Too short for a blog post, too important to ignore, here are some short observations from the world of marketing and beyond.

The personal brand journey

It had a busy year, and it was nice having some downtime. What did I do with it? I was WRITING!

I have a long trip to Asia coming up. I won’t have time to blog. That means I need at least four great posts teed up and ready to go ahead of time.

Building your personal brand isn’t a project; it’s a lifestyle. No excuses. Keep going. Get it done. Show up for your fans.

If your personal brand is a priority it has to be part of your lifestyle like working out, going on a date, or going to church on Sunday.

The two personal brand failure modes are 1) the person never started 2) the person quit too soon.

Out to sea

Had a friend on LinkedIn comment: “You can be noise in a sea of calm or calm in a sea of noise” — either way you have a choice. You alone can decide what you want to be to stand out.

I don’t think it’s that easy. In reality, you will be calm in a sea of calm or noise in a sea of noise. There is a third choice. Do something completely different! Be audacious in a sea of boring.

So true.

My friend Billy Dexter says, “We don’t look like our stories.”

Six words. So powerful.

His point: Ask questions before you judge. Lots of questions.

The real AI advantage

I’m astounded by the number of professional people I encounter who are not even dabbling in AI.

AI isn’t democratizing marketing; it’s creating a new aristocracy. The “AI-haves” will run circles around the “AI-have-nots.”

But here’s the twist: the real power won’t lie with those who own the AI, but with those who own the questions. In a world where AI becomes a commodity (everyone can have the latest and greatest for $20!), the competitive edge goes to those who know which problems are worth solving.

Bacon diplomacy

Just got back from a vacation in Europe. While Europe has so much wonderful food, I don’t understand why it has not picked up on American bacon. So crispy. So delicious. So much better than the limp, greasy fare across the pond.

Free business idea: Start a cafe in European capitals called “American Bacon” and watch the lines form. No need to thank me.

The wrong question

Maybe we’re asking the wrong question about AI in marketing. It’s not “How can AI make us more efficient?” It’s “What if efficiency is the enemy?”

In our rush to optimize, we’re creating a world of frictionless, forgettable experiences. AI won’t drive the next marketing revolution — It’ll be a rebellion against it, championing the beautifully inefficient. Leave a little dust on the lens. Be the glitch in the story.

Being real is becoming a luxury.

Word to the words

I really love Grammarly. It might not be considered a leading AI app … but it is the AI app I use the most! It’s also cool to see my monthly stats. Here is one that has me flummoxed.

This is cool in one respect. I’ve used more unique words than just about everybody. But I’m not sure if this is a badge of courage or shame. I’m using that many unique words, it probably means some people don’t understand what I write, especially if English is not their first language. Not sure what to make of it.

And I’m guessing “flummoxed” might be word number 12,859!

Marketing speed

One of the least-discussed challenges in marketing today is speed. It’s not just reaction time. It’s also impacting time to market.

The line between marketing and product development is blurring. When AI can predict what customers want before they know it, marketing becomes less about promoting what exists and more about shaping what could be. The future of marketing isn’t just about selling products; it’s about co-creating experiences with our customers in real-time.

I’m eager to see how this rolls out!

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

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post Your personal brand isn’t a project, it’s a lifestyle appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The drivers of attention value

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

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

$33 per hour for live sports,

$17 per hour for live concerts

$7.18 for movies

$0.37 for books

$0.25 for social media posts

$0.12 per hour for digital music

$0.05 for podcasts

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

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

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

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

Level of focus

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

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

The job to be done

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

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

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

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

Implications for demographics

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

Content lovers

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

Interactivity enthusiasts

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

Community trendsetters

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

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

Implications for marketers

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

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

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

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

• What job am I really being hired for?

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

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

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

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

Implications for strategy

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

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

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

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

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

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

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy Nano Banana

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Addiction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Division

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

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

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

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

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

Why?

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

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

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

3. Energy and Environmental Impact

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

Victoria Hurth

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

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

Even “digital” isn’t clean.

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

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

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

And then there’s AI.

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

So yes, even creativity now carries a carbon cost.

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

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

4. Operating with values

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What do we do about it?

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

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

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

So what’s the point of this post?

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

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

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

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

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

Reframe success.

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

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

Design for restraint.

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

Invest in ethical tech.

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

Lead with humanity.

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

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

Dramatic change is possible

Here’s a point of inspiration.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eugene Healey wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

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

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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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}.

Guest post by Richard Bliss

Last week I read a new analysis of LinkedIn’s latest engineering research papers by Trust Insights. After spending days going through it, I’m not exaggerating: everything we thought we knew about LinkedIn changed in mid-2024, and almost nobody noticed.

Not an update. Not a tweak. A complete teardown and rebuild.

Here’s what happened:

LinkedIn ripped out their entire ranking system and replaced it with a foundation model AI that reads and comprehends your content like an expert consultant would.

The old system counted signals. “Comment = 15 points, like = 1 point, keyword detected.”

The new system reads your text, understands context, and makes expert judgments about substance and relevance.

This means all those tactics we learned are obsolete:

Post at 7:43 AM on Tuesday? Doesn’t matter. Keyword stuffing? The AI detects and penalizes it. Engagement pods? Flagged. Generic thought leadership? Dead on arrival.

What works now: Clear communication. Genuine expertise. Strategic engagement with industry leaders.

The LinkedIn engagement paradigm

But here’s the part that blew my mind.

Your recent LinkedIn engagement (your last 5-10 actions) is incorporated into a real-time “prompt” that the AI reads before deciding what to show you next.

You’re literally training your own algorithm through every click.

Every comment you leave becomes a training example: “This is what I find valuable.” Every post you engage with teaches the system: “This is the conversation I belong in.”

This is called In-Context Learning, and it’s why some people’s content suddenly reaches exactly the right audiences while others are shouting into the void.

The practical impact

Your profile is now a narrative document, not a keyword repository. The AI reads it like an executive summary before every ranking decision.

Your engagement strategy matters more than posting frequency. Quality signals from strategic interactions outweigh volume.

The first sentence of everything you write carries exponentially more weight than anything buried later (technical limitation called “Lost-in-Distance”).

You can prime the algorithm right before you post by strategically engaging with related content 10-15 minutes beforehand.

I know some of you are crushing it on LinkedIn already. But many of you are frustrated because great content isn’t getting seen.

This shift explains both.

The people winning aligned their approach with how this reasoning engine actually works. The people losing are still using the old playbook.

Authority in context

This paradigm validates what I’ve been teaching for years. LinkedIn is a business platform where authentic professional communication wins. That philosophy is now literally encoded in the technology.

But the technical details of HOW it works changed so dramatically that even correct instincts need new tactical applications.

Quick example: I’ve always taught “the currency is in the comments.” That’s still true, but now we know WHY. Thoughtful comments on expert content create textual training data that associates you with that expert’s community in the Economic Graph. The AI literally starts showing your content to people interested in that expert’s topics.

Aspirational networking with algorithmic leverage.

I’m doing a deep dive on all of this because this is the single biggest opportunity for professional visibility in the last decade.

If you understand this shift, you have a 12-to-18 month window to dominate visibility in your space while everyone else is still using engagement pods.

If you ignore it, you’ll wonder why your competitors are suddenly everywhere while you’re invisible.

This isn’t about gaming anything. It’s about understanding how an intelligent system evaluates professional value and aligning your communication accordingly.

I’m not prone to hype anything. This is real, documented in LinkedIn’s own research papers, and it fundamentally changes the game.

I’m genuinely excited by these changes and the impact it will have. Especially as the ‘influencers’ have been screaming that they are being shutdown on LinkedIn, which is great. Because they have been gaming the system to inflate their image, and I get so angry I get when I come across them.

Richard Bliss is the founder of BlissPoint Consulting, an agency to help leaders turn digital hesitancy into market authority, build a leadership presence that crosses cultures and generations, and create scalable influence systems their teams can execute.

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The dirt on “diaper marketing”

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

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

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

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

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

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

AI versus SEO

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

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

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

Top Factors Influencing SEO Success

(In no particular order)

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

Top Factors Affecting AI Referrals

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

The Intersection!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We’re all in the diaper business now

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

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

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

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

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

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

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Image courtesy Mid Journey

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

I recently participated in a research project that gathered input from futurists on how AI will change humanity by 2030. Of course, nobody can foresee what this AI world will be like five months from now, let alone five years from now, but it was a great exercise that yielded some consensus among the experts.

But this pushed my thinking in a different way. If we are to consider how AI is changing humanity, what exactly is humanity?

If we think back to a human existence 200 or 300 years ago, a human adult would have had three primary goals: 1) don’t die, 2) find food/shelter, 3) have babies. Is that how our ancestors would have defined the meaning of humanity?

Today when we think about AI impacting “humanity,” we might reference the impact on our careers, our privacy, or our purpose in life. We might be worried about an AI impact on our schools, democracy, or relationships.

But is that humanity?

Today I want to strip away the pretense of modern life and explore what the intrusion of AI might mean to our humanity, and by extension, our businesses.

What doesn’t change?

In the early days of Amazon, Wired magazine interviewed Jeff Bezos and asked him what new technology excited him the most. Amazon was revolutionizing eCommerce, but Bezos took the interview in another direction.

“Changing technology is interesting,” he said, “but what is even more interesting is what will NOT change, because that’s how you build a business. I find it impossible to consider that in ten years our customers will want higher prices, less selection, or slower delivery. Our success comes from focusing on the factors that never change.”

His insight is even truer today as we face the future with our new AI masters. Instead of focusing on change, the most robust businesses will serve the elements of humanity that will not change.

The humanity that remains

There is certainly a lot of hyperbole around AI and its implications. But I trust the view of an insider like Satya Nadella of Microsoft when he says AI is the most profound development in history — more important than fire, electricity, or the internet.

However, just as important as the power of the change is the speed at which it occurs. The improvements are dizzying. So in this hurricane-force environment, how do you build a durable business?

Let’s take a page from the Bezos Playbook. If we strip away the pretense and pressure of the modern world, what about humanity will NEVER change? Here’s a starter list:

• SAFETY
• LOVE
• CONNECTION AND COMMUNITY
• CREATIVITY
• COMPASSION
• CONTENTMENT / PEACE
• HEALTH
• FAMILY
• SPIRITUALITY / SPIRITUAL LONGING
• CURIOSITY
• RITUAL
• AUTONOMY / FREEDOM
• HOPE

I realize this is an imperfect and incomplete list, but give this grace as a thought experiment.

If your business is serving one of these needs, you’re probably in good shape, no matter what happens with AI. Similarly, if AI were to threaten any of these characteristics, you could create a durable business by preserving these aspects of humanity.

Building a durable business

Let’s put this into practice.

What are the new threats to personal safety?

• Deep fakes
• Cyber attacks
• Attacks on the electrical grid or water system
• Hacks into credit cards and bank accounts

These threats will not disappear anytime soon. Why hasn’t somebody invented a hack-proof credit card that can only be activated by a fingerprint or iris scan? There’s a growing niche industry that provides insurance against cyber attacks. That’s smart. Likewise, sales of back-up power supplies are booming because our concern for our safety will never go away.

Let’s try another one: Curiosity

• Why not package a service where AI can make custom novels based on your interests and favorite characters?
• Open a creator hub where people could take classes in ancient arts like glassblowing or woodcraft all in one place.
• I love my app that helps me identify birds by their songs and calls. But it poses such a limit on my curiosity. Why not turn it into a network that can alert me to new bird sightings in my neighborhood or create gamified bird collection teams?

Another way to look at this is to mash up your current products with human needs to reimagine your business value.

Let’s say you own a bakery that specializes in making unique and delicious cookies. How can you position your cookies to appeal to fundamental human needs, such as love, community, creativity, health, or ritual?

You get the idea now.

Building a durable business relies on serving persistent human needs. Strip away the veneers of social performance that have accumulated for centuries and focus on the needs that never change.

This post was excerpted from my new book How AI Changes Your Customers: The Marketing Guide to Humanity’s Next Act.

I think you will enjoy this book!

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

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post Strip humanity to its essence and you’ll build a durable business appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the personal angst I had about people creating custom GPTs that replicate my intellect. Is this flattering and fun, or a creepy theft of intellectual prowess?

I went through a period of introspection and came to a new realization as I was writing my new book How AI Changes Your Customers (… and all of humanity by the way).

There is no way to escape the influence of AI. No way to dismiss it. No way to deny the permanent impact it will have on our lives, our careers, and our families.

So we have a choice. We can live in fear and denial. Or we can reimagine how AI can make us bigger, bolder, stronger, more creative, and more impactful.

I choose impact. So, I did a thing. I created  The MarkBot — an Expert Trained Model informed by my public work, like books, blog posts, speeches, classes, strategic frameworks, and more.

I am a teacher, a mentor, a guide. If I had an AI that could truly channel my philosophy, education, and experiences, then I could be a teacher to the world … anywhere, any time I am needed. I would be using AI to reimagine myself as a global marketing teacher and business consultant.

I’ve been working on this for a few months, tested it with more than 100 people and now I’m giving it away for free.

Which might not make any sense. So read on.

The Business Strategy

Why would I give away my knowledge base for free?

This isn’t the first time we’ve had this debate. In the early days of content marketing, your boss probably said: “What??? You want me to give away my content and best ideas for free on a blog?”

Yes.

Because if you didn’t, your competitors would. Their content would be discovered, highlighted, and shared — and you’d lose out.

The same is true with AI.

For better or for worse, information flows freely on the web. Once you publish anything, anywhere, it will find its way to open waters. Everything I’ve ever written is already part of the immortal glue holding AI together. Why not channel it in a way that helps people … in my way?

I wasn’t sure how giving away content in the early days of the web would result in business for me, but it did. No matter how much I gave away, people still wanted to connect to me personally for a speech, a workshop, or a business consultation.

Giving away content fueled my success. I’ve never paid for an ad in my life.

Is the MarkBot just another vessel for my content and ideas? Will this work the same way and bring me business? I don’t know. But I do know is that this is a way to help people with honest advice at scale, and that is a dream come true for any teacher.

And it works!

I’ve been working on MarkBot for several months, and I’ve learned that building a great GPT requires much more than just feeding it content. This thing had to be an extension of me. It had to be something I was proud of.

MarkBot is not just an expression of my intellect. It also reflects my values and personal consulting style.

Dozens of people have tested it, and the results have been startling.

One person said it was like talking to me.

Another person received some advice on her business, which she called “profound.”

A third person tested it against other LLMs and found it to be superior for marketing strategy and brainstorming.

Some of the advice it provides seems beyond anything I could do myself. Which is hard to explain, but I’ll take it!

It’s not perfect, and it will always be a work in progress, but I think you might enjoy trying it out. It’s free and private, so your questions and answers are not stored anywhere.

Try MarkBot here.

Beyond marketing consulting

I recently got into a deep discussion on custom GPTs with Dana Malstaff during an episode of The Marketing Companion podcast. She is also developing her own AI to drive her business but in a radically different way.

Her approach is to design AI—chatbots, custom GPTs, and other agents—that set boundaries and parameters. For Dana, it’s critical that these tools reflect her authentic voice and beliefs, and that they’re honest enough to challenge users and not just validate their ideas. This is foundational to building trust and long-term value.

Key highlights from her approach include:

• A “future self” guidance AI bot
• A conversion scanner that assesses websites for conversion opportunities
• An internal bot that streamlines company operations and helps with conflict resolution.
• Certification programs

Integrating AI into key company processes allows her to spend even more time on the human side of the business that drives revenue and loyalty.

Custom AI isn’t about cutting costs or flooding the web with more generic content. It’s about deeper service, smarter boundaries, and building something that truly sets you apart.

I hope you’ll dive into the MarkBot and learn more about Dana’s revolutionary use of AI in the new episode of The Marketing Companion.

You can listen to this special show here:

Click here to enjoy The Marketing Companion Episode 325

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

Bravo for Brevo!

This episode is brought to you by Brevo (formerly Sendinblue). Brevo gives you the tools to attract, engage, and nurture customer relationships.

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!

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