Over the past year or so, I’ve noticed something funny happening in organizations. People who never would have opened Photoshop, written a campaign brief or drafted a customer-facing sales piece are now creating “marketing materials” in AI tools and sending them to the marketing team to be cleaned up, branded or finalized.

John Deere had a problem. Their equipment was top-teir, their brand was trusted, and their message was clear. Yet sales to homeowners stayed flat while competitors gained ground.

The issue wasn't the product. It was the assumption that everyone buying a lawn tractor wanted the same thing.

I came across an Instagram ad recently that completely stopped me mid-scroll. I watched it a few times over and realized something interesting: while I could see myself being interested in the product, I was even more drawn in by the entertainment of the ad itself. It was interesting, authentic and full of personality while still showcasing the product perfectly.

It was completely different from the ads I normally scroll past.

Wanted: A senior-level marketing strategist, graphic designer, copywriter, web developer, PR consultant, social media manager, project coordinator, fundraising communicator, SEO specialist, videographer and brand advisor.

Must be available immediately. Must understand our industry. Must not require benefits, onboarding headaches, vacation coverage, payroll taxes or a full-time salary.

Sound impossible?

There's a reason most organizations default to one-size-fits-all messaging: it's efficient. One campaign, one audience, one set of materials. You cover the most ground with the least effort.

And there's a comforting logic to it. More reach should mean more response, right?

But reach isn't resonance.

I’ve been in this business for more than 30 years now, and when you do things for long enough, you identify patterns. Today I want to show you a pattern that I’ve seen continually repeat itself.

A company starts to feel stuck, and their immediate assumption is that they need a marketing overhaul.

Sometimes that means a new website. Sometimes it means more social media, better design, stronger campaigns or an entirely new brand image. More recently, I’ve watched companies try to jerry-rig AI into absolutely everything.

There’s a version of this that happens in almost every organization. A campaign comes together and on paper it looks great. There’s smart strategy and solid tactics. It’s textbook, the kind of campaign that checks every box in the brief. Then it goes out into the world and the response is muted. There’s no clear signal that it moved anyone. 

When Google launched in 1998, search engines were portals — cluttered pages covered in news, weather, links, and ads. Yahoo's homepage alone had over 100 links competing for attention.

Google offered something radical: a logo, a search box, and two buttons. That was it.

The instinct to add more is hard to resist. Read on to learn why more isn't always better. 

Last week, Mrinank Sharma resigned from Anthropic, one of the world's leading artificial intelligence companies. Sharma wasn't a mid-level engineer or a disgruntled employee. He led the company's Safeguards Research Team. His job was to keep AI safe.

In his resignation letter, posted publicly on X, Sharma wrote: "The world is in peril. And not just from AI, or bioweapons, but from a whole series of interconnected crises unfolding in this very moment." He added that throughout his time at Anthropic, he had "repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions." His final project before leaving? Understanding how AI assistants could make us less human.