The AI Revolution isn’t just about creating new tools – it’s about transforming how we learn, understand, and interact with information. And that’s exactly why NotebookLM has become the darling of the AI research community. As someone who’s spent decades observing how technology reshapes human behavior, it’s been fun for me to experiment with this new application.

Here’s what’s really going on: We’re drowning in information. Between podcasts, blog posts, and the endless stream of developments on social media, staying current is like drinking from a firehose. NotebookLM isn’t just another note-taking app – it’s an AI-powered research companion that actually understands context and helps connect the dots.

It’s as close to getting a brain extension as you’ll see (at least for now!).

What makes NotebookLM different is its ability to act as both a librarian and a study buddy. When you’re deep in research mode, it doesn’t just store your notes – it actively helps you understand them. It can summarize complex papers, explain difficult concepts, and even highlight connections between different pieces of research that you might have missed. This is game-changing for anyone navigating the complex world of AI development.

But there’s something even more profound happening here. In all my years of studying digital transformation, I’ve noticed that the tools that truly stick are the ones that feel natural – that work the way our brains work. NotebookLM gets this right. It’s not trying to force users into a rigid system. Instead, it adapts to your thinking style, helping you build knowledge in a way that feels organic and intuitive.

NotebookLM — But wait, there’s more!

A few months ago, NotebookLM users discovered they could use the voice mode to command the app to have a discussion with itself, something similar to a podcast episode. A few people have even produced AI-fueled podcasts with synthetic hosts!

While I have no plans to do this with The Marketing Companion, I did turn to NotebookLM to help me in a pinch this week. My podcast is now in its thirteenth year, and remarkably, I’ve never missed an episode. But this week was close!

My human co-host became too sick to record, and out of time, I turned to NotebookLM for help. The new episode provides extraordinary value in two ways: It’s a mesmerizing demonstration of AI voice capabilities. But what’s really cool is that I uploaded my upcoming new book “Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI World” and asked the “hosts” to review the book.

The result was more than I expected, and I think you’ll love this mind-bending podcast episode. If you haven’t experienced NotebookLM in action, this will get your head spinning. Ready? All you have to do is click here:

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion Episode 304

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Illustration courtesy MidJourney

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Jaguar has been an easy target for critics after the company re-branded itself with a foppish, silly ad and a strange new logo. However, I am not one of those critics. Today, I’ll explain why I’m the only marketer on earth defending the Jaguar strategy. In fact, they are on the only reasonable path for the brand.

Let me be clear that at this point, I am separating the ad/logo from the strategy. In fact, I hate the ad, which seems like an AI fever dream of what “creative” is supposed to be:

I also abhor the logo re-design because Jaguar had one of the coolest logos on the planet and they ruined it.

Why am I pro-Jaguar? Because I think the strategy is brilliant, even if the execution (so far) seems disastrous.

Why Jaguar needs a new strategy

Beyond the disdain of the brand creative, there are three main criticisms of the Jag re-brand:

1. Ignores a legacy of “Britishness” and performance / luxury
2. The ads didn’t feature a car
3. Targeting a creative customer base seems like nonsense.

Let’s break down each criticism:

1. Ignores a legacy of “Britishness” and performance/luxury

I would probably be considered a potential Jag customer. I have owned a luxury car for decades, primarily Audi or BMW. But I have never considered a Jag. In fact, I’ve never known a person in my life who has owned a Jaguar, which, in hindsight, seems remarkable.

Jaguar is not even in the top 10 of luxury car brands. In terms of market strength, it is a has-been, an unprofitable, forgotten also-ran. When was the last time anyone said, “Man, I can’t wait to get my hands on that new Jag!” Right. Probably somewhere between bell-bottoms and Beta video tapes.

In addition to style, research shows there are two big considerations when deciding among luxury cars: performance and maintenance costs.

How does Jaguar stack up? Automotive engineering is dominated by Germany, Japan, Italy, and America these days. To most, Jaguar means frequent break-downs and high maintenance costs. Am I rolling old tapes? Maybe. But that is the brand’s image and it would cost a lot to change people’s minds about that. Is the classic image of James Bond driving a British car relevant for young buyers today? Is it worth holding on to? Do you really want a mercurial British car as your first choice in a luxury car?

I put Jag in the same category as another recent brand rebel — Nutter Butter. Nutter Butter is Jaguar’s brand chaos soul mate — an also-ran in the cookie business with no strong brand meaning. Creating bizarre, unsettling TikTok videos upends cookie marketing tradition and any brand heritage. But who cares? Nobody was talking about Nutter Butter, and now they are.

Could Oreo go down this road? No. They’re the leading brand and have spent millions to develop “meaning” with its customers. BMW can’t suddenly start acting like a TikTok influencer on a sugar rush. Mercedes can’t go full re-brand gonzo. They’ve got too much to lose.

But Jag isn’t a leading brand. It’s a losing brand. So why not shake it up in a bold and conversational way? The content of the advertisement is a red herring. We’re looking at Jaguar for the first time in decades.

2. The ad didn’t feature cars

One of my favorite ad campaigns in recent years never featured a product. Never even mentions it.

A Chick-fil-A employee sits on a red couch with a customer and talks about how the employee met a special customer need. For example, an employee learned sign language to serve a customer who was deaf. Another bonded with a child who had a heart transplant.

What does this have to do with chicken sandwiches?

Brand marketing is about creating an emotional expectation between you and your customers.

To illustrate this in my speeches, I’ll ask the audience to shout out what they think of when I say “Coca-Cola.” Without exception, they say “polar bears.” There was the one time when a guy in the front row said “sadness,” but that’s a story for another day.

My point is that Coke has spent billions to move your mind away from brown sugar water to playful, happy Christmas bears. Coke is a feeling. 

Chick-fil-A has its critics, but it is more than fast food to its raving customers. It’s a warm and happy feeling reinforced by food-less commercials.

So I don’t dismiss the Jaguar ads just because they are car-free. Will you buy a luxury car for its engine dimensions and gas mileage or because it actually means something to you? Jaguar’s brand meaning before last weak was as thin as Earl Grey Tea.

Finally, let’s address the target market strategy, which is aimed at …

3. Designers and Creatives

Years ago, I worked on an influencer marketing project with a luxury automotive brand. The company was introducing a stylish new car and wanted to host events nationwide for social media titans.

But I found that every car company was going after the same small group of luxury car influencers. It was nearly impossible to get their attention. So I started researching adjacent demographic markets. What other categories of people talk a lot about cars?

I discovered two groups obsessed with cars: technology geeks and creative directors. That makes sense, right? Cars are about tech and style.

Tesla has probably cornered the market for techno geeks. But what car brand has a special and unique appeal to creatives? There isn’t one. I think Jag studied the market data long and hard and saw a seam they could own. Brilliant. Early feedback shows creatives applauding the brand.

And by the way, the “copy nothing” appeal to creatives is a direct line to the Jaguar brand heritage.

The holistic strategy

Jaguar prototype

An ad is not a strategy. A logo is not a strategy. So what else do we know about the re-brand?

• Jag has built a radical new electric car that will sell for roughly double the price of current Jaguar vehicles. The car is expected to debut soon at the Miami Art Show. In an interview with Automotive News, Jaguar Land Rover CEO Adrian Mardell said the still-secret Jaguar GT will make people “salivate” when they see its styling.
• They are targeting young, wealthy, design-minded people. After the internet / AI boom, there are a lot of young millionaires out there wanting to make their own statement.
• The new all-EV Jaguar cars will be positioned as “exuberant,” “modernist,” “compelling,” and all about “fearless creative.” The strategy is spearheaded by an experienced and respected auto brand marketer, Gerry McGovern. So this re-brand is not the whimsical idea from some GenZ agency. There is data and insight behind the strategy. By the way, McGovern already turned the Range Rover brand around. So I am willing to give him a pass on the ad fumble.
• The company is overhauling its dealership network which will also feature high-end art and cusine. That is a BOLD reinvention of the auto dealership.

Jag is re-imagining the whole automotive experience through the lens of the creative class. It’s ludicrous to judge the entire strategy based on one ad.

Let’s give it time.

I just finished writing a book about disruptive marketing (“Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World” available in February 2025). I see the underlying logic of what Jaguar is trying to do. Jag might be a competent brand. But competent doesn’t cut it. Competent = commodity. Competent doesn’t create conversations. My book explains how the world’s best creatives are breaking through the noise by disrupting the:

• Narrative
• Medium, where the story is told
• Who is telling the story

From what we know about the brand’s holistic strategy, Jag is completely upending the luxury car narrative. This is exactly what they need to do. 

The risk? There is none. You can’t kill what’s already dead. The only risk is continuing to be forgettable.

They’re in that sweet spot where “nothing to lose” meets “everything to gain.” They’re in the perfect position to pull a Nutter Butter — to be so outrageous, so unexpected, that people can’t help but notice.

The new car is supposed to be introduced in a few weeks. If it’s as sleek and cool as it is rumored to be, if the dealerships become something more than a place where people hate to shop, if Jaguar creates a story that truly connects with a creative class longing to be understood … Jag will be newly relevant.

Perhaps it’s already on the way. After all, when was the last time we spent this much time talking about Jaguar?

Exactly.

Update: Jaguar has now introduced the car. The first look:

Here is the introduction video:

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 Jaguar

The post In defense of Jaguar (I think I’m the only one) appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I’ve been a faculty member at several different universities since 2009 and have lectured far longer than that. I care about these institutions. They’re part of the American heritage, and in many cases, they’re a gift to the world. But we live in fast-changing times, and universities do not change fast. I’m worried about our colleges. How do we reimagine universities in the Era of AI?

I have some ideas about this, and if you’re currently associated with a college, you will hate them.

To begin with, my thesis is that in the AI Era, universities will fail (and are already failing) to prepare students for many careers. Change isn’t just knocking; it’s kicking down the door, raiding your fridge, and redecorating your living room. There has to be a radical reimagining of the university education that matches the radical disruption of our times.

First, let’s get a few things off the table. If a student attends college for the social aspects or to spend a few years maturing, today’s university system is fine. If a student attends for a purely academic pursuit without any thought of employment, they will thrive in the system we have today.

But I assume most students attend college to launch a career. And that’s where the problems begin.

I’ll break down the problems one by one before offering some solutions.

Organization

I’ve talked to many leading authorities in the tech space — people right in the middle of AI development in Silicon Valley. And I’ve asked them, “How would you prepare young people for a career with the amount of disruption occurring?” Without exception, the answer is, “I don’t know.”

This presents an existential problem because universities are generally organized by career choice: engineering, teaching, art, journalism, etc. But if nobody knows what future careers look like, how can you organize based on jobs that won’t exist as they do today? Except forestry. That might be safe for awhile. But you get my point. Many job categories are rapidly evolving and fluid right now (especially marketing).

The future of education isn’t about preparing for a specific job. It’s about preparing for anything and everything. It’s about teaching students to surf the waves of change rather than trying to build sandcastles on a beach that’s shifting before our eyes.

Speed

A university professor friend of mine recently lamented that it has taken two years to get a new class approved. The glacial pace of change at universities is legendary and … stupid. The bureaucratic lunacy of universities is so well-known that I don’t have to explain further why this culture is a death sentence in an AI world.

Economics

Universities are proud of their park-like campuses and ancient limestone buildings bolted to the center of the earth. While taking selfies in front of Old Main might enchant the alumni, the fact is, you can get a superior education today without that legacy overhead.

If you had to bet on disruptive innovation coming from somebody in a co-working space versus a person who has to spend part of their time fundraising for the Psychology Building renovation … well, it’s not even a race.

The economics for students is even worse. The average four-year education in the U.S. is $160,000 (tuition only). Why does every major need to be completed in four years? Well, somebody has to pay for those limestone buildings. If you step back and look at it, it’s a ridiculous model. No matter the major or career aspiration, it’s four years. Huh?

Any new vision for universities must include significant cost and time reductions enabled by technology.

Faculty

The purpose of the university faculty has been to dispense information. However, universities are no longer the gatekeepers of information. When information is free and abundant, colleges have to reinvent themselves in the context of a new job to be done — eternal relevance. This is a radical idea, but in my estimation, it is the key to the future of colleges.

And the tenure system … don’t get me started. Let’s just say there is almost no incentive for tenured faculty to change and stay current. The stories of lazy, irrelevant faculty I could tell you are shocking, but I won’t embarrass anyone.

At this point, I think all of my university friends could use a photo of a puppy.

No need to thank me. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Solutions

I’ve covered some of the problems facing a university in a short and simple way because this is a short and simple blog post. I recognize there are many nuances, layers, and complexities that I’m blowing right past. However, not many people care about those, especially young people preparing for a career … in something less than four years, please.

My advice to universities is to start over. There is just no way your Reinvention Committee will twist your bureaucracy into something functional. Take that giant endowment fund and create an entirely new form of education that is fluid enough to meet the needs of today’s teens.

Education in the past assumed there is a logical endpoint. Once you learned A, B, and C, you had enough under your belt to be an engineer, to be an accountant, or a journalist. But today, there is no endpoint. The endpoint keeps moving. What was true for a career yesterday may not be true today. Education needs to be a journey of lifetime learning. So we need something radically new.

No more degrees

Here is my vision: Instead of enrolling in college, students subscribe to one. Students would enter a lifetime learning program accredited by the university of their choice. The program would be designed to get students into the workforce and keep them there through learning modules that adapt to changing times.

The subscription price should be very affordable. However, over a student’s career in the workplace, the financial return to the university would far exceed $160,000 because the relationship with the student would last decades.

Each student would need to pass a battery of tests to ensure they’re ready to join a learning cohort. Some might start with remedial work to get them on the right track. I’ve seen too many university marketing students who can’t write a coherent sentence. Sorry. Fix that first.

Instead of degrees, students would earn accreditation on a topic, sort of like earning a series of merit badges. For example, it would mean much more to a marketing employer to see that a student earned accreditation in digital media production from a university, rather than just knowing they received an A in French and a C in geology during their sophomore year.

No more curriculum

The idea of a standard curriculum that changes every few years, littered with nonsensical, soul-stealing electives, is pathetic. This anachronistic system was created when a gentleman needed a well-rounded education in the classics. And I do mean gentleman.

Instead, my view is that a curriculum committee would create new learning modules every year, or even every few months, depending on the major. The major role of university employees would be overseeing the design of a continuous and ever-changing learning experience.

And by the way, we need a learning path that addresses both the hard skill and soft skills required in the modern workplace. Students need to learn to lead, but also how to be an effective follower and team player.

The lifetime university experience might include guest lectures, field trips, demonstrations — anything to keep the students relevant in their careers.

AI teaching agents

In the short term, we will still need a human faculty. Topical experts (not tenured) would share their views of the current state. And hey, instead of repairing Old Main and installing that new landscaping, let’s pay those teachers a decent salary, huh?

In the next two years, human-like AI learning agents will often make better teachers. This might sound like the Jetsons but it’s already here. Have you had a conversation with the mobile version of ChatGPT? This will only get better.

AI agents enable the creation of personalized learning pathways tailored to each student’s needs, performance, and goals. This approach can accommodate different learning speeds, styles, and even disabilities, leading to better outcomes than traditional classroom education. And, these teachers would cost far less and know … well, everything.

I do think there is a human role in the new learning environment as mentors and guides. Humans still need a human touch. Especially young students.

A learning cohort

I recently declared about the RISE marketing community: “This is my university.”

We have no curriculum or classes there. But we have each other — people from around the world teaching each other as we navigate this confusing world. Why couldn’t a real university be the same way? It can be, and needs to be.

That’s why I recommend a lifelong cohort of people (the subscribers) who become friends and support each other in a community. Today, education simply cannot end with a piece of paper. It’s a never-ending process, and we need each other.

A cohort could meet on campus once a year for some special programs but keep in touch constantly through an online platform. And the cohort should be multidisciplinary. It will be that way whether it’s designed that way or not. How many people are still working in a field related to their original major? Diverse views make the cohort more interesting and valuable.

The cohort would stay together for decades. I think it makes sense to add new people now and then, just as it benefits a community to have new members with new perspectives. A virtual community format allows people from many nations to be included.

Real learning happens in conversations, not classrooms.

Finally …

Did this post come across as mean? I hope it’s seen as tough love. I love so much about colleges and what they stand for. A university is hope. It’s a dream. It is the future.

But most career academics who read this will think: “We could never do this. It would screw up our US News and World Report rankings. This obsessive focus on rankings does not serve your students. Besides, Malcolm Gladwell and others have shown how the rankings are about as meaningful as a participation trophy in your kid’s soccer league. Yet, here we are, still doing the rankings rumba.

The world is changing faster than a chameleon in a Skittles factory. AI is rewriting the rules of education, work, and probably your department’s parking policy. And you’re obsessing about a made-up number in a magazine? University friends, it’s time to carve a new path that breaks the ranking shackles. Universities spent centuries building ivory towers. I’m proposing we build meaningful bridges to students and their real needs instead.

I know dramatic change seems daunting. And what I’ve proposed here can be poked and prodded and questioned. Here’s what I know. Imagine the most far-out scenario for our AI future. The reality will be much more insane than that.

Change has to start somewhere or universities risk becoming the academic equivalent of a typewriter repair shop. Disrupt or be disrupted.

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 How to Reimagine Universities for the AI Era appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

The hottest marketing topic in the world right now is Nutter Butter.

And that’s the point.

Nutter Butter, the sixth most-popular U.S. cookie brand, has upended TikTok with unhinged videos that cross horror movies with an acid trip. Here’s an example:

@officialnutterbutterTHE DAYS–when. .plow? original sound – nutter butter

This might seem like an inexplicable, or even dangerous, way to promote a cookie loved by children. But this strategy aligns with research I’ve done for my new book (“Audacious,” out January 2025). In the context of modern marketing, this strategy is bizarre but also brilliant.

Today I’ll explain why the Nutter Butter campaign is more than chaos.

The biggest problem in marketing today

… is attention.

We live in a world awash with content. Our ads don’t just compete with other ads. They compete for attention with Netflix, Candy Crush, and photos of the new grandkids on Facebook.

And this war for attention grows even more desperate with AI. AWS reports that already more than half the content on the web is AI-generated slop.

To break through this incredible wall of noise takes something bold … maybe even a little crazy. So let’s start there. Nutter Butter needs awareness for its brand and is taking a risk to be audacious.

Purpose behind the outrage

This campaign is getting so much attention because it’s unsettling, perhaps even horrifying. But there is a method behind this madness.

Jonah Berger, a Wharton marketing professor and author of one of my favorite books, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, identified emotional connection as one of the key factors influencing content virality. He explained that when we care deeply about something, we are more likely to share it with others and remember it.

Jonah’s research showed that content that evokes strong emotions, whether positive or negative, is more likely to be recalled and talked about than content that is purely informational or emotionally neutral.

Virality is most associated with high-arousal emotions like excitement, awe, anger, outrage, and fear. Yes … anger, outrage, and fear.

Another company embracing anger and outrage is the fast-growing water brand Liquid Death. It created its brand by starting with WRONG —  Naming its product Death. Selling water in cans emblazoned with skulls. Adopting gruesome images as its brand vision. Collaborating with porn stars and other alternative niches. And in three years, this brand went from nothing to a valuation of $1.4 billion.

The bizarreness effect is a facet of human memory suggesting that we better remember things that deviate from the norm. This phenomenon is also known as the “von Restorff effect” or the “isolation effect.”

One of the highlights of my new book is the idea that most marketers typically focus on positive emotions. By highlighting fear and outrage, Liquid Death and Nutter Butter are tapping into an overlooked strategy to increase awareness and relevance.

The world wants weird

The Nutter Butter campaign is on TikTok for a reason. Gen Z likes brands that go their own way, and the weirder, the better.

• A study by the market research company Ipsos found that 65% of Gen Z respondents believe that “being true to yourself” is more important than being popular, compared to 43% of Millennials and 35% of Gen X.
• Research by the advertising agency Wunderman Thompson found that 70% of Gen Z respondents believe that being different is a good thing, and they prefer standing out from the crowd.
• A Live Nation study showed that 82% feel “weird is in” and 58% say the more absurd something is, the cooler it becomes.”
• Much has been written about the rise of absurdist Gen Z humor that baffles older generations. The weirder, the better.

So the unexpected weirdness of the campaign might not make much sense unless you’re part of Gen Z.

Is Nutter Butter “on brand?”

Some of the criticism of this campaign is that this is just too weird for a cookie brand. These horrifying images are off-brand.

Well, let’s start with a question: When you think of the Nutter Butter cookie, what IS the brand? That’s what I thought. Nothing comes to mind. You probably haven’t had one of these cookies since you were a kid … if you’ve ever had one at all.

My point is that Nutter Butter has no meaningful brand recognition and has nothing to lose by stepping into Crazy Town.

Would this work for Coke or Nike or Apple? No, because these companies actually have brands. Nutter Butter had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

If a cookie competitor like Oreo created insane videos like this, it would be truly off-brand. So Nutter Butter is turning its weakness —  it has no brand meaning — to its advantage by owning the weird.

And it worked.

Here’s a funny thing. If you search for Nutter Butter on TikTok, it’s actually hard to find the ads because there are so many influencer posts talking about the ads and directing their followers to the account. One influencer video garnered 3 million views alone. In a few weeks, Nutter Butter has added one million new TikTok followers. Each video is receiving thousands of comments and shares.

So, the brand is suddenly relevant, in the middle of the culture, creating conversations. What a success story.

It’s also getting attention from the general public. Here is the search interest in Nutter Butter over the last year, according to Google Trends:

The nightmarish campaign is receiving tons of mainstream media coverage, including The Today Show and Fast Company. The cookie chaos has spawned numerous reddit popular threads trying to interpret what it all means.

Is it having a financial impact on the brand? It’s too soon to tell, but it’s hard to imagine that it’s not experiencing a significant sales boost from all this attention.

Is it sustainable?

Is this a stunt or a strategy?

I think it’s too smart to be a stunt. My guess is that there is actually a narrative here. There are characters, codes, themes. I think a subcult of people will devote themselves to unraveling the mysteries and Nutter Butter would be wise to keep the momentum going with actual clues and rewards.

It will be interesting to see how all this madness might spill over to their packaging. What would happen if they had a special edition Nutter Butter Man package? There are a lot of ways they can go with this. If they keep this madness going and there is some underlying depth to a storyline, it would be sustainable.

Here’s the lesson

To stand out in the world today, competence doesn’t cut it. Competence doesn’t create conversations. Competence isn’t culturally relevant.

If your marketing is competent, it’s ignorable.

Nutter Butter is no longer ignorable because they have stepped off the cliff and taken a dive into audacity.

What you’ll learn in my new book is that you don’t have to be horrific or shocking to be audacious, but you do have to disrupt the marketing patterns in your industry. With the help of some of the world’s most renowned creative experts, I’ll teach you how to disrupt your marketing narrative.

I can’t wait for you to see the new book … and I also have a new speech on this topic!

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

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

The post The Nutter Butter campaign explained. Yes, this nightmare makes sense appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

On vacation in Italy, I visited a lovely wine shop in Florence. So of course, I wanted to talk to the owner about marketing (can’t help myself). The proprietor had a lovely place filled with antiques and art — such an interesting, visual environment! And yet, she wasn’t on Instagram. In fact, she didn’t use social media at all, a personal decision that certainly goes against the grain.

“Everyone tells me I should be posting,” she said. “But I don’t feel comfortable with it and would rather spend my time talking with customers.”

She spread her arms to indicate this sacred space where she sits in her shop, sipping wine with customers. “This is what I love about my business.”

Obviously, this anti-social media strategy has worked well. Her business has been growing for 18 years, built on her reputation of quality products and personal attention.

Sometimes, you can’t just listen to the gurus. Marketing is often a personal decision.

And I’d like you to consider this alternative thinking as a possible competitive advantage …

Marketing lemmings

The biggest problem with marketing, and especially social media marketing, is that “best practices” are so well known and so easily absorbed. Once a new competitive trick is discovered on a social platform, it spreads like wildfire and becomes part of everyone’s normal practice.

For example, the “shocked look” video thumbnail pioneered by Mr Beast:

Leads to this:

I’m not judging whether this is good or bad. It probably works on some level. But it all looks the SAME.

My point is that by going your own way, following your muse, and ignoring conventional wisdom, you can evolve into your own competitive advantage simply because when it’s YOU, it’s different.

Go your own way

I was an early adopter of social media marketing. In 2006, as part of my corporate marketing duties, I led an early social media team and started my own blog a few years later.

And I was a big rule-follower. I desperately tried to fit in and follow all the best practices of the day. I dutifully created my strategic, SEO-optimized content for my “ideal customer personas.” And two things happened.

First, nothing happened. Nobody was reading or commenting on my content.

Second, I became bored. What was I doing? Creating keyword-infused content for a made-up persona? Blah.

So I stopped.  And I started telling my own story, following my curiosity, expressing opinions (even when they went against the grain), and breaking the shackles of Google-driven content.

And something amazing happened.

When I went my own way, instead of finding my ideal audience, my ideal audience found me. And they were all over the world. When I decided to be a real person, real people responded back, and it changed my career.

There is no way this would have happened if I had stayed in the social media trough of best practices.

It was a powerful lesson, and since then, I’ve broken rules all along the way as I’ve written my books, created The Uprising, and established a speaking career. That personal decision to have your own little rebel yell doesn’t mean you’re reckless or offensive. But it requires courage to show up differently when boring is the path of least resistance.

The personal decision and marketing

Are you in a marketing trough? Are you so focused on what other people are doing that you’re overlooking your unique value and inherent creativity?

More importantly, are you happy and excited about your work, or are you becoming bored with all these rules, as I was?

Stop trying to game the system and start being unapologetically you. Because in the end, people don’t connect with keywords or personas. They connect with stories, passion, and real human beings who have something genuine to say.

There is a place for best practices, but don’t overlook the power of going your own way, especially when most marketing is so dull. There is tremendous pressure to do what everybody else is doing. It might seem scary not to follow the crowd. But that might be your most powerful and meaningful differentiator.

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 of Austrian National Library and Unsplash.com

The post Sometimes, marketing comes down to a personal decision appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

At the end of Marketing Rebellion, a bestselling book that served as a wake-up call for the state of marketing, I predicted what might be the next consumer rebellion. I believe I got it right, and the revolution could be coming sooner than I expected. Let’s take a look at what’s going on, and the implications for marketing and our AI future.

The First Three Rebellions

The thesis of Marketing Rebellion is that every time businesses and their marketing efforts push consumers too far, the customers rebel, resulting in a cataclysmic shift in marketing strategy.

The first rebellion came in the 1920s. The advertising industry had become a multi-billion-dollar industry, attaching remarkable claims to everything from cigarettes to toothpaste. But when these claims became TOO remarkable, they were outright lies. Consumers rebelled, and the industry was regulated through the Federal Trade Commission and similar agencies in other nations.

The second rebellion occurred in the 1990s. Companies made money on what you didn’t know. Profit margins were made on the public’s ignorance about the truth of insurance policies, used cars, and vacation plans. The internet ended all that. There were no more secrets. Today, it’s likely that an informed consumer knows more about your product than you do!

The third rebellion started around 2010 and the advent of social media. Historically, a “brand” is what a company told you it was. Advertising disrupted your view that Coke was colored sugar water and turned it into playful polar bears, for example. However, with social media, brand marketing was disrupted because customers owned the conversations. In fact, more sales occur through consumer social posts than traditional brand marketing. This was the end of marketing control.

The Fourth Marketing Rebellion

At the end of the book, I projected that the fourth marketing rebellion would have something to do with biometric data.

I wrote that the next technological revolution would depend on securing mountains of data on personal habits, down to every heartbeat. While consumers are normally resigned to the fact that we’re being tracked all over the internet in exchange for free search and social media, collecting and selling our bodily data might be a step too far.

In my recent post, “Are we creating AI, or are AI Agents creating us?” I summarized a research report on the ethics of AI. A few points pop out for me:

• AI Agents will monitor biometric data, facial expressions, and emotions to determine our state of mind. They will react differently to us if they know we are irritable or sleep-deprived, for example.
• AI Agents will have access to so much personal information that significant new levels of consent and security will be required. The threat level of information being used out of context is extremely high. Since agents will “plug in” to external services, we will place abnormally high trust in our agents and how information is stored and used. A data breach might mean that every fact of our life and health would be available on the web.
• The economic incentive will be to create bots that make the user happy in a way that cultivates dependence. Connecting with a bot in a deeply personal way could adversely affect user well-being and create the risk of infringing on user privacy and autonomy.
• As we become dependent on bots to take over daily interactions, humans will be “out of the loop,” and disconnected from many normal human interactions. If agents are designed to monitor our vital signs and promote “well being,” how is that defined? If we follow a path of automated, programmed self-improvement, are we improving as human beings or conforming to an algorithmic definition created by programmers? Will AI change society based on the coding preferences of developers?

Do you think this would push consumers into a rebellion? I think it is already happening.

Is the fourth marketing rebellion already here?

I can imagine a world where these bots are so useful that we ignore the vast data collection going on. But I think there are two places where we might draw the line:

1. If biometric data collection affects how we raise our children. For example, a new AI app called Ursula records a child’s response to information and makes money by interpreting potential emotional problems or learning disabilities to parents. It promises that “no kid will feel alone again.” Are we going to put AI in charge of that?
2. People will resist if data collection becomes required to function in society. A recent sign that the fourth marketing rebellion is upon us is that U.S. legislators are pushing for limits on facial recognition data collection at airport security, arguing that facial recognition poses “significant threats to our privacy and civil liberties.”

In the next few years, collecting and accessing customer biometric data could present revolutionary new marketing opportunities for personalization, customized drug therapies, and products that adjust to moods (and change them!). Yes, this is exciting. Yes, this can be profitable. But let’s not lose sight of history and the implications when we cross the line.

A note about that photo: “I am Robert Robot, mechanical man. Drive me and steer me, wherever you can.” These were the words uttered by Robert the Robot, a 1954 tin toy robot produced by New York-based Ideal Toy Corporation. Robert was run via a wired remote control, and about half a million units were sold. Robert is one of the staples of any vintage toy robot collection, with several dedicated fan pages on the web.

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

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

The post A Prediction: The Fourth Marketing Rebellion appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Have you heard of social object theory? I think this is one of the most overlooked and even undiscovered marketing ideas. In fact, social objects are probably fueling a great deal of your marketing success!

Social objects come from a theory proposed by sociologist Karin Knorr Cetina. It creates a remarkably simple and useful ignition point for a word-of-mouth marketing effort.

You’re at a party, feeling awkward and out of place. Suddenly, you spot someone wearing a t-shirt from your favorite band. Bam! Instant connection. That t-shirt? It’s a social object – a conversation starter, a reason for people to interact.

Social objects are the glue that binds us together in the vast and often impersonal digital landscape. They’re the videos that pause our scrolling, the memes we can’t wait to share, the unique products we rave about to friends. A social object is anything that serves as a focal point for social interaction.

Without an object to trigger a topic, we’d have nothing of substance to talk about.

• When a stranger approaches someone and asks about their stylish shoes, the shoes are the social object.
• When people attend a marketing activation, the Olympics, or a music festival, the event is the social object.
• If you share this book with someone or post it on social media (yes, please!), the book becomes a social object.

Here’s where things get interesting. Many marketers view their content strategy as the starting point for a conversation, and it certainly can be. But if we broaden our marketing perspective to think of social objects as the “catalysts for connection,” we unlock endless new possibilities.

This is a topic worthy of more exploration, and Keith Jennings and I did just that on the new episode of The Marketing Companion. But we did more than discuss an idea. We started a master class on this idea as marketing strategy, unraveling critical components such as:

• gravitational pull
• critical mass
• emotional meaning

… which seem to be prerequisites for success. You won’t want to miss this extraordinary discussion!

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion Episode 297

The story behind the photo: I love the comedy/drama Lilyhammer and especially the hilarious chracter Torgeir with his quirky hat that says “I Heart Girls.” I just knew that some day I would be able to work this into a blog post! Certainly, this hat would be considered a social object!

Keith Jennings first wrote about social objects in this post.

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Personal brand on TikTok?

Too short for a blog post, too interesting to ignore, here are some quick thoughts from the Schaefer-verse:

Is it really a personal brand on TikTok?

I’ve been teaching about personal branding for nearly a decade and probably have studied this subject as much as anyone on earth. But a new development has me flummoxed.

Increasingly, “personal brand” is becoming synonymous with performers on TikTok. I’ve seen this connection creeping in, but it slapped me in the face when I saw sessions on “personal brand strategy” at SXSW run literally by teen TikTok stars.

I’m not against teen TikTok stars—go for it. But is this building a personal brand … or achieving personal fame? There’s a difference.

The term “personal brand” was popularized by a 1997 Fast Company article called “The Brand is You” by Tom Peters. He stressed the importance of curating your own professional brand (just like a corporate brand) to succeed in business.

In my popular Personal Branding Master Class, I make the distinction between fame (like Kim Kardashian) and a personal brand, which means you have the

• presence
• reputation
• authority

… to make your professional dreams a reality. You probably won’t be famous (and don’t need to be), but you will be known in your industry, and that’s a HUGE advantage.

By the way, I think you can create a professional personal brand, instead of personal fame, on TikTok just like any other channel. I’ve seen some great marketing and business content there.

But today, TikTok’s meme-merchants with brand deals seem to be lumped together in the “personal brand” category by the popular media. I think that’s confusing. Am I splitting hairs?

I broke my own rule

In many of my books and speeches, I implore marketers to stop doing what people hate — interrupting, intercepting, and spamming, for example.

Here’s one thing that I know people hate: pop-up ads. The research is overwhelming. In 2014, Ethan Zuckerman, the inventor of the pop-up ad, wrote a lengthy apology for his creation in The Atlantic. He called it “The Internet’s Original Sin” and pleaded with businesses to “ditch them.”

And yet, I now have a pop-up on my site. One attentive reader called this irony to my attention, so I thought I would explain it.

Subscriptions to my blog had been stagnant. Long story short, I am fighting the math of large numbers (the bigger the email list, the more I need to grow to keep up with natural attrition).

I needed to upgrade my email strategy, and one recommendation was to add a pop-up to gently remind people to subscribe. I resisted the idea for years but finally succumbed.

I hope I have done this in a kind way. It only pops up after you have been on the site for a while, so it’s not on your face, and it only happens once. Bottom line, it worked.

So I have a “gentle pop-up!”

No sugar-coating

In my last roundup-style post, I had a number of sobering observations about AI and our future. One reader chastised me for not being more positive.

I do think positivity is important, but the truth is even more so. If I don’t tell you the truth, I am cheating you, deceiving you in the long term to make you feel good in the short term.

If you believe projections from Accenture, Deloitte, and McKinsey, between 40% and 70% of marketing tasks can be easily automated. My friend Paul Roetzer, who studies this more than anyone, ranted in his podcast this week that job displacement is coming fast, and he’s worried that nobody is prepared for it.

I do not think mass job displacement is inevitable, at least in the short-term. There are many financial, legal, ethical, and political hurdles for AI to overcome. And, as I wrote recently, I believe is always a place for human creativity.

But change is coming. That’s what’s real right now. We can’t see the truth through a sugar-coated lens. Let’s grow together based on truth and lift each other up along the way!

Word-of-mouth marketing is where it’s at

Word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) is probably the most important marketing genre. But it has been relegated to a marketing sideshow because it’s difficult to execute and even more difficult to measure. And frankly, it’s just not as sexy as a celebrity-filled TV ad.

But I’m convinced in this deep fake age of mistrust, WOMM will emerge as an incredibly important strategy. It’s not that hard. Give people something cool to talk about!

It can be this simple. I dined at the wonderful Oasis restaurant on the Caribean island of Saint Martin a few weeks ago. At each place setting, there was a little card to give you a fake smile. Donning the fake smile was irresistible of course. Don’t you think kids would love this?

The simple word-of-mouth marketing idea becomes complete with unique stories on the back of the card. About 10% of the population are “super-sharers” who will take a cool story and share it with family and friends. That ignites WOMM. So, feed them the stories and it will spread.

Don’t overlook visual prompts like the smile card to remind people to talk about you.

What are the stories you’re sharing about your business? How are you getting them out into the world so your business becomes conversational?

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 Unsplash.com

The post Are you really building a personal brand on TikTok? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

The topic for this blog post came to me in a dream. I woke up from my dream thinking, “Yes, it’s true. There really is one big mistake content creators make. I should tell others about it!”

I’m sorry this dream wasn’t more exciting or titillating. Maybe my other dreams will be a story for another day. Or not.

Before I reveal my dream-truth, I need to review a basic content marketing philosophy:

Content must be unleashed.

It doesn’t matter if you’re creating epic content or the best work of your lifetime if nobody sees it. The power in your content doesn’t from the content. It comes from the transmission of the content. We want our work to move, which leads to awareness, fans, subscribers and people who will buy things from us.

The biggest mistake content creators make

OK, let’s think this through.

You create great content. You post it everywhere. Somebody bites. They click on the link and what do they see when they arrive at your website?

A blog post? A video? A podcast episode?

Of course … but what else? If you’re like most people, the answer is … nothing. And this is the problem.

When I visit most blog posts or other web content, I can’t even tell who wrote it. I don’t know what this site is about. I don’t see a place to subscribe. I don’t see a place to share the content on social media if I like it. It’s a marketing dead end!

When people click on a link to your content, they don’t arrive at your home page. They arrive at your content. And if all you have on this page is your content, you’re missing a massive opportunity. In fact, this is by far the biggest mistake content creators make today.

In essence, your content page needs to be a mini-landing page for your business. You spend all this time bringing people to your business, but it’s not your business—it’s just a piece of content. They read it and leave. TRAGIC!

Here is your goal: Keep them on your website. You should put as much thought and design into your standard content page as your home page. The longer you keep them on the page, the bigger the chance they will subscribe to your content, share it, or even buy something from you. So don’t miss this opportunity.

Let’s learn how to do this …

The mini home page

If I were sitting with you over coffee, I would pull out my laptop and give you a demonstration. I would probably even buy you the coffee. But since we might be thousands of miles apart, I’ll walk you through it and owe you the coffee when we finally meet. Deal?

As I give you this lesson, it would be helpful to look at how I display my own work, the result of many years of testing. If you like, open up this blog post as you read the rest of my tutorial so you can visualize the lesson.

We’ll start at the top and learn how to make your content into a mini home page.

On my post, what’s the first thing you see under the headline? Social sharing buttons. I can’t believe how often I go to a site and have to work to figure out how to share the content.

Research shows your content will be shared 400% more if you simply add social sharing buttons. The total social shares displayed on my buttons isn’t accurate. It’s sort of a long story why they’re not, and it’s frustrating that nobody has worked that out, but put the buttons up there anyway. No excuses.

Next: An eye-catching graphic. If somebody sees your content shared on LinkedIn or Twitter, the first thing that grabs their attention is the graphic. Maybe you can stop them long enough to read the headline and get a click. The image that goes with your content is also an SEO boost because you can add meta tags to the photo to help Google figure out your content.

Let’s start looking at the right-hand column. You first see a call to action to spend time with me. Cool.

However, the next field, an invitation to subscribe, is the most essential item on the entire page. Why? Because a subscriber is opting in to you and what you do. They are volunteering to hear more. They are becoming members of your email list and possibly future customers.

You might be asking yourself, if the subscribe button is the most critical part of the page, why isn’t it at the top of the column? Heat map studies show that the top right corner of the web page is invisible to many people. I don’t know why, but the conclusion is consistent. So, the top of the column is sort of a throw-away item to get people to the next block which encourages them to subscribe.

As you go down the rest of the column, you’ll see:

• An opportunity to buy my book
• An invitation to attend my marketing retreat
• News about a class I am teaching
• An ability to search the site
• A little welcome message so people know who I am
• Boxes to search my posts by topic, date, or recent articles.

These are all things you might expect to see on a homepage. But most visitors who click on a link never see your home page. We need to fill that gap and give them lots of things to do. Remember, we want to keep them on the website.

Now let’s skip to the very bottom of the blog post. What have we here? A photo of me and further invitations to engage and connect. 

You might note that this page has lots of reasons to buy something from me, but I never sell within the content of the post. Some content gurus insist that you should sell something on every blog post, but I say phooey. I think that’s annoying and disrespectful. I wouldn’t want to subscribe to a constant sales pitch, would you?

But we’re not finished. Under my bio is another opportunity to share the post on social media because we want to get this content to move!

Next, there are a couple of prompts to send you to similar posts on my site. These are free WordPress apps that increase your time on my site by 18%. Huzzah!

And we wrap things up with another opportunity to connect with me on something like buying a book.

Just copy me

I just gave you some ideas for overcoming the biggest mistake content creators make today. My guess is that you have almost none of this on your page today. These ideas are easy to implement and can elevate your content immediately.

Everything I’ve covered here is free if you have a WordPress site. Nothing custom. Ask your web person to review my blog posts and copy my format. I’m happy to help you in that way.

It’s upsetting that so many people put their heart and soul into great content, only to have it languish on a boring, useless page.

I hope these ideas will give your content and business the boost they deserve.

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 The biggest mistake content creators make today appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.