Mark Schaefer 0:00
If you are competent, you're in trouble, because AI is more than competent. And so we've got to think about this world in a new way, and I think that is one of the greatest opportunities in the history of marketing. It's right in front of our faces.
Finola Howard 0:19
That's Mark Schaefer, one of the world's leading marketing futurists and keynote speakers, and definitely one of the people I refer to time and time again for guidance and inspiration from a marketing perspective. And last time we spoke in episode number 43 we spoke about community. This time we return to discuss his 11th book, audacious, how humans win in an AI marketing world, and I ask Mark the question, have we been lazy with our humanness? Tune in. I think you'll enjoy this one. I'm Finola Howard, Business Growth strategist with a joyful heart and your host of the your truth shared podcast, I believe that every business has a story to tell, because that's how the market decides whether to buy or not, and your story has to resonate with who you are and with the people you want to serve. And this podcast is about helping you reach the market in a way that feels right to you. So if you're an entrepreneur with a dream you want to make real, then this is the podcast for you, because great marketing is your truth shared. Welcome back to your truth shared. And I have a second time guest on the show with his latest book, The wonderful the splendiferous and the brain frying. Mark Schaefer, welcome, welcome. Mark,
Mark Schaefer 1:44
yeah, well, you have to tell me why I'm why I'm brain frying. That's pretty provocative. You told me that you're, you're feeling under the weather today. So it could be the, it could be the drugs. Might not be the book. It could, well
Finola Howard 1:58
maybe, but I think actually, there's not enough drugs, but the brain frying thing is, it may your book, which we shall name, audacious, how humans win in an AI marketing world made me ask myself the questions here, I'll tell you, I don't have any excuses anymore. Have we been lazy with our humanness?
Mark Schaefer 2:23
Yeah. Oh, that's beautiful. That is beautiful. Oh, I love that.
Finola Howard 2:30
And now I'm exhausted.
Mark Schaefer 2:33
Yeah, I wish I put that. If you would have given me that quote six months ago, I would have put it in the book, but that it is a great theme. It really is. It's, it's a great theme that competent doesn't cut it anymore. We it's competent is ignorable, and competent is is lazy. We've got to, we've got to find a way to rise above the bots.
Finola Howard 2:57
But I find it's really interesting because and we need to talk about the book first. But the thing that struck me is in all my work. So if I was to hone in my work, one of my core things is helping people find their uniqueness. And there's such a journey that someone has to take to allow themselves, to be brave enough to be themselves and to be in their full humanness and bring their story once you know, you know if it's traumatic or if there's a story that needs to be healed first, and then bring it that if, if there's already a struggle with that, where will we be with what you're proposing here, which is we've to lean into our humanness even more
Mark Schaefer 3:42
I love the way you connect the dots there, because one of I think there is definitely a connection between your personal brand and your ability to show up in a in a human and compelling and creative way. And, you know, of course, that's a big passion of mine too. I wrote a book on personal branding called called known, and I didn't go down that route in this book, because the book probably would have doubled in size if I had gone down that route. But it's it is very true to to connect on your source of differentiation, that that is a really good way to to show up in the world in a in a more recognizable, creative and human way,
Finola Howard 4:43
but we're afraid of it. Yes, it's scary.
Mark Schaefer 4:46
It takes courage. It does it takes courage. It takes courage for me to do it. It's not it's it's not normal for me to do it. I grew up in a in a family that was very stoic. I mean, I grew up in a family where you don't show your emotions, you know, big boys don't cry. It took me, you know, years and years of experimentation to sort of, like, start to open up a little bit. And every time I opened up a little bit, I was rewarded. But I'm still a work in process, for sure,
Finola Howard 5:20
but I remember this about you that in our last discussion, you said that you are always led by curiosity. Oh, yeah. And, I mean, that's and that seemed to be this recurring thing. And I also remember you saying recently in an interview about this book, that this is your journey of 11 books that they all led to here, and they will all lead to the next book, and presume also,
Mark Schaefer 5:43
yeah. That is very true. If you, if you read all my books, read all my books in order, it's sort of like each book is a chapter of my life, of thinking,
Finola Howard 5:54
yeah, it makes sense. So how about you share with our listeners what audacious is about, because that's actually an audacious book title also. And why?
Mark Schaefer 6:06
Well, I think sharing the first story in the book sort of sets the stage, I think. And I was at a at an event that I go to every year in America called South by Southwest. It's a sort of festival of thought leadership. And I was at dinner with friends, and then people started to leave the restaurant and just leave their food. And I thought, You know what is going on. My back was to the door and turn around, and everybody was standing on the sidewalk. So we left my friends and I, we left our food to see what was going on, and there was a this drone show in the sky that was an ad for a new television show. And at the end of the drone show, there was a QR code, and you could click on the QR code in the sky and go to a trailer for this new television show. Now today, drone shows have become more common, but three or four years ago, this was the first time we'd ever seen anything like this. And I became obsessed with this idea that if someone had challenged me to create an ad so amazing that people would leave their food in a restaurant to go see it, could I do it? And the answer was no, and I've spent the last 12 years at least, writing and thinking and speaking about this idea of becoming the signal against the noise, and this is a bigger challenge than ever because of AI. AI is just dumping all kinds of crappy content onto the web, and it just makes it more difficult for everybody. And here was an example that was just so amazing. It was just so, you know, audacious was the word that kept pounding in my head. And I thought, Is there a lesson here? Is there a process behind this that might be scalable for everyone? And so I found out who did it, and I talked to the President of the company, and I said, I want you to teach me how to do this, and I want to come to your office, and I want you to open up your meetings, and I want to I want you to share all your secrets, and I'm going to put it in a book. I said, What do you think? He said, Absolutely,
Finola Howard 8:40
which is crazy.
Mark Schaefer 8:43
So it got on a plane, and I went to New York, and that led me on a path to meet and interview some of the greatest creative people in the world, not just giant spoon, the agency who did the drone show, but, but it, but you know, people in Australia and people in England, and people in, you know, all over Europe and and they shared their secrets. They just shared all their secrets.
Finola Howard 9:16
Why did they share their secrets?
Mark Schaefer 9:17
That's a great question. That's that's a great question, when, when I was, when I was in the process of writing the book, I employed what is called a beta reader. Reader. A Beta reader is someone who reads the book and make sure you're not confusing people before you publish it. And one of the beta readers said, All these people you talk to in the book that are sharing all these secrets, I just want to hug them, because they're giving me so many good ideas. I honestly, I think part of it is that, you know, my. Reputation as a legitimate author preceded me. They knew that for them to be in one of my books was was going to be, you know, a nice thing for them, a nice thing for their business and and their work. But, but they really did. I mean, they really just, you know, pulled back the curtains and said, This is what makes us different. And so it was quite energizing. It was, it was really inspiring and energizing to write the
Finola Howard 10:32
book. And when you're talking about the beta readers, there is a story that you tell that you don't use, it's all human content. It's all you, and that you actually, at the end of the process, talked to AI and asked what was missing. It's just a great use of AI.
Mark Schaefer 10:49
Yeah, yeah. So I uploaded the whole book into chat GPT and into another large language model called quad, and I said, read the book and tell me what's missing. And both both language models came back with the exact same answer, and they said, You really need to have a chapter on measurement. And the truth is, in my original outline, I had a chapter on measurement, and you know, I took it out because I was just getting it was too hard and I was getting too tired, but I wrote it. I wrote it. I wrote a chapter on measure because chat GPT told me to
Finola Howard 11:32
talk to me more and share with the listeners more about this idea. Of you say this a lot. We still own crazy humans. Still own crazy but there's also this thing of, if you're competent, you're in trouble, because AI is competent. And let's kind of lead with that in a conversation
Mark Schaefer 11:50
like, you know anybody in in marketing or, I guess, any profession these days, if you've been studying the world of AI and immersing yourself in the world of AI, then you've, you've got to have some fear. If you don't have some fear, then you know, you need to study a little bit more. And it's like, okay, what? What do I tell people? You know, what? What do people do? And this has sort of been a theme of my book, all of my books is like, if there's, like, a hard problem that people are struggling with, you know, if I can figure out what to say, then that would be a really helpful book. And you know, the difference between where we are today and any other time in history is that whenever there's been a technological innovation, you know, you could take another class, you could get a you know, you could pivot and get a different college degree. But that, but the difference now is you, you can't be smarter than AI. You can't outsmart it. You can't take a class and be smarter than AI. So the the, the the asset is, is, is intelligence. And all of our companies have been built on intelligence. We hire people because they own certain intelligence, and we promote people in those companies because they get more intelligence, they get more experience. Maybe they take another class, but that whole model is going away whenever we live in a world that has abundant, nearly free intelligence. And so what is our role? What where do we play? And so this book explores the uniquely human parts of marketing where AI can't touch us and and, you know, it's not, it doesn't sugar coat things, you know. And basically the message is, if you are competent, you're in trouble, because AI is competent, AI is more than competent. AI is becoming excellent in many ways. And so we've got to open our minds, we've got to open our hearts and think about this world in a new way. And that is the purpose of the book. We've had industrial
Finola Howard 14:30
era thinking for so long, where conformity is embraced, at least right, conformity in large organizations, but also conformity in our schooling systems, our schooling our educational systems that now are also terrified of AI, but yet we still continue to teach our students and teach our employees that it is safer to conform. So are we finally do? On the precipice of having the new revolution, or the much what we thought would happen after the industrial era, where we would have more time, where we would indulge in our own creativity and explore things. Do you think that will happen now?
Mark Schaefer 15:18
I think the answer to that is maybe. And I'll tell you, I'll tell you why, because I think most companies are asleep. I think most people are asleep and they're just gonna It's exactly like you said. We have this infrastructure in the world that rewards boring. We have our traditions. We've sort of, we've made dull part of the way we work. We have relationships with advertising agencies that have done the same thing year after year. We like boring because it's easy to get that approved through the legal department. And so for things to really change, culture is going to have to change, and the infrastructure of our creative world is going to have to change. Is that going to happen at the biggest companies in the world? Maybe not. Is that going to help happen in small to medium sized companies? Yes. Is it going to happen with entrepreneurs and solopreneurs who are creatives? Yes, because they're going to, they're going to see the writing on the wall. They're going to read the book like you did, and they're going to say, you know, my brain is frying because I have so many ideas, right? I mean, I had the director of research for Pepsi read the book and write me a note and say, this has made me rethink marketing. So it's gonna it's gonna happen on an individual basis,
Finola Howard 17:01
but it also makes me say that we will rethink humanity, because it's forcing us, you know, like the reason I asked the question, do you think AI will change this old industrial era thinking and this conformity? Because we went through this stage of after COVID, the great resignation that everybody was walking out. Everybody was working from home and having better lives, and we could hear the birds singing in the streets and all this kind of stuff. And yet we've just gone back to industrial thinking again. So, and
Mark Schaefer 17:33
here's like, I'm working on a blog post now that's that's sort of mind bending, because a lot of people are bringing up this issue. Is the reality of AI? Is it like recreating humanity? And my view is, wait a minute. Just wait a minute. What is humanity? For most of humanity, we've been an agrarian society that basically the purpose of humanity is have babies and don't die. I mean, that's been the purpose of humanity, right? It hasn't been getting a college degree, it hasn't been doing great things, it hasn't been reading books. It's it's been human. The purpose of humanity was really quite simple. So is it like re reinventing humanity, or is it just taking us back to the way humanity was supposed to be?
Finola Howard 18:31
I found myself writing in my notes in preparation. Can this help me be me? Yeah, by making me get out of my own way. Get out of my own way of, you know, all of the constraints you have as a marketer of consistency and putting content and all of that and getting caught up in the technology for the technology sake, but actually, will it now create space for me to lean into what we call my genius zone, or my unique ability, or
Mark Schaefer 19:05
so let's build on this. Does this help you make you, know, help you make you, sort of enhance you at your best? Yeah, there was this piece of research that came out a few weeks ago, and they looked at researchers who were using AI and the researchers who used AI versus didn't use AI. They had more discoveries, they had more patents, they had more product launches, but a very important and provocative part of that research was it also created more distance between the best researchers and the average researchers. So the best researchers, researchers who used AI and and even the average researchers who used AI, it made the best better. And so I think that's an interesting. Aspect of of of sort of re energizing, reimagining our own brand, our own contribution to the world, our own place in humanity,
Finola Howard 20:14
makes me ring up this idea of fear. So we're often afraid of of being ourselves, of leaning into ourselves, of even thinking that there is something unique about us, and you know, because you got to dig deep enough to find it, yeah. Does this eliminate the excuses?
Mark Schaefer 20:37
No, I think there will always be excuses.
Finola Howard 20:39
Okay,
Mark Schaefer 20:42
cool. But I think, you know, I teach a class of personal branding, and I've added a new exercise about using AI to help you unearth the, you know, maybe unique aspects. And you know, one of the things AI is really good at is, is analysis. And there's, there's. Have you heard of this tool called notebook LM recently? Yes, yeah. So notebook LM is a Google product, and you can upload large quantities of of data, like you could upload books, and you could upload blog posts and and then once you do that, you can actually have a conversation with it, and it has like a human voice, and you say, Okay, here's all this information. Tell me some of the Give me some of the themes of this, and you can sort of have a conversation about, what did you find out about me? So I think there's some interesting tell me who I am, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Take it with a grain of salt. Still is an algorithm, you know, written by a bunch of, you know, white white guys in Silicon Valley, but, you know, but, but, I think there are interesting ways to use AI for self discovery.
Finola Howard 22:07
You say fear holds boring in place. Tell us more about that. You know,
Mark Schaefer 22:17
one of just one of the greatest honors was meeting and interviewing a woman named Bianca Guimaras. She is one of the, I mean, she's one of the hottest creative minds in the world right now. She just wins award after award. She is the co founder of an agency called mischief, and one of the things she taught me in our interview is that really the only obstacle to being relevant in in this world, even with AI is is fear. It's fear of everything. It's fear of upsetting someone, it's fear of losing a customer. It's fear of imposter syndrome, and that the number one Cultural Foundation of her company is that we are not going to live in fear. She said the traditional advertising agency framework is built on fear. You don't want to upset people, you don't want to upset the industry. And she said we must have a culture that protects dangerous ideas and so so I think that's, it's so inspirational and so aspirational, and To me, it seems almost impossible, because, you know, I grew up most of my career in a fortune 100 company, right? And in a fortune 100 company, there's expectations of Wall Street and there's expectations of regulators, and there's expectations of bosses, there's expectations of the board, and there's expectations of your department, and there's expectations of competitors, and it just literally holds you in place and to sort of think about there are companies out there now starting to starting to say, We will not live that way. That is really pretty interesting,
Finola Howard 24:40
and should be applied to countries. You cited some research about seven some research done in the UK recently, but 72% of the content was dull.
Mark Schaefer 24:55
Was it that amazing research and
Finola Howard 24:57
that AI is now consuming itself? Yeah,
Mark Schaefer 25:02
yeah. And I think one of the most fun stories in the book, and I use this in my new speech about the book, is these researchers just simply couldn't believe how bad most of marketing was so they came up with the most boring thing they could think of. It was a cow eating grass. And they they put a video of a cow eating grass into this same system, and they found that a cow eating grass performed about as well as as B to B and B to C ads. I just think that's a great story and hilarious, and it kind of illustrates how low the bar is today, because
Finola Howard 25:52
it challenged stuff like SEO. And is there any point in producing content anymore, if AI is there to produce content? So why would we produce content?
Mark Schaefer 26:01
Yeah, well, I mean, I'm careful to make blanket statements about anything because in there's always exceptions. There's always good business cases. I think there's always going to be a good business case. You know, for advertising, there's always a good business case for SEO. Even the people who did the study said there could be a business case for dull advertising. It doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't work, but it costs more to make it work, because you've got to put more money but behind it, compared to if you were interesting in the first place. But I do think, in a way, my book throws down the gauntlet and says, look, what category are you in? Are you in the category of account chewing grass. And why is it? Because you're afraid. You know some businesses, you've got to be conservative, right? I mean, you don't want to go to jail, you don't want to break the law, but if you're in the category of a couch chewing grass, and the reason is because, well, that's the that's the way we've always done it. Well, then time to to wake up and think about the world in a different way.
Finola Howard 27:29
If someone so I'm going to ask you a question, and it's a how to question, how do we cultivate crazy? Well,
Mark Schaefer 27:37
I think that is really the best gift of the book, where I present this framework that's pretty easy to follow. You know, it's only three ideas and and you look at, well, what's, what's, what's marketing, it's, it's presenting a story to the world that hopefully creates some emotional connection between you and and your customer and your potential customers. It creates an emotional expectation. So what is a story? Well, it's the narrative. It's where you tell the story, and it's who tells the story. So this is what, what became apparent to me as I went out and I interviewed all these creative geniuses and sort of distilled What is different here. And what is different is they disrupted one of those elements of the story. They disrupted the narrative by pushing the story in a way that's uncomfortable. Maybe it broke taboos. Maybe it was just weird, you know, maybe it got your attention, because it is just not what you expect. In this kind of industry. They disrupted where you told the story, and it doesn't have to be a big budget sort of activation, but, you know, it tells the story in an unexpected place that goes, Oh, wow, that got my attention, and the last one is disrupting. Who tells the story? And, yeah, today. I mean, we've we've got to be honest here that the people probably don't believe us. They don't believe our companies, they don't believe our advertising. Trust in businesses and advertising and marketing has declined 15 years in a row, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer research. But we do trust each other, and I think the marketing mindset today is, how do we create a story that's so interesting, so worthy, so unmissable, that that our customers and our fans can't wait to tell other people about it. And you know, I'll just mention that. So the cover of my book twist. These ideas, right? So the cover of the book is a first in the world book. It's a QR code. The whole cover is a QR code. And when you hover your phone over the QR code, the cover changes, and it's abstract art inspired by stories in the book. All right, so I've disrupted the story. I've disrupted where the story is told. I've disrupted who's telling the story. It's the book covers telling you the story. And so the book itself is an example of Audacity, of a of this framework that I propose in the book. Like, do
Finola Howard 30:44
you recommend that the people sit down and go and look at those three things and going, how can I disrupt in one of these three areas? I think
Mark Schaefer 30:51
so. Yeah, I really do. I think in different businesses, one might be easier than another. I think you need to do an assessment of of your industry and your and your competitors and and then just sort of brainstorm, what can we, how can we show up in a different way? And it, and it doesn't have to be I mean, the way I end the book is that being audacious, it's not a it's not a stunt. It doesn't have to be loud, it doesn't have to be expensive, but it has to make a difference. And making a difference today in the world of marketing means you are heard. You know, everybody you know listening to us today has a desire to be seen. You want to be seen. They want to be heard. They want to be discovered. And that is really hard today. And this is a way to sort of, you know, set a foot on the path of that journey is, is to do something in a way that that demands attention, that that is not ignored. And, and so I, and this is, and it's already happening, you know, it is, it's, it's, it's, it's been amazing to see how the book has been embraced and how it's sort of igniting, you know, brainstorming and thinking about how, how people and organizations are showing up in new ways. So that's been a lot of fun to see. I
Finola Howard 32:38
remember replying to one of your posts on your blog once, because I had a question, and it's a few years ago, and it was about this whole thing around Instagram reels or tiktoks of, you know, miming to, you know, posing and dancing and all this kind of stuff. And I was like, you know, it really made me uncomfortable. And I was going, it's not really, I wouldn't really get a kick out of it, or whatever. And I remember, and because it's gimmickry to me, so what's the line? And I remember you replying, it's and saying, Well, that's not what people are buying from you. Finola, anyway. So, and I remember because it really landed with me and helped me so in our in our effort to be audacious, we will probably often lean into gimmickry. Also, how do we stop you? Understand where my struggle is here to make sure that we are on brand, not doing it as a mindless task to get more likes or whatever, but actually has value.
Mark Schaefer 33:46
I think you've nailed it on the head. You know, I, I saw a young woman who was posting on social media, and, you know, she, she followed me because she was interested in personal branding. I took a look at some of the stuff that she was doing, and her her posts, you know, I think her job was something like social media consultant or something like that, and her posts were just like, like she was wearing, you know, big, you know, like animal ears on her head, and there were lights in the background, and she was like pounding a drum and but it didn't mean anything, you know, and so It didn't help you discover really who she was or what she did. I think being audacious invites people to to experience you, you know, in a different way. Let's go back to the drone show in a for a moment. You let's so the drone show was. About a sci fi TV series,
Finola Howard 35:04
and
Mark Schaefer 35:07
I actually took a picture of me and my friends standing on the sidewalk outside this restaurant with a drone show in the background. And so I wasn't just experiencing an ad. I was immersed in it. I was immersed in this story. Now you could, you could think up something crazy like this. This story was about robots. Oh, well, what if we had robots that had a pillow fight? What if we had robots that had a food fight. What if we had robots like this lady wearing animal ears, having flashing lights, pounding a drum? Well, it wouldn't mean anything, because it's just loud. It's not it doesn't help you experience the DNA of the brand at the end of the book, I talk about a guy you know, back in the in the 60s and the 70s, and it's still around a little bit today. Every every city in the world had some showman that did something crazy to get attention, you know, you know the boss is away, and we're doing something crazy to sell our cars today, right? Every city had someone like that, and our city had someone like that, and this guy would would jump off the buildings, and he would run through flaming tunnels, and he would wrestle animals and and he became famous, but his business went bankrupt because he became the product. He was a stunt. He it was completely disconnected from his furniture. It was all about him. It wasn't making people curious about his furniture. It wasn't making people curious enough to visit the store. They just wanted to see. You know what this guy was going to do next, because he was so crazy, and eventually, you know he's going to kill himself with these stunts. And so I think whatever you do, it has to be tethered to the foundational ideas about your about your brand,
Finola Howard 37:28
and you have to know them. I like this statement, this word that you said, audacious does not mean loud, because we could fall into that trap very easily. Oh,
Mark Schaefer 37:39
yeah. I mean, I end the book with a with one of my favorite case studies. It's just a beautiful case study. And I think another fun thing about the book is that in many of the chapters, there's little QR codes that lead you to examples, that lead you to you can actually see examples of how this is happening. And the last example in the book is about a little town in in Switzerland that was trying to get people in a busy train station to notice them and stop their busy lives and come visit this little village so they you know. So what would I do? Oh, you might put up a poster, you know, you know, you might have someone handing something out in the train station. Maybe even have someone dress up, right? But this is what they did. They had a kiosk in the train station with a guy from the village live streaming, talking to people in the train station and giving out free tickets to come visit for a for a picnic that day. And it's just a beautiful, lovely thing of a of an authentic human person connecting in a human way to people in a in a train station, and it's, it's, it's, it's unexpected, and it uses technology to lower barriers with humanity, not raise barriers with humanity. And it's quiet, and it's, and it's, it's peaceful, and it's, you know, it's not, it's not loud, it's not expensive, it's not flashy, it's just someone talking to people and having fun with them and just talking to them at a train station. And that's a great example. I think that it doesn't have to be loud, it doesn't have to be crazy, like what happened? You don't have to wrestle animals, you don't have to jump off of buildings, but it does have to make a difference. That's what it's all about. It's making a difference in the world, so that people stop what they're doing in this busy world and just pay attention to us long enough to connect
Finola Howard 39:59
the other. This thing that's interesting to me as well, and I think it's an important message builds on from your last book. And it was this idea of most people lack shared experiences, and this idea of collective effervescence, which you might talk about, and how community is actually the space where we can nurture creativity and bounce around ideas. Can you say more about that? Please,
Mark Schaefer 40:28
that is a big connection between those books. You know, we live in a world where we have record levels of depression, loneliness, isolation, and not just, not just children, just really, almost every generation. You know, people today can consume their entire world through earbuds in their bedroom. You know, they can. They can listen to their favorite music and their favorite TV shows and their favorite movies and podcasts and everything and and they can do it in complete isolation, and that is not the way we are built as human beings. We we need those shared experiences. And you know, a real breakthrough idea for me is this idea that was presented by a social psychologist named Dacher Keltner. He wrote a book called awe, and it unraveled a mystery for me, because it's like, okay, everybody loves to see something that's that inspires awe or makes us feel awe, but how do you do that in marketing? And he talked about this idea called everyday ah, that comes from just bringing people together in a special way. So let's say you're one of those people. You're listening to your favorite music over ear buds, and you know that might be fun, and you might enjoy the music. Now think about going to see a concert of that same artist with your friends, and you're all singing and you're dancing and you're laughing, and that is awe that's called collective effervescence, when you bring people together in this way that inspires awe and joy. Now it's an easy leap from that. So it's not you know, awe can be the Grand Canyon. Awe can be holding a newborn baby. You know, awe can be listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, but not always. It can just be gathering with people in a meaningful new way. Now we have a key to applying this to our businesses. How do we inspire collective effervescence? How do we get people to really immerse themselves in the idea of our brand, to internalize our brand through a shared experience. And I think that is one of the greatest opportunities in the history of marketing. It's right in front of our faces. We love it. We know others love it. Most of us aren't doing it. We're doing the same old stuff we've been doing the last 25 years. What would it mean if the key to our marketing is add more awe? Add more awe. Wouldn't that be something our customers would would love
Finola Howard 43:36
beautiful. Is there anything you'd like else you'd like to leave people with today? Because that's a pretty good one to leave them with. Yeah, but I always ask, What would you like to leave people with today?
Mark Schaefer 43:48
Well, that is a good one. It's one of my it's one of my favorite parts of the book. I think it's really one of the, one of the true breakthrough ideas of the book. And again, it's, it's, it's simple, it's accessible, it's, it doesn't have to be expensive. It's, it certainly doesn't have to be something loud, but it's, it's a massive opportunity and and probably the most important thing, and the overarching theme of the book is that this is something that AI can't touch. It's us. It's something we have to do. It's a uniquely human aspect to our business and to our marketing, and that's the area where we're going to add value going forward.
Finola Howard 44:39
Do you think everybody, every human being on the planet, is capable of adding more awe, because not every human being on the planet believes that they're creative.
Mark Schaefer 44:53
I mean, this is a theme that I hope comes out in all of my books that you. At first of all, I want to thank you. I want to thank you for for reading the book, for being so well prepared, and you've asked me questions I've never been asked before. So that's the sign of a great interview. But you know, I one of the themes of my writing is the most human company wins, right? And I think that still, you know, is, is a persistent, valid idea that every opportunity we have to show our hearts and show our smiles and show our passion and show our compassion, in every interaction we have with customers, potential customers, we're all of our stakeholders, you know, just just look to that. And that is a good leading path to audacity as well.
Finola Howard 45:47
I urge everyone listening to purchase a copy of Mark's amazing book, audacious, how humans win in an AI marketing world, and it'll help you become more human.
Mark Schaefer 45:58
Thank you so much. It's been delighted seeing you. Oh
Finola Howard 46:01
so nice to see you, too. Thank you so much. And that's it for this episode, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. Make sure to connect with Mark on LinkedIn and do check out episode 43 where Mark and I speak about community as the last great marketing strategy. Thank you for listening to your truth shared. And if you enjoyed this episode, make sure to share it with your entrepreneurial friends and help them grow their business to even greater heights. Until next time, let's keep growing. You.
