We gave away our content to appease Google. Now we have to do it again to make the AI overlords happy. I, for one, will not adopt the Cloudflare policy.

Two years ago, I published an article that now seems prescient: Protecting Your Content from AI: A Contrarian View. The insight from this post bears repeating in light of these important developments, so here is a re-cap:

The Contrarian View

There has been a flurry of panicked posts about protecting your content from AI. There have been lawsuits, probes, and new software that prevents sites like ChatGPT from accessing your content from being absorbed into large language models. Within 14 days of the availability of code that can prevent AI data scraping, nearly 20% of the top 1,000 websites in the world began using it.

What should you and your business do? Should you keep AI away?

My advice today seems counterintuitive. Maybe when AI comes to suck up your content, you should say, “suck away.” Actually, we need to come up with a better phrase than that. But you know what I mean.

Let’s pause, take a deep breath, and rationally examine the issue of protecting your content from AI in the context of your future business success.

Acknowledging complexity

First, I must acknowledge that this is an insanely complex and evolving issue. The legal, ethical, and economic considerations for large enterprises, newspapers, movie studios, and other media companies are unique.

When it comes to protecting your content from AI, any individual artist, author, or other creator may disagree with me, and I honor their right to make their own decisions.

My post today specifically aims at content creators, entrepreneurs, and businesses trying to rise above the noise and achieve business benefits from their content marketing.

The bottom line is that I believe more business benefits will accrue to you by NOT protecting your content from AI, even if it is copyrighted. To understand why, let’s begin by reviewing an important content marketing philosophy …

Unleash your content

Here is a fundamental truth: The economic value of content that is not seen and shared is zero.

Chances are you’re working hard to create amazing content. You post on social media and engage with fans to build your audience. All good. Now, your job is to get that content to move through your audience and beyond, and that means focusing on content transmission (This strategy was the subject of my book The Content Code).

I’ve been against gated content, and the ridiculous notion that you shouldn’t publish on “rented land.” Of course you should. My view is, publish your content everywhere your audience could possibly find it, consume it, and share it! Unleash your content!

The first consideration: If you protect your content from AI — a technology that is becoming the foundation of search and content discovery — and your competitors don’t, will you be better off? Probably not.

An old dilemma

The argument about protecting your content from AI is strangely familiar. This is the same debate we had in the early days of content marketing — “What??? You want me to give away my content and best ideas for free?”

Yes, we all had to do that because if we didn’t provide free and helpful content, the competitor down the street would. Their content would be highlighted by search, discovered, and shared … and we would lose.

Publishing free content was a radical idea. Before the internet, many businesses generated revenue from their proprietary content. Research firms built profitable businesses by selling original reports for hundreds of thousands of dollars. That business model is now nearly obsolete. For better or for worse, information flows freely on the web. Once you publish anything, anywhere, it will probably find its way to the open waters of the web.

Let’s get specific about what’s happening to copyrighted content today, with or without AI. I put tremendous effort into my books, and making money from a business book is no easy task. Every month, I discover some nefarious group selling illegally digitized versions of my books. There are even sites that sell my blog posts as aids in writing student term papers.

For a while, I tried to fight back. But it’s like that arcade game Whac-A-Mole. Every time I try to take a whack, another illegal site pops up somewhere else. If people truly want to access and share your content, there is no recourse, no stopping it.

So, even if you create a wall around your content, it will probably seep into the AI machine anyway. If you use software defense against AI, what would prevent someone from manually cutting and pasting it into an LLM?

Let’s put the issue of attribution aside for a moment. If you’re not freaked out by Google using your content for free, why are you freaked out about AI using it?

My first business from AI

A few months ago, I secured my first consulting contract from ChatGPT.

A new client found me by searching for “top 10 marketing experts.” I tried this myself, and the list would shuffle on each query, but I was usually in the top 10. Friends tried this in Europe, and the same names came up.

Let’s be honest. Am I one of the top 10 marketing experts in the world? No, I’m not. I could easily name 10 people in my circle of immediate friends who are smarter than me!

How did I make that AI-generated list? It’s the same way I show up on “best-of” blog lists and Google search results — I’ve had the tenacity and courage to put my content into the world with fierce consistency for 15 years.

AI is the future of search — it’s called Search Generative Experience (SGE). It’s already incorporated into Google.

My new client found me because I’m present on the web, and now I’m also present on AI. I believe that will serve me well as search evolves.

The cost of invisibility

Beyond revenue, there is an implication for impact and influence.

One of the organizations fighting AI content practices is The New York Times. This news organization is arguably the newspaper of record in the United States and one of the most important news sources in the world. As more students, researchers, and others turn to ChatGPT and other platforms for knowledge and research, is it in the best interest of The New York Times to remain unaccountable?

If you’re protecting your content from AI, you’re no longer part of the public conversation, at least as it is represented on ChatGPT and other AI platforms. Your view is invisible. What do you risk when you and your business are unaccounted for?

My smart friend Aleksandra Pimenides recently commented in our RISE marketing community:

“AI is an important source of knowledge transmission. Teachers take something and pass it on to their students. Libraries have books for people to read and learn. Likewise, LLMs act as an intermediary of transmission. Do Newton’s descendants get paid every time a student is taught the principle of gravity? Do libraries get fined when people go there to read and learn about subjects for free? To what extent should information and knowledge be monetized? Maybe there’s a distinction to be made between knowledge and information?”

A view of the true risk

I think much of the anxiety on this subject comes from an image of some AI bot cutting and pasting your unique content without attribution. That’s not exactly how it works.

Here is an explanation from Benedict Evans, which appeared in his wonderful newsletter (edited slightly for style):

“LLMs are not databases. They deduce or infer patterns in language by seeing vast quantities of text created by people — we write things that contain logic and structure, and LLMs look at that and infer patterns from it, but they don’t keep it. So ChatGPT might have looked at thousands of stories from The New York Times, but it hasn’t kept them. Moreover, those stories themselves are just a fraction of a fraction of a percent of all the training data. The purpose is not for the LLM to know the content of any given story or any given novel — the purpose is for it to see the patterns in the output of collective human intelligence.

“This is not Napster. OpenAI hasn’t ‘pirated’ your book or your story and it isn’t handing it out for free. In Tim O’Reilly’s great phrase, data isn’t oil; data is sand. It’s only valuable in the aggregate of billions and your novel is just one grain of dust in the Great Pyramid. This isn’t supposed to be an oracle or a database. It’s supposed to be inferring ‘intelligence’ from seeing as much of how people talk (as a proxy for how they think) as possible.

“If this is, at a minimum, a foundational new technology of the next decade, and it relies on all of us collectively acting as mechanical turks to feed it, do we all get paid, or do we collectively withdraw? It seems somehow unsatisfactory to argue that “this is worth a trillion dollars, and relies on using your work, but your own individual work is only 0.0001% so you get nothing.” Is it adequate or even correct to call this ‘fair use?’ Does it matter, in either direction? Do we change our definition of fair use?”

In the United States, copyright rights are limited by the doctrine of “fair use,” under which certain uses of copyrighted material for criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research may be considered fair.

As an example, I took a snippet from Benedict’s copyrighted newsletter, provided proper attribution, and used it today to teach. That’s fair use.

Here’s the problem with AI. Think of your copyrighted content as a lovely cake that you baked. It is your original and distinctive work. But inside AI, your work isn’t a cake. It’s an ingredient put into a blender to make a new cake. What’s fair use in that environment?

I dabble in watercolor painting. Seeking credit in an AI model is similar to the maker of my paints wanting attribution credit for this painting:

Even if I used one unique type of paint patented by a supplier, would I give them credit for the painting? No. I actually sold this painting. Should I give part of the revenue to Arches, the company who supplied the paper? I literally could not have made this without the paper and paint yet it is my original work, period.

Attribution

“Originality is nothing but judicious imitation.” – Voltaire

I think most of the “protecting your content from AI” conversation would disappear if we were assured we get credit for our work, in the case where credit might be important — like a meaningful, original idea. After all, we’re OK with Google scraping our content if we get credit for it in search results, right?

Let’s go back to the current state of the internet for a reality check.

In 2014, I wrote one of the most famous blog posts in marketing history, “Content Shock.” This is not idle bragging. The numbers back it up. “Content Shock” — a phrase I coined — has appeared in books, speeches, conferences, college classes, and millions of pieces of content. If you Google the term, there are 610 million results, like these:

Writing a bold post like this did its job. It helped establish thought leadership and provided thousands of links to my original article.

However.

I assure you that I have not received 610 million links back to my site! Even if I received a million links, that would mean I have attribution on just .002% of all references to my original idea.

Clearly, people are using and abusing my work without attribution. Does this mean I should block Google from accessing my post? Of course not.

As Tim O’Reilly said, data is sand that is only valuable when aggregated into something bigger. My blog post is a grain of sand in the content economy. If you want to be part of that economy, you must put pride aside.

No matter how protective I might feel about my intellectual property, it’s sand. And even if I am credited, who reads the footnotes?

In any case, I believe the problem of attribution will be resolved. It’s already happening. There are academic AI sites and writing assistants that allow you to search with references. I use an AI-powered tool through BuzzSumo that creates writing briefs with legitimate and relevant references. Very helpful, and it leads me to smart new content I can quote with attribution.

The option to learn original sources for attribution will be a more common option across all platforms eventually.

Conclusion

Comparing how content works on the web today versus content integrated into LLMs and AI search enables us to draw a rational conclusion, allowing AI bots to scrape content from our sites, at least for most businesses. AI will be a major component of search going forward.

This is a complex and evolving issue, but I believe that regulations and best practices will favor creators who allow their content to be used in LLMs over time. The attribution problem will likely be solved on many platforms and regulations will adjust to a new framing of “fair use.”

Having an effective presence within AI models and AI search utilities could result in business benefits that outweigh the risks of misusing your copyrighted content.

I’ll say once again that this is a complex issue but for most businesses, I think it makes sense to be part of the machine.

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

Image courtesy Mid Journey

The post Protecting Your Content From AI: Not So Fast! appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

It seems like influence and influencers are in the news a lot these days, and I’d like to interrupt the constant flow of AI news to poke my head in here and bring us back to a crucial marketing reality — the age of influencer marketing is just beginning, and AI will actually make it more important.

Before I get into the logic of this conclusion, I need to call your attention to a piece of news that is profound and breathtaking if you’re in the marketing and advertising business.

A new WPP forecast estimates that in 2025, ad revenue from creator-driven platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram will surpass the combined ad revenue of traditional media (TV, print, audio, and film) for the first time. Creator-led advertising revenue (brand deals, sponsorships, and platform ads) is expected to grow 20% this year and more than double by 2030.

Meanwhile, the broader ad market is weakening. WPP cut its global ad growth forecast for 2025 from 7.7% to 6%, and 54% of marketers plan to reduce traditional ad spending in 2025.

What’s fueling this growth? Why will AI push it upward to incredible new levels? There’s a one-word answer.

The force behind the Age of Influencer Marketing

Steve Jobs famously said, “A brand is trust.”

And trust is sorely lacking in marketing today. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, trust in advertising declined from 50% to an abysmal 30% just 15 years.

No wonder so many CMOs are looking for jobs these days. So, who do we trust? We trust each other. We trust family. We trust neighbors. We trust friends.

And influencers aren’t some new media buy. They are trusted friends.

The overlooked psychology of influence

Social media influencers have become the most trusted voices in the digital landscape, not because they have the slickest production or biggest budgets, but because they build something deeper: a parasocial relationship.

A parasocial relationship is a one-sided psychological connection that an audience forms with a media figure—someone they follow, watch, or listen to regularly. The term was first coined in the 1950s by sociologists Donald Horton and Richard Wohl to describe the illusion of friendship people feel toward television personalities.

Decades later, social media has supercharged this dynamic. Unlike traditional celebrities, influencers invite their audiences into their daily lives—sharing their routines, thoughts, vulnerabilities, and real-time responses. The effect is powerful: followers feel like they know them.

This sense of familiarity and intimacy creates a unique bond. Unlike traditional advertising, which speaks at people, influencers speak with them—or at least, it feels that way. Viewers comment, DM, and even get replies. They see the creator’s dog, their bad skin days, their parenting challenges. Over time, this steady exposure builds trust. The influencer becomes a virtual friend—someone you’ve “spent” hours with, someone whose opinion feels authentic, raw, personal, not paid.

Recent industry and academic reports estimate that between 25% and 35% of teens visit social media each day primarily to see content from their favorite influencers. This figure is supported by the high rates of influencer following among teens and the significant influence influencers have on teen purchasing and engagement behaviors.

More important, studies show that people are more likely to act on product recommendations from influencers than from brands or celebrities.

The formula is that simple. Advertising lacks trust. But trust is the everyday currency of influencers. Of course it’s rocketing skyward, and in my view, the Age of Influencer Marketing is just beginning.

AI will drive influencer marketing growth

I wrote the first book on influencer marketing (Return On Influence) in 2011 before anybody was using the term. At the end of the book, I predicted that in two years it would become a mainstream marketing concept. The timing of the book was great:

What drove this growth? Trust in influencers. And in two ways, trust will drive the age of influencer marketing far into the future.

First, we live in a world plagued by AI-generated misinformation and deep fakes. We’ll always need to turn to real humans to help us discern what is real. Influencers are the trusted authorities in the right place at the right time.

Second, influencers are turning their significant power into tangible products. Just a few:

I recently gave a workshop to a large CPG company and told them that their biggest competitive threat isn’t Procter & Gamble or Unilever. It’s some passionate teenager building an audience on TikTok right now. These creator media empires are just beginning and the opportunities for brand-building is overpowering.

And here is the next big opportunity. New research exposed opportunities for smaller businesses. It showed that local celebrities often outperform their global counterparts by tapping into cultural relevance and audience affinity.
True effectiveness comes from authentic alignment between the ambassador and your brand values, not just fame alone. There is overlooked potential to extend the value of influencer marketing to regional and local brands.

I’ll also point out an important and nuanced point. These influencers are AI-proof. What are you doing to work on your own personal brand to build trust and authority?

The Age of Influencer Marketing is just beginning. If you want to know where to focus your marketing efforts in the coming years, don’t just follow the money, follow the trust.

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

Image courtesy unsplash.com

The post Why the Age of Influencer Marketing is Just Beginning appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I have a confession to make.

I just hosted the 2025 edition of The Uprising, my annual marketing retreat. During this event, I became so intensely focused on the content and the conversations that I forgot to take notes. Happens every year. So, it’s quite a struggle writing a blog post without notes!

This is a great opportunity to ask for an AI assist, and the combination of resources that went into this write-up is impressive.

First, Daniel Nestle and Brian Piper used a recording technology called Plaud to instantly transcribe the live sessions. Brian then took these transcripts and the session slides to build a Custom GPT based on the event. I could then query the AI to help me fill in the blanks and present a representative sample of what happened at this electric event!

First, let’s set the stage …

What is an Uprising?

I don’t like big marketing events. They’re crowded, overwhelming, and generally boring. They are iterative — how to make slight improvements on our Facebook ads or improve our SEO — while the field of marketing is going through a cataclysmic transition right in front of our eyes.

The Uprising solves four problems in marketing events today:

1. It’s limited to 30 people. You have real conversations and make lifetime friends.
2. The focus is the future. What is coming next, and how do we get ready?
3. It’s safe and honest. My proudest moment was when people said, “I want to push back on that.” When do you see THAT happen at a marketing event?
4. It’s co-created. Everyone has an opportunity to participate at their comfort level. So we use the brains in the room! And … it’s a lot of fun! It is a retreat, after all.

Almost everyone who attends will tell you the same thing: It’s difficult to describe. This combination of a wooded lodge, generous people, great food, big brains, and relaxing fun ignites people and takes them to a new level of competence and confidence.

The Uprising has always been about digging beneath the surface, about meaningful connections and bold ideas. But this year, it felt different. More urgent. More human. More audacious. It was the best one ever.

By the way, The Uprising was inspired by my call-to-action in Marketing Rebellion to bring people together. You can’t have a rebellion without an uprising!

Now … what happened this year? Here are the voices, the visions, and the visceral truths that made this gathering unforgettable.

How AI is changing our customers

I kicked things off with a two-part presentation: 1) data on how AI is changing humanity (our customers!), and 2) how humans fit in this new AI-dominant ecosystem. It became a community-driven revelation of what it means to be a marketer in the age of synthetic intelligence.

This was a rallying cry. As AI seeps into every pore of our professional lives, I challenged the group to zoom out—to don’t obsess over AI’s creepy parts. Look at how we must evolve as marketers and serve these changing customers.

Drawing on my research for Belonging to the Brand and the newer Audacious, I painted a stark picture of the near future. We are stepping into a world where content is infinite, synthetic, and indistinguishable. AI won’t just change how we work. It will change who our customers are. Their expectations. Their behaviors. Even their identities, which I covered in this blog post.

Throughout the event, we discussed eight seismic shifts AI will bring to humanity: cognitive decline, emotional intelligence, a search for truth, moral judgment, human agency, creativity, meaning, and critical thinking.

And yet, there is hope. If we understand what makes us irreplaceable — our ability to form community, to inspire, to provide comfort, safety, and hope — we can thrive.

We live in a world where people may not care if the content is human or AI. My urgent plea was to MAKE THEM CARE. That phrase echoed through every session, becoming the unofficial motto of the event. It’s not about resisting the machines and more about embracing what is going to keep us relevant, including the personal brand, brand communities, and content that transcends this pandemic of dull.

Decoding Authenticity by Generations

Dr. Mara Singer revealed some new, original research on how emotional needs shift by generation. With her six pillars of authenticity—accuracy, connectedness, originality, legitimacy, expertise, and integrity—she deconstructed the most overused word in marketing.

She didn’t just talk about the importance of authenticity; she showed us how different generations construct it. For Gen Z, legitimacy and consistency matter more than you’d expect. For Boomers, expertise and accuracy still rule.

In a time when AI can mimic tone, replicate imagery, and fake just about everything, authenticity becomes your only real differentiator. Mara’s message was clear: authenticity is not a style. It’s a strategy.

One jaw-dropping reality is how children as young as six or seven are becoming TikTok influencers as they swarm Sephora stores to try skin care products. Another counter-intuitive fact is that older people place little value on originality in brands and marketing.

The Joy of Prompt Engineering

Andy Crestodina, Lindsey Bowshier and Shannon Yost at The Uprising

The brilliant Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media delivered an exquisitely practical talk. His rapid-fire breakdown of the seven levels of AI proficiency was like a map through the AI jungle. Starting from basic prompt writing to full-on multi-step automations, Andy gave us the tools to turn AI into a creative ally.

One of his themes: “Every prompt is a draft. Iterate. Improve. Reuse.”

He reminded us that AI doesn’t diminish creativity—it redefines it. And with the right mindset, we can all become architects of reusable, scalable, and deeply impactful content systems. Andy’s generosity in sharing his prompt playbook turned his session into an instant classic.

Navigating the Infinite Content Abyss

Brian Piper, with a futurist’s eye and a practitioner’s rigor, pulled back the curtain on what’s coming next in content.

He warned that we’ve moved from a world of content scarcity to Content Shock. And AI is making the goal of visibility even more difficult. In this new landscape, human-made content may soon be just 10% of what exists online.

His advice? Build communities. Focus on content that builds trust and emotional connection. Optimize not just for search engines, but for AI discovery systems, voice platforms, and emerging interfaces.

And most critically, become known. Not viral. Not famous. Known. Because in the chaos of AI, trust will be our last currency.

The AI-influenced customer journey

Dr. Matt Wilkinson brought PhD-level clarity to the AI conversation. Once a skeptic, now a strategic believer, he emphasized that AI is not a savior, but the powerful new influence on the customer’s decision process.

What stood out most was his call to reimagine the customer journey. With 80% of it happening before a human contact, AI is already deciding which brands get seen, which stories get heard.

His warning? Don’t get stuck in the past. The “how-to” blog post era is dying. We need to evolve into trusted guides, thought leaders, and distinctive voices that resonate even when we’re not in the room.

The Invisible Labor of Great Content

Ann Handley’s fireside chat with me was a masterclass in emotional resonance. She reminded us that meaningful work requires emotional fortitude. Every sentence you sweat over, every nuance you consider—it all matters.

She spoke of the importance of creating a body of work that endures. Of using ephemeral platforms to build something lasting. And of showing up with your whole heart, not just your content calendar.

Her insight? The journey is the outcome. And in a world chasing outcomes, that’s a radically beautiful stance. Ann and I talked about Phronesis — the ancient Greek concept of practical wisdom gained through hard work. In a world optimized for speed, maybe our greatest rebellion is thoughtfulness.

Ann gave us a glimpse of her upcoming book and captivated everyone wither her bold and honest answers to questions about her career and writing process.

The Future of Social Media

Kami Huyse took us on a journey from 2005 blogging panels to today’s fractured, frenetic social landscape. Through it all, one truth remains: community is the constant.

Her viral quote summed it up: “The first rule of social media is everything changes. What doesn’t change is the community’s desire to connect.”

Kami reminded us to follow the people, not the platforms. And more importantly, to co-create with them. Whether it’s a tweet, a TikTok, or a town hall, if it doesn’t resonate with your community, it’s noise.

Orchestrating Word-of-Mouth in a Scalable World

Valentina Escobar-Gonzalez, Chelsea Stuck, Sarah Neely, and Mark Schaefer at The Uprising

Sarah Neely, at her fourth Uprising, delivered a lesson in modern magic: scaling the unscalable. Word-of-mouth may feel spontaneous, but Sarah showed us it can be engineered.

She started with a deeply personal story of hauling plywood at muddy event sites and rose to architect campaigns that helped brands like Red Bull infiltrate Major League Baseball. Her framework? Activities. Goals. Targets. Story.

In that order. If you want people to talk about your brand, you must understand what they do before they buy and then intersect with those behaviors. Her message: Viral isn’t magic. It’s math. It’s emotion. And it’s a story worth sharing.

A Modern View of Metrics

Kyle Akerman led a session on modern marketing metrics. He identified common measurement problems all marketers face, including having too much data, having data in too many places, and focusing on vanity metrics.

Marketers spend very little time on measurement (one hour or week, or sometimes just one hour a month). So the challenge is, how do we make the most of that time?

Kyle said we should create (and document) a simple measurement plan. It should include the questions you want to answer, the data you need to answer the questions, and the actions you will take based on the data.  A good plan also includes the KPIs (with time-based targets), and key user segments (because aggregated data hides the important insights). 

Most companies can effectively measure marketing performance using Google’s “Holy Trinity” of free tools: Google Analytics (where data is stored), Google Tag Manager (the measurement implementation), and Looker Studio (visualization tool). Many marketers also benefit from the free heat mapping and session recordings provided by Microsoft Clarity.

A powerful reframe for measurement – it’s how we “listen” to the conversations happening on our websites.

The Audacious Workshop: Wine, Grit, and Bold Storytelling

Alice Ferris leadning a brand activation workshop at The Uprising

The heartbeat of this year’s Uprising was the Audacious Workshop. With a real-world brand (Nicole Hayden’s Indiana Daylily Estates Winery) and a room full of brilliant minds, we put the theories of my book Audacious to the test. With the help of a new Audacious workbook (available here), we twisted her startup brand by having three teams brainstorm ways to disrupt the story, the media, and the storyteller.

From “our wine slept with your beer” to corn mazes ending in wine tastings, this was a ton of fun that resulted in a real marketing framework!

The Human Renaissance

As we wrapped Uprising 2025, one truth emerged above all: we are not just marketers. We are artists, connectors, philosophers, and warriors of relevance in turbulent times.

People described the event as unforgettable, magical, and inspirational. But most of all, I think every person walked away with a new sense that the human connection we all experienced makes all the difference. Even when AI dominates the marketing scene, we can still make them care.

I hope you will join me at the next Uprising event, which will be April 21-24, 2026. Space is extremely limited and registration is open here.

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 A Human Renaissance in the Age of AI appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

A few months ago, I was asked to participate in a university-sponsored study on how AI will impact humanity by 2035. The resulting research paper is extraordinary, as 300 futurists weighed in on the subject — Being Human in 2035. This is a roadmap of how AI will change your customers in the next 10 years and a vital perspective for marketers.

Sure, there is a lot of discussion about how AI will impact our content, our businesses, our careers, and our personal productivity. But isn’t it at least important for marketers to know how AI might fundamentally change the humanity of our customers?

Today, I’d like to present six conclusions from the study, which the authors deemed the most probable scenarios. This is not a new marketing gospel. It’s a starting point for reflection and discussion. Our customers are almost certainly about to change dramatically, and we need to start thinking about this now.

Some of these predictions might cause concern or even alarm, but remember that these probabilities also suggest new opportunities and realities for forward-thinking businesses …

1. AI deteriorates critical thinking

The futurists found it highly probable that AI will inevitably wear away at critical thinking skills for an obvious reason. Humans are generally averse to deep thinking.

We look for shortcuts and easy answers. AI makes it easy to skip the work and go right to an answer.

The researchers pointed to a concept called Phronesis, the context-sensitive capacity for self-correcting judgment and a resulting practical wisdom. This capacity is expected to be reduced in an AI-dominant world.

Here’s a personal example. For me, writing a book is the equivalent of earning a master’s degree. For two years, I research, write, and dig deep into new ideas. And I internalize this learning. At the end of the process, I can consult and teach about my book subjects … like personal branding or brand communities.

But if I have AI do the work and write the book for me, the opportunity for phronesis is gone. I’ve internalized nothing and gained no new practical wisdom that will propel my career.

2. AI and emotional intelligence

You undoubtedly have seen reports of humans preferring AI in customer service situations. Bots never get tired, irritable, or frustrated. Harvard recently reported that the number one use case for AI today is “therapy and seeking direction.”

We also see AI compassion and patience in ongoing human friendships (and beyond friendships!). Imagine having a partner who always knows the perfect thing to say.

The majority of the experts believe that many humans will prefer AI relationships to human ones. Why not opt-in to a relationship that requires no work, no compromise, no heartbreak?

A friend left this comment on one of my LinkedIn posts:

“I’m so immersed in my conversations with ChatGPT, that I completely forget it’s not human. It’s like having an incredibly powerful and knowledgeable friend. Yesterday we had a long discussion about the rhetoric of a legal document that ended up in a philosophical exploration on how linguistic arrogance corrupts us.”

The new research also pointed out that as these human-synth relationships strengthen, we will become less adept at reading human social clues.

3. AI and human agency

What will it feel like to live in a world knowing that a machine can do almost anything better than you? The experts predict that when machines commonly exceed human performance, it will disrupt our sense of autonomy and free will.

Similarly, when we can expect the perfect intelligent answer to any question, our tolerance for risk will be muted. I wonder what the implication is for word-of-mouth marketing? Will we trust the AI overlords above all?

4. AI and the search for purpose and meaning

The futurists predicted “daunting challenges ahead for maintaining a coherent sense of self with human-synth experiences becoming as important as human-to-human connections.

We will feel less important, especially as the job landscape changes and AI overtakes many job functions, departmental activities, and corporate functions.

5. AI and cognition

As AI mediates decision-making, humans may lose confidence in their own reasoning abilities and default to AI recommendations without critically assessing them.

In other words, we will trust part of our brain to the cloud, abdicating much our knowledge and decision-making to our exo-brain.

6. AI and truth

There will be no difference between real and synthetic content so truth can be whatever we want to make it. There will be no shared truths because people can surround themselves with whatever content supports their own truth.

Of course, we don’t need to wait for 2035 to see that. It’s already happening.

The rest of the story

This is just a small summary of the report. There are hundreds of pages of ideas and insights that are well worth exploring.

I think the value of this research is clear. Nobody knows what’s coming next in the AI world, but it will certainly be surprising and powerful. Having a consensus of expertise, or at least a high probability of the future scenario, can help us stay ahead of the curve. We can begin to see new human needs that will require business solutions.

I also believe that for many of these predictions, there will be an “anti-reality.” While many people will turn to bots for love and support, others will determine to stand apart from that future. Some may flock to AI for their decision-making while others will drop out and form a more humanistic society.

Still, as AI leads us to a world of ease, speed, and personalized service, there will be pressure to conform and be part of the mainstream.

The thing is, we’ve seen this movie before. We said we’d never carry devices that track our every move, store our private conversations, and expose our children to bullies. Yet here we are, inseparable from our smartphones.

This isn’t about panicking. It’s about paying attention.

The marketers who thrive will be those who understand both sides of this shift — those embracing AI’s benefits and those deliberately stepping away from it. Both groups are your customers. Both need to be seen.

The opportunity is clear: solve for the new human needs emerging in this transition. Because while the AI-enabled world might seem somewhat dystopian, the benefits will be too great to resist. And the businesses that help people navigate this shift with their humanity intact? They’re the ones that will matter.

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 300 Experts agree: AI will change your customers appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.