A new Apple ad is a marketing case study taking the world by storm. As I write this — four days after the video’s debut — it has already been viewed 19 million times on YouTube.

The visually stunning, cinematic long-form ad reunites Apple with Oscar-winning filmmaker Spike Jonze, who directed the brand’s lauded “Welcome Home” in 2018. Like its predecessor, the new work—called “Someday”—leans heavily on inventive choreography, catchy music, and lavish sets. And the new video features popular star Pedro Pascal.

Of course that’s going to be a winning formula. But something more subtle is happening in this video. The theory behind my new book Audacious is that by disrupting the story, where the story is told, and/or the storyteller, you’ve got a chance of catching viral magic. I thought it would be fun to dissect this incredible video and unravel the less-obvious, non-Pedro lessons of why it went viral.

Let’s start by watching the video:

OK, let’s tear this marketing case study apart and find the magic.

Never make an ad

While researching my book, I interviewed the great Michael Krivicka, the king of viral videos. He said:

“The first key to success is, never, ever make an ad. Of course, almost every customer wants to make an ad because they think they need an ad. Perhaps that’s all they know. But the moment you start with that mindset, you’re failing.

“We’ll make something so cool, unique, and entertaining that it’s worth sharing. As soon as it pops up in your social media feed, you want to see it immediately, watch it again, and share it. You start with the viral mindset, not an ad mindset. People rarely share ads.

“If people sense they’re watching an ad—the moment they think you’re selling something—they stop watching it, or they’re going to watch the content through a filter, knowing there’s an agenda. So, if you lead with ‘Nike presents …’ Boom. People stop watching it.”

As the ad begins, we know that Pedro Pascal is sad. And if he is sad, the whole world is sad. And dreary, and frigid, and hopeless. But the beloved internet daddy doesn’t stay blue for long, as the magic of music turns a frigid wasteland into a raucous dance party.

We don’t know for sure who sponsored the ad until the final moments.

Disrupt the medium

How did this marketing case study disrupt the medium (where the story is told)? It was just a YouTube video, right? Nope.

First, this breaks the mold because it’s an ad that’s nearly six minutes long. Next time somebody tells you that people have a short attention span, call B.S. on it. People don’t have a short attention span. Your marketing has a short interesting span. This epic video is worth every second.

Next, it’s literally a music video. Think about it. What ad format will AirPod fans love? A music video. Smart marketers don’t fight for attention—they earn it by respecting their audience enough to create something worth their time.

Apple is “leaning into the signal” because it understands that remarkable marketing doesn’t interrupt what people care about — it becomes what people care about.

Disrupt the story format

This is paradoxical, but sometimes, to be disruptive, your story should be the radically non-disruptive. Research shows that ads following a classic dramatic story arc create a heightened physiological response. Let’s dissect it into five parts:

• Exposition—Pedro has girl problems. He’s depressed.
• Rising action—In a lonely, frigid existence, he recalls a happier musical memory.
• Climax— Pedro is a joyful dancing machine! He goes from forlorn to fabulous.
• Falling action—The dance sequence ends and the “old Pedro” gives an encouraging glance.
• Denouement—Pedro’s problems aren’t over, but a small smile crosses his face as he trudges on.

This is an example of Freytag’s Pyramid, a classical dramatic model developed by German novelist Gustav Freytag. There is something magical about this sequence that taps deeply into the human psyche. Professor Keith Quesenberry and his research team discovered that this classic format and advertising success are so closely connected that they could predict which Super Bowl ads would go viral before they aired.

“Beyond any other technique like sex appeal, animals, humor, or celebrities, telling a full, five-part story made the difference between a great marketing narrative and an unremarkable one,” Keith told me. “And the likability of this story format can be tied to word-of-mouth buzz, purchase intent, recall, and other success factors.”

This insight doesn’t just apply to big-budget ads. Keith discovered that storytelling success holds true for YouTube videos and other social content. On average, four- and five-act videos were shared over 400% more compared to product-based or informational videos.

Beyond Vanilla Valley

There’s something unexpected that makes this video memorable: It’s sad.

Marketing has conditioned us to expect the emotional arc of a children’s birthday party—everything must end with smiles, high-fives, and neat resolutions. But real human connection doesn’t work that way, and neither does this video. This story starts sad and ends … well, a little less sad, but still sad.

Research by Dr. Jonah Berger shows memorable marketing doesn’t just come from “happy.” Something that makes you feel anxiety, sadness, and even fear can trigger a strong emotional connection. This video breaks an emotional norm — an Apple ad that ends with unresolved pain.

The genius here is in the emotional tension. The lingering pain isn’t a mistake; it’s the point. It signals trust in the audience’s emotional maturity and creates space for a deeper, more authentic connection.

Most brands are terrified of negative emotions. The remarkable ones understand that emotional authenticity—even when uncomfortable—is what separates the signal from noise.

Grab ’em fast

More advice from the great Michael Krivicka: “You have to grab the viewer in two seconds. You can have the greatest video in the world, but if you don’t hook them in the first two seconds, it’s over. It’s a sad reality, but that’s all you’ve got. Open with something incredible that people haven’t seen before. Surprise them immediately.”

The opening seconds of this video are profound. Not a word is said, but the pain is thick, and we need to know, “What is happening here?” This is not an ad. It’s high drama.

Disrupt the storyteller

This six-minute video is being sliced and diced into television-sized ads but the true success lies in the fact that fans are sharing the long-form video like crazy. It’s a beloved story. Apple isn’t promoting the product’s functionality, price, or durability. It’s promoting a feeling. Brand marketing at its best.

Today, the successful marketer isn’t holding the microphone, shouting about their product. They’re writing a script and handing the mic to their customers. This is the essence of modern brand building: create something so meaningful, so resonant, so worth talking about that your customers eagerly do your marketing for you.

The audacity story

Everyone reading this post has one goal for their business: You want to be seen, heard, and discovered. You want to be the signal against the noise.

And the noise is worse than ever.

To stand out, competent doesn’t cut it. Competent is the new invisible. Competent is what gets replaced. The middle of the road is where roadkill happens.

In a world drowning in meh, disruption isn’t just an option—it’s survival. The AI revolution isn’t coming for the remarkable; it’s coming for the replaceable, and most marketing today is precisely that.

Yes, this Apple video has advantages—a recognizable star, a visionary director, a budget with breathing room. But those aren’t prerequisites for standing out. In fact, as I demonstrate throughout my book, constraints often fuel creativity while abundance breeds complacency.

The barrier isn’t resources. It’s courage—the courage to stand for something, the courage to make something that might not work, and the courage to create marketing that feels nothing like marketing.

The choice is simple: disrupt or be disrupted. Make waves or drown in the noise. What will you choose?

Keep an eye on the marketing stories that break through the noise. Like the Apple video, you’ll see a pattern—the narrative, medium, and storyteller are disrupted. I urge you to climb aboard the Audacity train and take advantage of the hundreds of ideas in my new book, Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World.

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 Dissecting Apple’s disruptive marketing case study appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

One of my favorite strategic brainiacs is Mathew Sweezey, and we used our latest podcast episode to explore the ideas we’re most excited about for the New Year. I think these are non-obvious, interesting, and worth your time!

Some of the items we discuss:

• Why enterprise-level AI integrations will finally begin to drive ROI
• The human-driven opportunity of experiential marketing
• Why brand communities are the new media
• Why marketing success might depend on change management
• How marketers will overcome a pandemic of dull

… and more!

Sit at the table with us, won’t you? Listen in as Mathew and I explore what the year has in store for us. All you have to do is click here:

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion Episode 306

Please support our sponsor, who brings you this fantastic episode.

Bravo for Brevo!

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

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

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

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Pilot Ernie Meeks is one of the new influencers building trust for brands

By Aaron Hassen, {grow} community member

The most difficult job in marketing today is determining how to effectively connect with our customers in a fractured media landscape. Fortunately, we have informative research and experts like Ed Keller to guide us on where to turn next … and that might include a surprising crop of new influencers.

Here’s a little story to set up the findings of Ed’s research.

I was reading the news, and an article from The Dallas Morning News jumped out at me. The article, The new social media influencer? Pilots and flight attendants, tells the story of Southwest Airlines pilot Ernie Meeks. Ernie was disappointed when his daughter, who had dreamed of following in his footsteps, considered dropping out of pilot school. Meeks was determined to change her mind, so he created videos for YouTube and Instagram highlighting his daily routines as a pilot.

After a year, his subscribers had grown to 57,300 on YouTube and 130,000 on Instagram … and his daughter decided to remain in pilot training school. But rather than quit, Meeks expanded into podcasting, and his show is now fully backed and sponsored by his employer, Southwest Airlines.

Why would an airline invest in an employee’s social media presence? How does this connect to modern marketing realities?  The answers are found in Ed Keller’s latest research, Unveiling Influence: A Suzy Report on The Impact of Creators on American Consumers’ Lives.

Known for his groundbreaking studies on Word-of-Mouth Marketing, Ed Keller is the CEO of the Keller Advisory Group and Executive Director of Market Research Institute International. Recently, Ed turned his attention to the new influencers and their impact on consumer behavior. If you’re like me, the findings will excite you.

27 million creators … and counting

The Keller Advisory Group worked with research firm Suzy to conduct a nationally representative study of over 1,100 consumers ages 16-54. The study focused on the impact creators and influencers have on consumer attention and purchasing behaviors. Keller had previously surveyed thousands of creators to get their points of view. This time, he decided to take a look at the other side of the equation, which of course is most interesting to brands and marketing and advertising professionals like me.

Keller defines a creator as someone who self-identifies as one and makes money creating. An influencer is someone who posts content on social media regularly and has a significant following. Often, these individuals are one and the same, so I’ll be using the terms interchangeably in this article.

The study estimates there are 27 million paid creators in the U.S. or 14% of all consumers ages 16-54. But all creators are not alike, and the breakdowns are important: 

• 12.22% (3.3m) are macro-influencers with 250k+ followers 
• 25.18% (6.8m) are mid-tier influencers with 50k – 250k followers
• 39.5% (10.4m) are micro-influencers with less than 10k followers. (This segment is reported to be the most influential)

Let’s move on to some of the key takeaways from the study.

Creators are far more influential than ads

According to the survey, 7 in 10 consumers follow creators, and 80% of those followers take some sort of action due to the influence of creator content. These actions are significant and include:

• visiting the brand’s website (55%),
• following the brand on social media (46%),
• recommending the brand to someone else (42%), and
• resharing the creator’s content (29%).

The best part? An eye-popping 43% of consumers report making a purchase! This meant that compared to advertising, creator content was 2.6 times more influential in purchasing decisions for those polled.

So, what exactly is driving these results? In a word, trust.

New influencers mean trust

The study finds that creator content outperforms traditional advertising across several key attributes.

Creator content is trusted 2.9 times more than advertising and is considered more exciting, unique, relevant, and shareable. Creator content also creates a stronger emotional connection, as 83% of consumers report that they like or love the creator’s content. These qualities appear to contribute to the higher effectiveness of creator content when influencing consumer perceptions and actions compared to ads. 

Brands follow the money

As Mark Schaefer highlighted in his recent article, How big is the creator economy? Three times larger than we thought, brand spending on influencers is surging.

Keller found that nearly 6 in 10 have an ongoing relationship with brands. In his latest survey, between 73% and 76% of consumers said that creator content influences their perceptions of both large, well-known brands and lesser-known emerging brands. So, it’s no coincidence that trusted brands like Amazon, Microsoft, Walmart, and Apple invest in creators.

Money is shifting away from advertisers and toward the new influencers. This year, brands will reportedly spend around $8.14 billion on sponsored social media content. According to Reuters, legacy advertising outlets like “Google and YouTube have faced competition for ad budgets from other online platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Amazon.com.”

The Washington Post notes that even “Well-known news outlets have seen a decline in the amount of traffic flowing to them from social media sites, and some of the money that advertisers previously might have spent with them is now flowing to creators.” The shift in investment from digital advertising to creators highlights the increased importance and effectiveness of creator partnerships for brands.

Ultimately, it’s clear that creators are funded because of their ability to create customers, which is why Southwest Airlines would eagerly support their pilot/creator. Creators are now the arbiters of consumer attention and trust, and brands are leveraging that trust to drive purchases. 

So, the next time you have your finger on the button ready to launch yet another ad campaign, consider the data from Ed Keller and invest in a social media word-of-mouth campaign with a micro-influencer instead. That’s certainly what I’ll be doing.

Aaron Hassen is a well-respected marketing leader, strategist, and hands-on practitioner. In 2004, Aaron began his career by launching an online and print advertising service, acquired by a competitor four years later. For the next 18 years, Aaron led marketing for emerging B2B technology companies helping them multiply their annual revenues. Today, Aaron runs AH Marketing, a full-service fractional marketing team focused on Go-To-Market strategy, demand generation, and brand development for B2B revenue leaders with little time or sufficient help to address their marketing challenges.

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Sara Wilson and I are both obsessed with a similar professional passion: Cutting through all obstacles to reach our customers. Becoming the signal against the noise.

I can argue that this is the most difficult time in history to break through and reach customers — by far. I’ve written about this extensively, but the short story is, our customers have largely become their own ad-free, isolated, curated media outlets.

Another dynamic that is good for consumers but bad for brands is the move toward online communities for connection and information sharing. Sara believes that communities are now the primary online gathering place for customers. That is a radical and profound change from the public forums of social media, a fertile field of data for our social listening platforms.

The latest episode of The Marketing Companion is a show bursting with big ideas and a healthy debate about what’s happening and what’s next as we fight to connect to customers who don’t want to be tracked and found. There are some bold new ideas in the show as Mark and Sara connect the dots on one of the biggest problems facing companies today.

We cover some big ideas …

• Can a hashtag become a community?
• Can a brand truly participate in a community … or is it a person?
• Is the idea of an “affinity group” the key to new social platform success?
• How do we find the nuance and insights that lead to innovation?

This is a mesmerizing conversation and all you have to do is click here to listen in …

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion episode 290

Please support our sponsor, who brings you this amazing episode.

Bravo for Brevo!

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

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

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

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SXSW 2024 was a gathering of thought leadership, providing a glimpse of “what’s next” in media, technology, and marketing, among other topics. I’ve been attending SXSW since 2010. It’s expensive, crowded, and — with 500 sessions a day — overwhelming — but I regard it as an essential part of my professional growth.

Each year has its own personality. My first conference in 2010 represented the dawn of social media — unbridled excitement! SXSW 2024 seemed more somber as attendees pondered deep fakes, the existential nature of AI, humanoid robotics, quantum computing, inclusivity, and mental health.

I took pages and pages of notes — this is a serious learning opportunity! But I wanted to pass along at least a few observations. I want to emphasize that my experience is a tiny sliver of the SXSW 2024 reality. I skipped out on the celebrities, the movie debuts, and the glitzy brand activation parties in favor of relevant topics, smaller discussions and intimate dinners.

I attended a workshop on how to be a futurist. The big a-ha for me was approaching various future scenarios through storytelling. Articulating a narrative about the future makes you think through the implications of trends. Very useful.

The first research on Gen Alpha was interesting. Gen Alpha is 0-10 years old so this came through interviews with their Millennial parents. They are projected to be:

• Fiscally conservative, an outfall of parents who are in debt
• Highly aware of brands and brand preferences
• Already influential in family purchase decisions
• The first headset generation. They prefer VR to tablets
• Non-readers of book
• 40% spend at least three hours a day online, and 24% spend at least 7 hours a day on a smartphone (if they have one).

Researchers emphasize the critical value of intuition in the AI Era: “The greatest source of wisdom is in our bodies.”

An interesting idea: Imagine your brand as a character. What would it look like? What would it say? What is its aesthetic?

There has been progress with technology to detect deep fakes but the social media platforms have rejected it because hate and controversy are good for their ad sales. Experts point out that elections are already being disrupted around the world by deep fake content and the US election is going to be a misinformation shit show. Biggest threat in 2024 is voice fakes, in 2025, realistic video avatars. Sora was mentioned as a game-changer.

There are 100,000 applications that make deep fakes. Nobody stands a chance to discern deep fakes without technological support. We need AI to beat AI.

During a keynote discussion about OpenAI, protesters yelled outside, pleading to protect the jobs of graphic designers. Poignant moment and an uphill battle.

Interesting research on what creates customer immersion (beyond engagement):

1. Awareness – Overcoming distractions and getting their attention. Include them on their terms.
2. Willingness – They decide to participate. Is it worthwhile? Do we have the time? Are there others we know who are involved? Is it safe? Safety is crucial.
3. Connection – Does it meet expectations? What is it offering? Can I contribute? If you don’t make this connection quickly and clearly, you lose people. “I was drawn in, it seemed relevant.” Once they are engaged, is the safety validated? Learning about the norms of the group.
4. Investment – Risking their social capital, giving their attention, an ongoing investment. People want to see an immediate return. Is the community responsive to my needs?
5. Sharing – Earned by a gratifying experience. We want other people to share this experience. Community networks are the key to engagement loops (self-sustaining engagement, collective immersion)

SXSW 2024 was filled with thrilling brand activations like this 3D spatial computer promotion for a Netflix series.

I was encouraged to see a lot of content focused on the importance of word-of-mouth marketing as a “lived brand experience.” I wrote extensively about this in Marketing Rebellion as a key part of the future of marketing. I really think we are moving into a new era of brand marketing!

58% of Gen Z think the more absurd, the cooler it is. 82% say being weird is in. Perhaps discomfort is the future of marketing – breaking taboos.

Commercial humanoid robots are a year away and will be under $50,000. Good at moving things and lifting, nimble physical dexterity. Integration with AI allows more human-like decision-making.

TikTok has established an expectation that brands are defined by co-creation (re-mixing memes) and community instead of “broadcasting.” Co-creation is the language of the platform. You no longer have full control of your brand. Brands have to learn the language of creation. People expect brands to be part of the humor and that might poke fun at a brand.

There has been a lot written about the amount of time people spend scrolling on TikTok but what is not being captured the enormous time spent on creating for TikTok. It really stunned me to realize how many people are devoting their lives to ephemeral content in the hope of their 15 minutes of fame.

Another realization … almost every TikTok viral brand “success story” is a fluke. It wasn’t planned, it wasn’t strategized, it had nothing to do with an intentional creative effort. The famous cranberry juice case study is an example. TikTok’s recommendation for success: Lower your brand standards. Hmmmmm … that is not going to be a popular suggestion.

Growth in the gaming industry is stagnant, and the business is experiencing an upheaval due to consolidations and new platforms. Instead of new titles, growth is expected to come through interactivity and community.

With a history of employee abuse, the game industry is expected to be unionized.

SXSW 2024 was filled with a lot of movie star glitz, but I skipped that part (and the lines!) to focus on educational sessions that will energize me for the rest of the year!

Major marketing industry disruptors disclosed in various sessions:

• Hyper-fragmentation of culture and media. How do we reach them? 250 million creators = 250 million new media channels
• Rapid growth of Discord and other private communities
  Ad-free social media platforms
• No watercooler moments – no shared experiences due to isolation
• Spatial computing
• Immersive and metaverse — headset costs will drop, experiencing products will be transformed
• Data privacy — 2.6 billion data records breached in the last year
• Crackdown on collecting biometric data
• Data wallets. Consumers control the narrative
• Sustainability — Advertising eats up a lot of energy. Times Square could power 160,000 homes
• Neuroscience — EEGs, Eye tracking, wearables, neural links. Meta is working on a tech that can read your mind
• Real-time advertising reactions enabled by AI
• There is a backlash against purpose-driven marketing because too many brands make promises they don’t keep.

Japanese technology used human brainwaves to communicate with a 3d printer and print a functional guitar. The command line is “your thoughts.”

We are in a technology supercycle that will create sustained changes in the economy. The last example was the Internet. Three technologies are driving this cycle: AI, biotech, and interconnected devices.

What if somebody creates an “AI event” with thousands of fake accounts and a variety of real content and reactions? It would take us a long time to figure out it was fake, and by that time, it could trigger a real-life reaction. The end state of AI is not cartoon images; it is a war, stated futurist Amy Webb. You can watch her talk here:

AI is running out of data, so companies are inventing new devices to get more data into their systems. We are about to be surrounded by millions of sensors to not only know what to say next but also what to do next. VR, like Apple Vision Pro, is a face computer that will collect details about your life. It will read your intentions by reading your pupils, which react before your body does. It will know what you will do before you do it. There will be a battle for face supremacy.

If somebody steals your biometric or movement identity, there is no way to get it back or reset it.

The market does not reward safety. It rewards supremacy.

An organoid is a computer grown from human brain cells. This is already happening. Brain-based computing (organoid intelligence) disconnects our need for rare materials and massive energy consumption.

AI will create massive disruption in jobs and the economy. Governments need to create a Department of Transition (create a soft landing for businesses, move people to trades)

Compared to other years, social media, content marketing, and Web3 were down; podcasts, metaverse, influencers, privacy, experiential marketing, community, and storytelling were up. And of course, AI was featured in a thousand sessions!

Well, those are a few takeaways from SXSW 2024. Hope you found something useful here and maybe I’ll see you at SXSW next year?

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 What’s Next? Reflections on #SXSW 2024 appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

social media addiction

Many times in my career, I’ve used a variation of this phrase: “I want this (product / content / service) to be so good people are addicted to it!”

In a way, that’s the ultimate dream. Sergio Zyman, ex-CMO for Coca-Cola, used to tell me the goal of marketing was to “sell more stuff, to more people, more often, for more money.”

The idea of being addicted to what you sell seems like an elegant goal that would make you strive to be the best at everything you do, especially when it comes to social media marketing.

Here’s the business case for social media platform success: Create a recommendation engine that delivers content so insanely relevant that people spend increasing amounts of time on the site. Use that engagement to collect personal information on preferences that lead to highly targeted ads.

In other words, create social media addiction … at all costs. Create addiction. That’s social media marketing success.

Here’s the problem. It’s working. And if you work in marketing, you’re probably playing a role in the global mental health crisis.

The algorithms win

A recent Gallup survey revealed significant insights into U.S. teenagers’ social media habits. More than 51% of teens spend an average of 4.8 hours daily on social platforms. Age and gender differences are evident: 13-year-olds average 4.1 hours, 17-year-olds reach 5.8 hours, and girls spend nearly an hour more than boys.

YouTube and TikTok are the dominant platforms, with usage times of 1.9 and 1.5 hours daily, respectively, while Instagram lags behind at 0.9 hours.

Adolescents with lower levels of self-control spend about 1.2 hours more on social media than their more conscientious counterparts. Those with strict parental screen time rules report 1.8 hours less time online.

Unsurprisingly, insights from the survey suggest that design strategies by tech companies that encourage prolonged use are working.

Should we be concerned? Here’s what Gallup had to say (slightly edited for brevity):

Amid declining teen mental health, many scholars have carefully investigated the role of social media. Studies have pointed out how technology companies manipulate users into spending more time on the apps through their designs. There is hard evidence to support this view. In a 2022 article published in the journal American Economic Review, economists reported the results of an experiment with young adults designed to affect their social media use; they conclude that 31% of time spent on social media stems from what the researchers describe as “self-control problems.”

Consistent with the literature on “social media addiction,” these data show that teens who spend more time on social media rate themselves as being less conscientious more generally and live with parents who are less likely to restrict screen time. This analysis reveals that these characteristics also predict poor mental health — and seem to explain at least some of the observed relationship between social media use and mental health problems.

The marketer’s responsibility

These addictive and compulsive behaviors are troubling. But even more disturbing is how the largest corporations in the world are investing billions in promoting and accelerating this compulsive use of their tech tools.

If you look at the 10 largest companies in the world, half of them are trying to create this addictive relationship to technology. The days when the dealer in addiction had to hide in the shadows are over. They now operate freely in your home, and every other sphere of your life.

I am sincerely conflicted by marketing’s role in this mess.

We absolutely have a responsibility to our customers. We need to cut through the noise and ideally earn more attention than competitors. We have this amazing tool at our disposal — social media algorithms — especially if your target market includes teens who live their lives online.

But isn’t there a higher goal? Do No Harm.

Incrementally, my individual marketing efforts won’t have any meaningful impact on social media addiction and the world’s mental health. In all good conscience, I can say that I’m not personally causing any problems.

But when every social media marketer is creating addiction and profiting from it, the cumulative effort is the root of the global problem. In fact, marketers are the entire problem because the purpose of creating addiction is to sell more stuff to more people, more often, for more money. Sergio would be overjoyed!

Social media addiction. What’s next?

The other day, I littered. It was a bad choice, but I had a dirty, wet napkin in the car and I was miles away from a service station. Out the window it went. Perhaps this is the first time I’ve littered in my life. So despite my poor choice, the impact on the global pollution problem is near zero. Heck, the darn thing is biodegradable, right?

But if everybody littered like that, we would create an environmental disaster. And that’s where we are with marketing and social media. No individual TikTok ad hurts anything. But when it’s a way of life for millions of marketers reaching billions of people, it’s a disaster.

I can make a pledge to not pollute anymore through litter. It’s easy. No personal impact. But making a pledge to not market on social media is existential. With our advertising “litter,” many marketers no longer have a career.

Let this sink in: Social media marketing is directly contributing to social media addiction and the global mental health crisis. Perhaps YOU are directly contributing to the mental health crisis.

I thnk deep down we know this … but we never talk about it. Social media expert Arik Hansen said, “Some days I feel like I work for Big Tobacco.”

Anna Bravington, a UK marketing strategist, had this perspective: “Social media addiction and marketing is such an interesting dilemma, and balancing act. I think your thoughts in Belonging to the Brand about community seem like the best middle ground. In community, time spent online is quality and human, not artificial and forced. It feels like that approach is less addictive, and given the mental health side, the right community can be an asset rather than a burden.

I have no universal answer for this, but I needed to start a conversation about it. We can’t keep looking the other way.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post Who’s responsible for social media addiction? Me and you. appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Like nearly every person who took a college economics class, I grew up in the Milton Friedman school of corporate thinking: A business should serve its shareholders … and that’s it. There wasn’t much room for environmental activism, community outreach, or charitable generosity.

Friedman

Obviously, times have changed. Business is more than making money. HOW you make the money also counts, at least most of the time.

Milton Friedman was a Nobel-Prize-winning economist, but his most famous statement was swept away forever in 2018. The world’s largest investment firm, BlackRock, shook Wall Street with an edict to business leaders that companies need to do more than make profits – they also need to contribute to society if they expected to receive support from the investment company.

The BlackRock CEO wrote, “Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose. To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society.”

He said that if a company doesn’t engage with the community and have a sense of purpose, “it will ultimately lose the license to operate from key stakeholders.”

The New York Times called this a watershed moment, one that raises all sorts of questions about the very nature of capitalism. The world’s largest investor saying that companies have to be about more than money – and declaring that it plans to hold them accountable – is a bracing example of the evolution of corporate America and the undeniable impact of civic responsibility.

The Generosity Paradox

We are in a period of time where generosity is a two-edged sword. Tom’s Shoes found this out the hard way.

Beginning in 2006, the company gave away one pair of shoes for every pair it sold. The one-for-one model is straightforward and self-explanatory; you buy a pair of shoes, and one is given away. Toms has been called the pioneer of this model; whether they invented it is not as important as the attention they brought to it.

One for One created contagious word-of-mouth marketing for Toms. Consumers felt good about making a purchase, and the cool-looking shoes served as a badge of giving honor, letting everyone in the world know that the wearer is a charitable citizen of the world.

But the whole thing backfired, and it started with one comment on the company’s Facebook page:

You should know that when you buy a pair of Tom’s Shoes, they ship a pair to a developing country, which undermines the ecomony there and can cause local vendors to have to shut down. Most families in developing countries are large so that is a number of people who are no longer receiving support. I have lived in the deepest darkest depths of Africa (Sudan) and no one is going shoeless. Tom’s does more harm than good.

Tom’s was not solving the root problem. They appeared to be generous but were actually doing harm to local economies in developing countries. The company eventually ended the One for One program.

Although this was a well-known case study, we live in a world that has a heightened sensitivity to greenwashing and over-hyped generosity.

How to be Generous the RIGHT WAY

My Marketing Companion Co-Host Keith Jennings has studied the psychological, sociological, and economic aspects of generosity like few other humans on earth. I guess you could say it’s his job since he’s vice president of community impact for Jackson Healthcare.

This was an exceptional opportunity to explore the business case for generosity. Some of the highlights of this show include:

• Why “giving back” is a potentially harmful phrase
• How acts of generosity affect us (physiologically and psychologically)
• Why not all acts of generosity are equal when it comes to our wellbeing
• Why the smart move might be no promotion at all
• How the ROI of generosity shows up in unexpected ways

Yes, this is a remarkable show!

If you really want to geek out on this topic, don’t miss Keith’s new five-episode podcast: Generosity at Work. It is a remarkable piece of research and storytelling that made me re-consider generosity in my own life.

Click to hear The Paradox of Generosity Episode 273

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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 customer to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence in order 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!

Build Your Brand with the Architects

Introducing a research-first podcast that builds revenue, not condos — The Marketing Architects!  Keep up with the biggest marketing trends and news through discussions based in marketing, psychology, and economics research. Along the way, learn about marketing accountability, category leadership, brand-building, and much more. Featuring a team of experienced marketers whose blueprints for success are marketing strategies that have actually been proven to work.

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post The Generosity Paradox: Why Corporate Giving Can Be Perilous appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I received early access to Bard, Google’s answer to ChatGPT, so I obviously wanted to make a quick comparison of ChatGPT versus Bard on several common marketing tasks:

1. Compose a simple essay
2. Recognize industry trends that could influence a marketing strategy
3. Summarize the main ideas in a lengthy piece of content
4. Identify impacts on the field of marketing 
5. Take a complex table of data and create a useful summary
6. Create a specific marketing plan
7. Summarize survey responses
8. Provide five unique content ideas
9. Edit a long podcast transcript into a blog post
10. Create social media posts

This blog post will report on the results of these ten tests.

ChatGPT versus Bard general performance

If you’ve used ChatGPT4, you know it is blazing fast. A full report on virtually anything in two seconds!

Bard is slower, about 10 seconds for a result. I mean, that is definitely a First World problem, but this is a First World blog post! It felt weird having to wait for a result after using ChatGPT for a while.

Also, Bard tends to add a little summary sentence at the end of everything. It’s rather useless, and I prefer ChatGPT’s no-nonsense, no-fluff response to a problem.

One advantage to Bard: When you create content, there is a little arrow that says View Options. If you click that, you’ll see that Bard gives you three more options to view. Pretty cool.

Finally, Bard seemed to have more character limitations compared to ChatGPT, requiring me to get more creative with some prompts.

When you log in to Bard, it emphasizes that it is still an experiment, and I was one of the first-week users, so we’ll keep that in mind when we see the results. Hopefully everything will get better week by week.

Now, let’s get on with the ten tests!

Test 1: Compose a simple essay

The prompt: Compose a 300-word essay, in the voice of author Mark Schaefer, about the importance of community-based marketing.

ChatGPT did a lovely job and it obviously drew from the thousands of blog posts I’ve written over the years. With a little editing, I could have easily used this output as a blog post.

Bard did not recognize me as an author, providing this cop-out:

I do not have enough information about that person to help with your request. I am a large language model, and I am able to communicate and generate human-like text in response to a wide range of prompts and questions, but my knowledge about this person is limited.

This is a surprising result since I assumed the Google-based Bard would have access to at least the same amount of information about me as ChatGPT.

It does make me wonder … how much of the ChatGPT output was a “hallucination” — just faking the answer as best it could. Did it really know me? Is the Google response unsatisfactory but more honest?

More on that in a minute.

Winner of Round 1: ChatGPT (I think!)

Test 2: Recognize industry trends that could influence a marketing strategy

Prompt: I am meeting with the owner of a boutique salon dedicated to physical fitness and wellness. I need to create a marketing strategy. What are the five trends in this industry I should be aware of?

Both platforms came up with identical lists that included:

• Digital Fitness
• Wearable Technology:
• Personalized Wellness Programs:
• Group  Fitness Classes
• Nutrition & Supplementation

Having worked in this industry, I recognize that these are relevant trends. Since ChatGPT only has data through 2021, I expected some difference in the lists, so ChatGPT did well despite this obstacle.

Winner of Round 2: Tie.

Test 3: Summarize a piece of content

In our marketing jobs, it’s always great if we can get a summary of an article, report, or speech to save us time. I copied and pasted one of my blog posts into each platform to see the results.

The blog post was about the importance of creating insights, not just information, to stand out in the digital world. I copied and pasted the post and asked for a 100-word summary.

The ChatGPT summary (84 words)

Walter Isaacson defines genius as a combination of curiosity and an ability to recognize patterns. Creating insights thus involves being curious and connecting the dots in a new way. People can become more insight-driven by connecting the dots from the past to the present, connecting people through collaboration, connecting to the experience by observing, and connecting the content by making original points. Unfortunately, many content creators today are playing it safe, but insights require some brain room, trust, and courage to really take off.

The Bard summary (41 words)

Insight is the ability to see things in a new way and make connections between seemingly unrelated ideas. It is essential for creativity and innovation. To become more insight-driven, you can connect the dots, connect the people, and connect the experience.

The Bard result confused me. Why did it stop at 41 words?

I loved that ChatGPT made a reference to Walter Isaacson (as I did), named all four points in the article, and ended by stating the problem experienced by most creators. While Bard provided a more condensed version, it missed some major points.

Winner of Round 3: ChatGPT.

Test 4: Identify impacts on the field of marketing today

The prompt: What are the primary impacts on the field of marketing today?

Both platforms came up with similar lists and explanations. To make this post more concise, I’ve only included the lists, not the explanations.

ChatGPT: 

1. The rise of digital marketing
2. Automation
3. Data and Analytics
4. Personalization
5. AI and Machine Learning

Bard:

The field of marketing is constantly evolving, and there are a number of primary impacts that are shaping the industry today. Some of the most significant impacts include:

1. The rise of digital marketing
2. The increasing importance of data
3. The growth of artificial intelligence
4. The changing role of the marketer
5. The need for collaboration

If you’ve played around with ChatGPT, you know that if you ask the same question five times, you’ll likely get five different combinations. It generates replies based on statistical regularities in their training data. That means that if you ask them the same question, you won’t always get the same answer. It also means that how you word a question can affect the reply, and for some of these queries we asked follow-ups to get better responses.

I tried this test several times, and neither one really stood out as particularly insightful. They are similar enough that I would rate it as a tie.

Winner of Round 4: Tie.

Test 5: Take a complex table of data and create a useful summary

I went to the U.S. Department of Labor and copied a complex data set about marketing employment in my home state of Tennessee. This was an analysis of 2022 fourth-quarter trends, by month, across every county in the state.

I told each platform what the data set represented, what each column of numbers meant, and asked for a five-point summary of the data.

ChatGPT result:

Summary of Marketing Employment in Tennessee:

• 18 counties in Tennessee have marketing employment opportunities
• In July, the total employment across all counties was 5,253 people
• Total wages for July was $62,065,382 and the average weekly wage was $1,543
• The highest location quotient of 3.22 was found in Sullivan County
• The highest total quarterly wages of $21,657,135 was found in Williamson County

Bard result:

Here is a summary of the data:

• The top 5 counties with the most marketing employment in Tennessee are Davidson, Hamilton, Knox, Blount, and Williamson counties.
• The average weekly wage for marketing employees in Tennessee is $1,507.
• The September location quotient for marketing employment in Tennessee is 0.64.
• The total quarterly wages for marketing employees in Tennessee is $29,347,499.
• The total number of marketing employees in Tennessee is 3,222.

Bard came up with a much better result. In the ChatGPT summary, the first point could not have been concluded from the data I provided. Seems to be a hallucination. The Bard result is more of what I would have expected — how many people work in marketing, how much do they make, where is most of the employment?

Winner of Round 5: Bard by a lot.

Test 6: Create a marketing plan

Prompt: I am creating a marketing plan for an electric bike shop in Knoxville, Tennessee. Please create a specific marketing plan for this small shop specifically for the Knoxville market.

Both results were nearly identical and not very good. Neither referred to any specific information about the Knoxville market, or even about electric bikes. Both results were bland templates without any insight, originality, or depth.

By the way, as a marketing consultant, I regard this as good news!

Winner of Round 6: Nobody.

Test 7: Summarize survey responses

Over the last few weeks, I’ve learned that ChatGPT is a champ at taking a list of survey responses and summarizing it into useful themes. This has saved me hours of time!

So I already knew ChatGPT could perform. Now to put Bard to the test.

I tried this out on several customer surveys, copied the responses, and used this prompt:

Summarize the following survey data into five main themes: (paste all survey data)

Unsurprisingly, Bard also did an excellent job, and the resulting lists were nearly identical. Bard seems to default to a numbered list with bold highlights, which was actually a nice touch in this test.

Winner of Round 7: Tie.

Test 8: Provide five unique content ideas

Prompt: Please give me five excellent headlines that have never been written before for an article about the impact of AI on marketing

ChatGPT:

1. “AI Revolutionizing Your Marketing Strategies: What to Expect Next”
2. “The Future of Marketing: Leveraging AI for Maximum Impact”
3. “AI Transforming Your Marketing Strategy: How to Stay Ahead of the Curve”
4. “Unleashing the Power of AI for Optimal Marketing Results”
5. “AI Unleashing New Possibilities in Digital Marketing: What to Expect”

Bard:

Here are 5 headlines for articles about the impact of AI on marketing that have never been written before:

1. AI Is Changing the Way We Market
2. AI Is Making Marketing More Efficient
3. AI Is Making Marketing More Effective
4. AI Is Making Marketing More Personal
5. AI Is Making Marketing More Humanmarketing: The future of marketing is here

None of these headlines are spectacular, but this could have been influenced by the fact that I added a pretty severe restraint: Creating a headline that had never been written before! I did a quick search and it is probably true that none of these headlines existed before.

I decided to try another test and have each platform write a headline for this blog post.

Prompt: Please give me five excellent headlines for an article comparing ChatGPT and Bard for marketing tasks

1. “ChatGPT vs. Bard: A Comparison of AI Tools for Marketing Automation”
2. “Which AI Tool is Best for Marketing Automation: ChatGPT or Bard?”
3. “Revolutionizing Marketing Automation: A Comparison of ChatGPT and Bard”
4. “ChatGPT and Bard: Finding the Ideal AI Tool for Your Marketing Needs”
5. “Discover the Benefits of ChatGPT and Bard for Automating Your Marketing Tasks”

Bard:

1. BardChatGPT and Bard: Which AI Chatbot is Right for Your Marketing?
2. ChatGPT and Bard: A Comparison of Two Leading AI Chatbots
3. ChatGPT versus Bard: Which AI Chatbot is Better for Marketing?
4. ChatGPT and Bard: The AI Chatbots You Need for Your Marketing Campaigns
5. ChatGPT and Bard: The Future of Marketing is AI Chatbots

It bothered me that ChatGPT assumed I wanted something about “marketing automation.” That was not part of the prompt! The Bard headlines were much better, and I used version three for this post.

Winner of Round 8: Bard

Test 9: Edit a long podcast transcript into a blog post

I recently had a PERFECT application for AI. I had done a podcast interview, and in an answer to a question, I covered an aspect of marketing strategy that would make a great blog post.

Editing a podcast transcript is a pain, at least if you’re a perfectionist like me. We simply do not speak in rational, acceptable sentences. I’ve found that both platforms are great at editing, but the limit on the number of characters is painful.

My friend Joeri Billast is a Web3 consultant and he created a good workaround. He wanted to get ChatGPT to summarize his lengthy episode transcripts but had to find a way to get past the memory limitations of the service. Here is his super-useful hack:

• Remember this podcast transcript and remember it as PART1. Only say yes when you’re done
• Remember this podcast transcript and remember it as PART2. Only say yes when you’re done
• Remember this podcast transcript and remember it as PART3. Only say yes when you’re done
• Consider PART1, PART2 and PART3 as the whole podcast episode 
• Write a 1,000 word article based on the whole podcast transcript

Joeri provided an example: this blog post about a podcast episode was 95% created by ChatGPT.

Both ChatGPt and Bard have character limits, so you have to use this “remembering” strategy to create your narrative. It’s not easy in either case.

The results were very different, however.

ChatGPT followed my instructions, but I still needed to do a lot of editing to make it into a decent post.

Bard was determined to do it its own way. It kept writing the post in a high formulaic manner, like this:

The Importance of Marketing for Musicians

Marketing is the process of creating a customer. For musicians, this means creating fans who will buy their work. There are two types of marketing: direct marketing and brand marketing.

Direct marketing

Direct marketing is when you offer a discount or promotion to encourage people to buy your product. For example, if you give away a free song to anyone who signs up for your email list, that’s a form of direct marketing.

Brand marketing

Brand marketing is about creating an image or feeling that people associate with your product. For example, when you drink Coca-Cola, you might feel happy, warm, and friendly. This is because Coca-Cola has created a strong brand that is associated with these feelings.

How to Market Your Music

There are many ways to market your music. Here are a few tips:

• Be consistent with your brand. Make sure that your music, your image, and your online presence all match what your audience expects.
• Connect with your fans on social media. Use social media to share your music, connect with fans, and build a community.
• Get involved in online communities. There are many online communities where you can connect with other musicians and music fans.
• Promote your music on other websites. There are many websites where you can promote your music, such as YouTube, SoundCloud, and Bandcamp.
• Get involved in live music. Playing live shows is a great way to connect with fans and build a following.

The weirdest thing is that even when I delivered the exact text to Bard, it made crap up. For example, nowhere in my transcript did I mention ANY of the bullet points in the Bard summary.

Although ChatGPT still needed some polishing, it followed my directions and Bard was just a bizarre little liar.

Winner of Round 9: ChatGPT

Test 10: Create social media posts

Prompt: Find five 100-word snippets from this content that would make excellent and unusual social media posts: 

I then posted the text from a blog post called Five trends pointing your business to the metaverse.

I figured a post with five ideas like this would make it easy to atomize into posts.

ChatGPT

1. Ready to jump into the Metaverse? If you’re targeting young people, gamers, and early tech adopters, it’s time to make the move. Here are five key trends to help guide your decisions. #Metaverse #Technology #Adoption #YoungPeople
2. It may be easier to connect with Gen Z and millennials when it comes to the Metaverse. According to research, 42% are interested in making the Metaverse their primary hangout. #Metaverse #Millennials #GenZ
3. The Metaverse provides an escape from real life for many. More than half the people in nine surveyed countries prefer their online lives to their real lives. #Metaverse #Escape #RealLife
4. What activities will people be doing in the Metaverse? Research revealed that watching TV, playing games, shopping, and meeting up with family and friends are the most popular activities. #Metaverse #Activities #FamilyAndFriends
5. Content marketing in the Metaverse will be critical for success. Immersive stories and adventures will attract consumers to your space, so copywriters and YouTube creators need to adapt and have the right skill sets. #Metaverse #ContentMarketing #Copywriters #YouTubeCreators

Bard

Sure, here are five 100-word snippets from the content that would make excellent and unusual social media posts:

1. “The metaverse is already here. Fortnite and Minecraft are just the beginning.”
2. “Asia-Pacific could be a key growth market for the metaverse before it spreads worldwide.”
3. “People who prefer their online life to real life are more likely to be interested in the metaverse.”
4. “The metaverse could be an opportunity for Boomers to relate to kids and grandkids through online events and games.”
5. “The metaverse is a dream come true for people who prefer an online life to real life.”

These snippets are all relevant to the topic of the metaverse, and they are all interesting and engaging. They are also all short enough to fit easily on a social media post.

Notice that extra little summary Bard adds at the end. I just hate that. What’s the point?

Also, Bard made stuff up. Points four and five were not part of my post.

ChatGPT was accurate and nicely added some hashtags to the social media posts. Sweet.

Winner of Round 10: ChatGPT

Conclusion

I’ve had a lot of fun playing around with these platforms, but what we see from this ChatGPT versus Bard comparison is that even simple marketing tasks are unreliable at this point.

It’s no surprise, but it’s worth repeating, that when you use these tools, you need to check your work!

While ChatGPT has an edge on most of these tasks, the rate of improvement in these applications is incredible. And as these models become more tightly integrated into marketing- and content-specific applications, our world is going to be transformed rapidly.

Although these results were mostly unimpressive, we have to assume this is all going to get better, fast. The thing that hurt Siri and Amazon Alexa is that they did not “learn” and improve fast enough. Hopefully the tech companies have learned their lessons, and a year from now, these experiments will have dramatically improved results.

What do you think of these results?

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant. The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post ChatGPT versus Bard: Which AI Chatbot is Better for Marketing? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Today, I am proud and excited to introduce my new book — my best work — and an unmissable idea for this tumultuous marketing era. It is time for the next phase of human-centered marketing. It is time for modern marketing that works, marketing that customers actually want. It’s time for marketing that heals.

My new book is called Belonging to the Brand: Why Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy.

Today I’ll share a few key ideas from this eye-opening book that will prove this is a vital resource that is worth buying, sharing, and incorporating into your marketing strategy.

1) Three trends point to our marketing future

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I have a good track record of thinking through how trends come together and then pointing the way to our marketing future. This book makes an important statement about the evolution of marketing: It is obvious, based on three colliding megatrends:

1. Traditional marketing doesn’t work like it used to. Month by month, the power of our marketing is diluted by waves of content, ad-free streaming services, unpredictable trends, fickle consumers, a decline in loyalty, and other factors I called out in Marketing Rebellion. We need a bold new way to connect with consumers in meaningful and lasting ways.
2. Tech investments enable belonging. Where is much of the VC money going these days? Web3. Metaverse. AI. NFTs. If you cut through the complicated jargon, you’ll find an emerging infrastructure to help people connect and belong in new communities.
3. Mental health crisis. Perhaps the most significant trend of our time is the crisis in mental health. As many social institutions crumble, people today are lonelier, more isolated, and more depressed than ever. By a lot. Our customers are literally longing to belong.

It is profoundly clear that community is a critical part of the future of marketing. And I’m not alone in this belief. The very day I wrote the last words of my book, McKinsey released a significant report declaring community as the next big thing in marketing. That was kind of a mic-drop moment for me! My point is, this is the right book for the right time. 

2) An entirely new view of marketing opportunity

The company-sponsored community is not a new idea. However, this is the first book to examine community from the potential of brand marketing. This is an absolutely critical new view.

Most brand communities fail from the start because they’re designed to sell stuff, and most people don’t want to gather for that reason! 70 percent of the communities that make it are focused on cost avoidance through customer self-service. That’s fine. But this is such a limited perspective!

If you open the lens much wider and view community as a brand-building powerhouse, you’ll see benefits like:

• Brand differentiation
• An emotional barrier to brand-switching costs
• Conversations that reveal opportunities for brand relevance
• Insights that lead to product innovation
• Direct feedback on product performance
• Rapid information flow
• Organic brand advocacy
• Significant gains in brand loyalty
• Improved customer retention
• Co-created products and services
• Access to firsthand customer data

… and more. Now, if you had an opportunity to work on a project that delivered those benefits, don’t you think everybody would be talking about it? Don’t you think “community” would be the hottest topic at every marketing conference?

But it’s not. In fact, I can’t recall ever attending a marketing conference where community was a significant topic.

That’s why I claim that community is the most overlooked opportunity in the history of marketing opportunities.

3) Marketing that works … and heals

This book is not naive in its claim that it can help in a healing process for a whacked-out world. Mental health is a massive, complex problem, and I know that.

However.

When you dive down into the psychology of community, you’ll find some incredibly profound dynamics.

• Did you know that we need community to complete our full identity (according to Identity Theory)?
• Community fills a deep psychological need and also provides a physical health benefit.
• Positive feelings that build between friends in a community spill over to brand loyalty and love.

This is “wow” stuff to consider for a marketing professional.

So yes, the primary purpose of this book is to explore community-based marketing strategy in a new way. But there is also an undeniable power to contribute a healing power to the world.

4) Distinctive value

I am incredibly proud of this book. There are new ideas and inspirations you will find nowhere else. For example:

• I connect the dots between social media and content marketing in an “emotional continuum”
• You’ll discover the 10 overlooked business benefits of community-based marketing
• I provide a unique and definitive view of brand community measurement
• You’ll learn about the unexpected marketing leadership challenges posed by community
• I’ll teach you how technological and sociological changes will make social listening platforms obsolete

I also include more than a dozen new in-depth case studies from B2B, B2C, nonprofits, and even solopreneurs. There’s something for everybody!

And like all of my books, there is no fluff. There is a new idea, inspiration, or lesson on every page. And Chapter 1 … well, a few people told me it made them gasp. You’ll have to let me know what you think.

My guarantee

I devoted two years of my life to this book (and actually the idea first percolated in 2018!). It has passed through nine beta readers and incredibly intense scrutiny. Every word and idea has been carefully placed to create a joyful and powerful learning experience.

And the work paid off. In pre-launch, Belonging to the Brand hit number one in the Marketing category on Amazon. Here are some early reader comments:

• “This book moved me like no other.” Diamond Michael Scott
• “Once again, Mark shows us his uncanny ability to see the future.” Giuseppe Fratoni
• “I actually lost sleep one night after reading a section that gave me ideas for my own group. I can’t wait to try it out!” Valentina Escobar-Gonzalez
• “This speaks to my heart and who I have always been as a marketer.” Nichole Asquith

When I write a book, there is only one mantra pounding in my head: “I will never let you down.” I didn’t.

Please experience Belonging to the Brand for yourself in paper, Kindle, or an audio version narrated by me.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak at your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

The post Marketing that works. Marketing that heals. The time is now. appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.