I enjoy reading books by the historian Thomas Cahill. Instead of recording history as a series of catastrophes, he focuses on “hinges of history” — singular events that change the world forever.

For the first time in my life, I might be watching a hinge of history right before my eyes, and I pray that I’m wrong.

There was one small event that happened last week that will quickly fade from the headlines. But it might just twist the future of humanity. A hinge of history … and it’s no surprise that it involves the most powerful force of our time: AI

The tipping point for AI

As you probably read in the news last week, Anthropic was tossed out of the U.S. government supply chain and a $200 million contract because it would not back down on its strong position on AI safety guardrails.

President Trump weighed in on the fight, posting on social media that he would “NEVER ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS!”

That decision, he said, “belongs to YOUR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, and the tremendous leaders I appoint to run our Military.”

Anthropic had asked for two things. The company was willing to loosen its restrictions on the technology, but wanted guardrails to stop its A.I. from being used for mass surveillance of Americans or deployed in autonomous weapons with no humans in the decision loop.

Defense Department officials said Anthropic needed to fully trust the Pentagon to use the technology responsibly and relinquish control.

“We cannot in good conscience accede to their request,” Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei said. “Threats do not change our position.” Anthropic was prepared to lose its government contract and help the Pentagon transition to another company’s technology, he said.

During the negotiations, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he backed Anthropic, which was founded by former OpenAI employees. “For all the differences I have with Anthropic, I mostly trust them as a company, and I think they really do care about safety,” he said.

Then, within 10 hours of that statement, he struck his own deal with the Department of Defense.

OpenAI agreed to let the Pentagon use its A.I. systems for any lawful purpose and said it had found a way to ensure that its technologies would not be applied for surveillance (in the United States) or autonomous weapons. Tech observers argued that OpenAI’s deal left the possibility of surveillance open.

In a tweet two days later, Altman admitted that the negotiation was rushed, sloppy, and opportunistic. He said he was trying to amend contract language.

The AI-driven war?

This turn of events seemed predestined. Nine months ago, the administration issued an executive order on “woke AI,” stating that the government had an “obligation not to procure models that sacrifice truthfulness and accuracy to ideological agendas.” Anthropic was widely seen as a target of the order.

And last year, OpenAI President Greg Brockman gave $25 million to a pro-Trump political action committee. He is spending millions more to advance Trump’s AI agenda in the midterm elections.

Not only did Anthropic lose a $200 million contract, but the administration also announced that the company would be designated a supply chain risk, prohibiting any business working with the military from engaging in “any commercial activity with Anthropic.”

The label would make Anthropic the first U.S. company ever to publicly receive such treatment.

“This is a dark day in the history of American AI. The message sent to the business community and to countries around the world could not be worse,” said Dean Ball, a former Trump administration AI adviser. (WSJ)

Professor Seyedali Mirjalili, founder of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Optimization, wrote:

“I am more concerned humans will use AI to destroy civilisation than AI doing so autonomously by taking over. The clearest existential pathway is militarisation and pervasive surveillance. This risk grows if we fail to balance innovation with regulation and don’t build sufficient, globally enforced guardrails to keep systems out of bad actors’ hands.

“Integrating AI into future weapons would reduce human control and lead to an arms race. If mismanaged, binding AI to national security even risks an AI-driven world war.”

AI will be weaponized

There are legitimate reasons to weaponize AI. Our safety requires that we have a “big stick” and in modern warfare, that means AI.

Today, the official doctrine across Western militaries is “human in the loop” — AI recommends, humans authorize. But there’s tension: If AI-enabled warfare operates at machine speed, human-in-the-loop oversight can’t keep pace with events, effectively turning human oversight into rubber-stamping.

Faster decision cycles reduce the time available for human deliberation and impair commanders’ ability to comprehend the rationale behind AI outputs. This increases the possibility of error, escalation, or miscalculation, especially under stress.

And eventually, AI will likely propose rapid strategies that appear alien to commanders, even counterintuitive.

So you can see that the argument for AI autonomy and loose guardrails will not go away.

AI safety in peril

Nearly every AI insider has warned of the serious existential threat to humanity if unregulated AI “gets loose.”

Even the most responsible AI safety testing reveals how risky AI can be.

Here’s one example. Anthropic publishes a public safety report on each of its models, and the latest report on Opus 4.6 found that it is  “significantly stronger than prior models at subtly completing suspicious side tasks in the course of normal workflows without attracting attention.”

The company also found that the model provided assistance when they pushed it to contribute to chemical weapons development, and then it changed its behavior when it detected that it was being evaluated. In other words, AI can deceive us. It’s difficult to test an AI model when it knows we’re testing it.

But as the furious race to superintelligence ramps up, with trillions of dollars at stake, the priority for AI security measures has faded.

• Last year, the Trump administration revoked safety policies imposed under President Biden.
• President Trump signed an executive order in December aimed at undercutting state laws that regulate A.I.
• He lifted restrictions on exports of AI semiconductors, despite widespread concerns that the components could help rivals like China.
• At the United Nations, a yearslong effort to ban certain AI weapons has been stalled by opposition from the United States.

To be fair, many credible voices say the fear of AI domination is overblown. And it’s possible that government oversight, in cooperation with OpenAI and others, could work effectively.

But when human annihilation is a non-zero probability, the world requires robust checks and balances beyond the judgment of a single politician (or a single company founder).

The most important question in history

Up until now, I’ve soothed myself in the face of these dire predictions by believing that wisdom will prevail, and somehow the AI safety guardrails will hold.

But … this moment on Friday. The president of the United States declared that as commander in chief, he decides how to use AI for military purposes.

Hidden amid the foggy legalese and political positioning could be the most important question in history:

Who decides the safe limits of superintelligence?

As AI becomes embedded in classified decision-making loops, the need for critical safety controls, auditability, and oversight becomes less theoretical. It becomes operational.

AI will be weaponized. But if it’s weaponized without essential guardrails, will our grandchildren point to this moment as a disastrous hinge of history?

AI is unpredictable and quirky. It lies and even betrays us. If superintelligent AI jumps over inadequate safety measures, will our grandchildren even live long enough to be able to consider what went wrong?

This is an extraordinarily complex issue.

Who decides the safe limits of superintelligence? We are living in a pivotal moment.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concern that AI could lead to widespread harm, here are a few sources:

Threats by artificial intelligence to human health and human existence (Academic research paper)

On the Extinction Threat from AI (Rand Institute)

CBS interview on this topic with Dario Amodei of Anthropic

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

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Over the past few weeks, I’ve been the fly in the LinkedIn ointment.

You’ve probably seen the bold projections from AI leaders like Mustafa Suleyman and Matt Shumer predicting cataclysmic AI impacts on our work, employment, and artistic endeavors.

There’s a defensive argument surfacing on LinkedIn: “If you care about artistry, you must resist AI.” Many marketers and creators hold on to a hope that the AI Era will have a place for the slow, the steady, the artisanally-crafted tradition of human content. I’ve responded with comments of “probably not.” Which has not been a popular view.

In a webinar last week, I explained how I was using AI as an editor and video producer to make my content exponentially better, faster, and cheaper. I was brutally scalded by one of the webinar participants. “How can you turn video editing over to AI?” one man bristled. “That’s where the craftsmanship happens. That is the artistry. Why aren’t you fighting against AI?”

Good question. Is it time to battle AI and protect human artistry?

I am not anti-human or anti-artistry. But this storyline seems familiar. Before we put on the AI armor, let’s face the music:

A familiar tune

In 1982, the British Musicians’ Union made a remarkable move. They called an emergency meeting and voted to ban music synthesizers from the U.K.

The trigger was Barry Manilow, of all people. On his U.K. tour, Barry had replaced his orchestra with synthesizers. String musicians, horn players, and percussionists lost their work. Traditional artists were furious and responded the way humans almost always do to disruptive change: they tried to make it illegal.

And it was futile.

The following year, the MIDI software standard was codified, and digital music synthesizers became widely available. Overnight, a person sitting alone in a room could produce music that previously required a full band and technical team.

Within a year of the MIDI revolution, thousands of studio musicians and technicians working on commercials, TV shows, and movies lost their jobs. The market for musicians collapsed.

By the mid-1980s, electronic music had created entirely new industries, careers, and genres. Survival in the music business meant adopting, adapting, and embracing the new technology.

Do we still have musicians? Of course. Do we still have orchestras? Absolutely. But the industry that once supported competent session workers evaporated and never came back.

The number of songs produced each year has exploded. The number of people making a living as full-time musicians has not.

The argument against AI today is exactly the same one made in 1982 against digital music. And the result will be the same.

We need to get ready, and I have an idea about that.

But first, let’s look ahead to our probable future. What do we know to be true? Can we think through the implications? How real is the threat?

What we know to be true:

1. The economic value of intelligence is near zero

Since the beginning of time, humans have prospered and advanced by acquiring knowledge. Every institution is built on the organization of scarce human intelligence. Universities exist because they have been the gatekeepers of knowledge.

These dynamics are irrelevant today because we can’t out-smart AI.

Even the most complex code is being written by bots. AI is developing PhD-level research studies and solving problems in physics and genetics that have stumped humans. Will it be able to create intelligent marketing strategies and insightful content? Of course.

If your career is based on intelligence, you’re vulnerable. Intelligence is abundant and nearly free.

2. Skills don’t matter so much

A primary argument for the worth of humans is that we’ve spent years developing our talents. Surely AI cannot match the experience we’ve honed over decades?

If you believe that AI can’t write as well as you, for example, consider this quote from Mike Kaput, a long-time PR pro and co-host of the (excellent) Artificial Intelligence podcast:

“I’ve been a professional writer for a very long time. I would argue that I’m just shy of being a world-class writer. It is my superpower. And I don’t mean to be arrogant about it, but I have some receipts to prove it.

“By the end of 2025, my use of AI as a writing companion has become very, very different. I can safely say that AI is a better writer than me in every way that counts. That doesn’t mean writing and writers are obsolete. It just means that when it comes to taking my ideas and putting them into really good words, putting them into logical and emotive constructions, AI is just as good as I am — and it’s way faster. It will be even better soon.

“Three years ago, you could see this day coming. It’s not coming, it is here.”

The same thing is happening in video and every other creative field. Responding to a realistic clip of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise engaging in hand-to-hand combat, Deadpool screenwriter Rhett Reese lamented on X that “I hate to say it, but it’s likely over for us.”

My critic in the webinar said, “Editing work must remain human because that’s where the artistry lives.” The musicians said this in 1982. The monastic scribes said it about the printing press. The darkroom operators said it when digital cameras arrived.

Each time, the argument was emotionally true and economically irrelevant.

The art survived. The skilled infrastructure around the making of art did not.

3. The economics favor the bots

In my book How AI Changes Your Customers, I describe AI’s biggest lie.

Every AI company creates PR spin about how AI will “enable” humans. While this is somewhat true, for these companies to recover the trillions being spent on data centers, research, and energy, they must replace human jobs on a massive scale.

Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI and one of the most trusted voices in the field, recently said that most white-collar work will be fully automated within 12 to 18 months. Lawyers. Accountants. Project managers. Marketing teams. Anyone, as he put it, “sitting down at a computer.”

I am humble enough to accept that these insiders see a technological future that I can’t access. Is massive job loss certain? No. But I’m paying attention to these leaders.

Thinking it through

Let’s think through the implications of these realities:

• The economic value of intelligence is near zero
• AI creative skills will meet or exceed human output
• ROI for AI investment requires massive job replacement

I am not an alarmist. I am not a pessimist. I try to see the world as it is, not what I would wish for. But I think there is a probability that my fellow creatives and I are facing a “MIDI moment.”

What can we learn from the musicians who survived that cataclysmic crash?

1. Resistance is futile

The musicians who thrived after 1983 were not railing against synthesizers.

They adapted to the new tools, found the intersection between technology and human creativity, and built careers doing the work that a machine fundamentally cannot replicate.

Adopt AI, don’t fight it. Use it, master it, twist it into exciting new opportunities.

Get over the depression and shock of the AI event horizon and figure out how it can make you bigger, bolder, more creative, and more impactful in this world.

I believe the future still belongs to extraordinary human creativity. But I also believe it is irresponsible to tell young creatives that the economics of the past might protect them. Technology adoption does not honor tradition and artistry. It follows cost curves.

When something becomes:

• 90x cheaper
• 90x faster
• 90% as good

… It wins.

That is not cruelty. That is capitalism.

Acknowledging that reality is not anti-artist.

2. Become a true artist

The MIDI moment separated the great from the competent. Here’s where I need to be concrete, because the conversation tends to get muddled.

I am NOT arguing that AI will replace the editor whose instincts transform raw footage into something that makes you cry. The visionary creative director who tells a story the world needs to hear isn’t vulnerable. The beloved YouTuber or podcaster who creates compelling, entertaining content every day is safe.

I am addressing the layer of technically demanding, repetitive, formulaic work that makes up the majority of billable hours in creative businesses.

If your value is defined by:

• Repetitive technical execution
• Tool mastery alone
• Process efficiency
• Pattern recognition

You’re standing in automation’s path.

If your value is defined by:

• Taste
• Judgment
• Emotional intelligence
• Cultural fluency
• Emotional connection to an audience
• Unmatched talent

You’ll probably become more valuable, not less.

In my book Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World, I explore this in depth. If you’re among those who refuse to be ignored, read this book.

If AI content is indistinguishable from human work, nobody cares. Your job is to transcend AI and MAKE. THEM. CARE.

Your blog, podcast, or video series must rise above common, competent AI slop and approach the level of art (more on that here.)

Art will persist. Many jobs won’t. Both things are true.

3. Become known

So here we are. We’ve embraced the technology. We’re expressing our human experience and rising above the slop. That’s not enough. You could be great and still buried in this noisy world.

It doesn’t help to be a star if nobody knows you are a star. You must work on your personal brand.

You don’t have to become famous by dancing on TikTok. But you must have the authority, presence, and reputation to break through the AI pandemic of dull.

Your personal brand is your only long-term defense against AI.

A final word

Many people point to past technological innovations, like the internet or the industrial revolution, to dismiss gloomy forecasts of job loss. They say that over time, technology creates MORE jobs and opportunities.

Sometimes that is true. And honestly, the jury is still out on AI adoption.

But this feels different. In the past six months, I’ve had three relatives lose their jobs to AI. Their entire departments were permanently wiped out by AI.

If you’re replaced by AI, what new job could you create in your field that won’t also be replaced by AI?

And I’m worried about the gap between the tech elites and the vast majority of people who have no idea what AI can really do and what is coming.

Economist Dr. Noah Smith wrote:

If it helps you feel unique and special to sit there and tell yourself, “AI can’t think!”, then go ahead. And sure, AI doesn’t think exactly the way you do. It probably never will, in the same sense that a submarine will never paddle its fins and an airplane will never flap its wings. But a submarine can go faster than any fish, and an airplane can fly higher and faster than any bird, so it doesn’t matter. You can value your own unique human way of thinking all you like — and I agree, it’s pretty special and cool — but that doesn’t make it more effective than AI.

To my passionate LinkedIn pals who want to stay in the slow lane and battle AI, I understand the emotion. I’ve built my career on creativity. I celebrate it. I teach it. I depend on it. I love it.

But believing in artistry does not require denying economic gravity.

And economic gravity always wins.

My friends, we should not “battle AI.”

We should battle mediocrity. Rise above the noise.

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 Do we begin to battle AI for human artistry? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I’ve been blogging for 16 years, giving away all my best ideas and advice. I spent time thinking about monetizing my writing by moving to a subscription model on Substack. What I concluded might surprise you and perhaps guide your own monetization strategy.

Today I’ll cover:

• My current content monetization strategy
• A high-level view of Medium versus Substack
• My in-depth analysis of the risks and opportunities with Substack
• A final conclusion

Allow me to share a little story about how blogging drives my business.

The inbound marketing model

A few years ago, I received this email:

“Hi Mark. I’ve been reading your blog for three years and have become a real fan. I purchased your latest book and wanted to let you know it is one of the best business books I’ve read in the last 10 years. Just thought it was time to tell you how much I appreciate your work.”

It was signed by the CMO of a Fortune 100 company.

Two years later, he hired me to help organize a new content marketing department. I didn’t bid on the job. He just hired me because he grew to know me and trust me through my content.

Let’s break this down and reveal the classic “inbound” marketing strategy:

1. This person discovered my content and subscribed. I didn’t pay anything for this connection. It was organic, driven by the helpful content I freely put into the world.
2. After reading my content for several years, a trusting relationship developed. It was one-way, of course, but he grew to trust me entirely through the blog content.
3. Three years into this relationship, he bought a book, his first purchase from me.
4. Five years after he subscribed to the blog, he hired me for my most profitable assignment of the year.

And this is the way the world has worked for me, over and over again.

I’ve never made any money directly from my blog content — no ads, paid links, or sponsored posts. But when people trust my content, they hire me for speeches, workshops, and consulting. They’ll buy my books, purchase a consulting hour, or come to my Uprising retreat.

I’ve had a successful, profitable career by giving away content for free.

But many people are earning significant income on Substack. As I move to a slower pace of life, is it time for me to monetize my content directly and charge for it?

Substack versus Medium

There are many ways to monetize content directly, but the two big ones are Medium and Substack.

So far, my strategy has been to publish content on my website and then publish for free on both of these sites. Since both platforms have millions of subscribers, this allows my content to reach new audiences. For example, I have more than 45,000 followers on Medium. Medium articles also tend to rank well on Google.

Medium has another advantage — you’re paid by the number of people who read your content. By simply re-publishing a blog post on Medium, I average a modest $250/month, which is better than the imaginary benefit of Likes and retweets. And, there was an unforgettable month I made $10,000 on Medium. It’s like hitting that one great golf shot. It could happen again, right?

High-earning posts result from a Medium “boost” that floats your article beyond your audience so many more people read it. When does Medium boost? Who knows. It’s unpredictable and frustrating.

Substack has a smaller user base compared to Medium, but offers a business model with a more reliable income stream. People pay for your content through a subscription, and as long as you provide value, the income flows. You’re in charge of your revenue potential by growing your paid audience rather than relying on an algorithmic  Medium boost.

I currently publish for free on Substack — why not? I’ve attracted far fewer followers there compared to Medium … less than 1,000. And I’ve never made a dime there because to succeed, you must commit to a subscription model and refrain from publishing anywhere else. Many people are making a healthy living on Substack. Is it time for me to finally have a reliable income stream directly from my content?

The Substack life

Focusing on Substack as an income stream would require major changes:

• I’d have to create at least one in-depth post per week, and maybe more (I can do that).
• I would stop publishing original blog content on my own website.
• I’d have to develop and grow a Substack community with bonus events and content to add value.
• I would have to move my current blog/Medium audience to a paid subscription on Substack.

While I can commit to creating great content every week, the other changes represent significant risks. Let’s look at each one.

1. The end of the content on my site

As I researched this opportunity, I looked at the websites of Substack stars. If you click “blog,” you’ll find a link to Substack. There is no web-based blog any more.

There is a serious functional implication to this. Without regular, fresh content on my site, my SEO/AI signals dry up. My website isn’t just a blog; it’s a legacy media asset. It’s a lead generation machine.

If the site goes dormant, I lose:

• Authority signals

• Fresh content triggers

• Long-tail organic reach

• Visibility when AI search dominance arrives

That is just too much to lose. The sensible option would be to create two different posts for my site and for Substack. Double the work? No thanks.

2. Moving my audience to Substack

How many of my free blog readers will pay for Substack content? The research shows it will be 5% or less.

But those “free” readers have fueled my entire business model.

• Book sales

• Speaking leads

• Personal branding classes

• Media invitations

• Uprising retreat attendees

• Word-of-mouth leads

The average annual subscription price on Substack is $96. Assuming that 5% of my subscribers move, it’s probably not worth the financial risk.

And there’s another consideration. What if Substack goes out of business?

3. Building a community

The most successful Substack pros fully leverage the platform’s ability to create community through commenting, special events, and exclusive livestreams.

This would be a major benefit of Substack. But I already have a community called RISE. I’ve poured my heart and soul into that community, and I love the people there. I don’t have the need or bandwidth to duplicate that effort.

So a Substack community has no appeal or financial benefit.

The overarching goal

In summary, I certainly have an opportunity to monetize through Substack, but the risk of losing my SEO value and large audience overwhelms the benefits.

In the end, it comes down to my goals at this stage in my life. Money is less important than it was ten years ago. I want my ideas to spread. I want to help and teach. I want to find interesting projects that challenge me and connect me to cool people. I want to maintain a healthy and profitable speaking career.

A regular Substack income jeopardizes:

• SEO discovery for my website
• Serendipity (that random CMO, journalist, or CEO finding me)
• Long-tail inbound traffic
• A large, loyal audience

Monetizing content directly could actually shrink my economic surface area.

At this point in my life, a wide audience and the highest level of discoverability outweigh the potential of a steady income. I’ll stay the course and monetize through the indirect method.

Drop me a line and let me know if you’ve come up with a different strategy for your content.

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 monetize your audience through Substack? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

What happens when everyone reaches for the AI Easy Button?

I have a lesson today about an emerging danger of AI and marketing. But to get to the lesson, you’ll have to hear my story. It’s an old story, but it matters a lot. Here we go.

I was the CMO for a large business unit of a Fortune 100 company.

Each year, we sent teams out to visit customers to learn how they were using our products and how we could improve. These three-person teams were well-trained for this activity, and the lessons we learned would inform my marketing and R&D strategy for at least the next 12 months.

This was a long and expensive process — our customers were scattered around the world. We were wrapping up our final trip of the year and saying goodbye to our hosts when one of the customer scientists said offhandedly, “By the way, did you happen to see this preliminary research report on coating ingredients from the U.S. government?”

We had not. When we looked into it, we found the new research could potentially ban a key ingredient that my industry had used in its products for decades. It was still early, but if the research found a problem with these chemicals, my company and its customers would be imperiled.

Changing a fundamental ingredient in an industrial product used worldwide is no easy matter. It would take millions of dollars and years of testing to make a change. But with this early alarm and the potential risk, we proceeded on an R&D path to find a replacement ingredient.

Three years later, the government changed the regulations on this chemical. Our competitors were panicked. We were safe because we had listened, learned, and acted responsibly, thanks to our deep and unique understanding of the market.

And that brings me to AI.

The AI Easy Button

I have a number of friends working in market research. Their workload is drying up because companies are turning to AI as an inexpensive shortcut.

Not only can AI scan the universe for the information you need, but synthetic AI audience panels can simulate what your customers might say in real interviews.

The general feedback is that using AI is about an 85% solution, and that is good enough to justify the cost savings over human effort.

Except when it isn’t.

Let’s go back to the story I told to begin this post.

There is no way we would have found that critical information through an AI scan or synthetic customer panels.

If I used AI for my customer research, I would probably have the same information our competitors had. What good is that?

The real marketing insight and innovation doesn’t come in the 85%. It comes inside the 15% that you get by doing the hard work and digging into unique customer insights.

Challenge and opportunity

The use of synthetic data for research poses both challenges and opportunities for traditional researhers.

Ray Wang, founder and chairman of Constellation Research, agrees there is a danger in relying too much on synthetic research. “At some point, the regurgitation of insights will lead to a brain rot like we’ve never seen,” he said. “Folks are going to be craving for authenticity and insight, and that only comes with years of human experience.”

Liz Miller, VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, told me, “Market research got itself into a bad hole because because 80% of their answers come from the same 20% of the population that answers questions. They then keep renewing the panel with the same people and give them a Starbucks gift card, hoping they will answer the same questions differently.

‘We’re in a disappointing space when it comes to market research, if we’re being really honest with it. So there is a place for AI research, but it also gives traditional researchers the chance to be brave and ask the hard questions, the questions they’ve never been able to have answered before.”

Pause before using AI

I know there are always budget pressures. I’ve been there. I know you have to make responsible decisions abotu your research. But before you hit the AI Easy Button, think hard about what you’re giving up.

Information that transforms your company?

A unique competitive advantage over everyone else opting for shortcuts?

An insight that secures your future?

Maybe your future lies in that 15% that only human experience can pick up on.

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 The AI Easy Button imperils the future of marketing research appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

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

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

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

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

Nostalgia marketing is everywhere

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

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

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

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

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

• Media: Stranger Things. Need I say more?

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

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

Anything old is new again

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s break each down in more detail.

1. Comfort food in chaotic times

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

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

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

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

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

2. Media trends fuel the nostalgia marketing trend

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

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

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

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

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

3. The search for shared experiences

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

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

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

What if you don’t have a nostalgic story?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Kitschy vintage colors straight out of a 1960s yearbook

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

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

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

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

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

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

10 Ideas to create your own heritage moat

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

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

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

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

The nostalgia of the future

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

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

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

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

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

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

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

I’ve recorded my last episode of The Marketing Companion. Beginning in January 2026, the legendary Sandy Carter will take over as the show’s owner and host.

You can hear my last, surprise-filled episode here:

Listen to Episode 331 of The Marketing Companion

Throughout the podcast’s 13-year history, I’ve always looked forward. I love talking about what’s next!

But for this episode, I broke the pattern and reflected on the story of the show. It’s had many ups and a few downs, and I thought this might be an interesting lesson in tenacity and what it took to build and sustain a podcast that beat the odds.

These promotional photos for The Marketing Companion reflected the zany chemistry of the early shows, which included promoting fake products like Google Pants and the “Get a Roon” app. The brilliant Tom Webster co-hosted the podcast for the first six years.

This last episode covers:

• Why I created the show
• Why the peculiar format of the podcast is a key to its success
• How and why I chose the co-hosts for the show
• Some of the funniest moments in the history of the podcast
• How the show was in constant creative reinvention
• What happened when the downloads began a precipitous decline and I almost lost the show
• How an innovative new format saved the podcast

Brooke Sellas was the co-host of The Marketing Companion from 2019 to 2021. Brooke’s playfulness brought out a fun new side of me!

A driving force of the Marketing Companion’s success was pushing the creative envelope. The world doesn’t need two more talking heads. There had to be entertainment value in the show that earned my audience week after week.

I’ve always looked for ways to innovate, and I was proud to debut the first-ever podcast episode recorded with a synthetic voice.

In 2021, I embarked on a new experiment — six rotating co-hosts. This allowed me to expand the show’s content to cover new marketing ideas. The line-up changed over the years, and fan favorites included Dennis Yu, Amanda Russell, Keith Jennings, Dana Malstaff, and Andy Crestodina.

Scott Monty

One of the most fun innovations was the zany intro created by the talented Scott Monty. I had known Scott for many years and respected him as one of the leading voices in corporate communications. But the first 60 seconds of the show became his creative playground as he “introduced” the show from outer space, a dude ranch, the White House, and a hundred other places. I suspected that the show grew as people just tuned in for Scott’s intros!

Another creative innovation was the addition of a “studio audience” beginning in 2022. Members of my RISE community could watch the live Zoom recording of the show and then ask questions after the recording ended. Seeing emotional reactions in real time added an exciting energy to every episode!

It’s remarkable that over nearly 13 years, I never repeated a show topic twice. And I suppose I kept that record intact by creating an episode that looked back. I hope you’ll enjoy this sprint down memory lane.

When I announced that I was leaving the show, I received many kind notes of thanks, encouragement, and, of course, sadness that this era had come to an end. But this is the right decision at the right time. While I am moving away from a show that was a big part of my life, I am re-acquiring time for new ideas.

This final episode is also my tribute to you, the fans.

Every time I prepared an episode, there was only one idea pounding in my mind: I will never let you down.

I never published a perfect episode, but I kept publishing work I was proud of. It was a show that was always relevant, interesting, timely, and entertaining. 331 times.

And this tradition of excellence will continue with the new host, Sandy Carter. Sandy is probably the most connected, wise, and generous marketing pro that I know. She is absolutely the right person at the right time to take the reins of the show.

Sandy Carter is the new owner and host of The Marketing Companion. Her connections, insights, and wisdom usher in a new era of innovation for the show.

Thanks to each of you for supporting my show. I will miss this important part of my life, but feel proud of what I accomplished and secure in knowing Sandy will continue The Marketing Companion legacy of excellence!

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

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!

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.

The post My Fond Farewell to The Marketing Companion 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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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}.