People just “know” when it’s AI generated creative and they feel uneasy. I call this the Uncanny Cognitive Valley. For marketers this challenges how AI is used in creative.

Here are my top 4 things to do when you’re growing in marketing data. And most marketing departments are. And no, adding more data never helps.

I argue that creative in marketing is suffering, that we’ve lost a bit of the soul of marketing. But we can get it back.

Before buyer psychology comes culture. All our buying decisions start from the culture we live in and grew up within. This is why it improves your marketing ROI.

Culture comes before buyer psychology. It’s just one of many ways cultural anthropology improves marketing and can be a secret weapon for marketing teams.

In these weird times, the old way of writing creative briefs needs to shift we argue. A new emphasis on culture needs to seep in. The results will improve.

Brands keep targeting individuals and in these times of change, they need to understand the tribes their consumers are engaged with. That’s where the gold is.

Demographics are useful in some ways, but not as helpful as they used to be. Here’s what to rethink and how to better leverage them with cultural intelligence.

For Canadian, EU and Nordic brands, how they position themselves is changing. American brands are in a phase of high individualism where consumers are taking on the burden of systemic issues. This is not the same in Canada.

Consumers values are shifting. Returning to more ancient systems of how value is perceived. For brands, this means thinking about value adding and not extraction.