When thinking about human-centric marketing, we can think about how most people personify things.
We give our pets personalities, talk to our cars, and even name our plants. We love seeing a bit of ourselves in the things we care about.
That’s why the best brands involve real people in their marketing. Sometimes that involvement is a charismatic leader like Steve Jobs was for Apple. At other times it’s a celebrity endorsement or a social media influencer for a product.
Have you ever watched a video, heard a catchy song, or seen a beautiful building and thought, “wow, that’s really creative?” At the center of all that is human-centric creativity.
Unfortunately, low-quality AI generated content is flooding the marketplace. Yes, it’s faster and cheaper to create images, video, voice, and written works using AI but is it authentic? Brands that depend solely on AI-generated content risk blending in with everyone else. A quality brand stands out.
While we believe AI can be a powerful too, at our core is creativity and we believe it’s important to produce works and develop creative material that’s human-centric.
Here’s some things you can do to stay human-centric as the rest of the world pivots to AI-generated slop.
- Show yourself and your team as being front-and-center of your brand. We do this all of the time with social media posts, blogs, and other marketing we do for ourselves, as well as advise our clients to do the same. The analytics tell the story, content that features real people does the best. People want to relate to other people. It doesn’t have to be professionally created content. Simple iPhone videos or personal stories from your founder can work wonderfully.
Creative video content helps our client Farmhouse Printing reinforce their values of community and customer service by showcasing their staff. - Lead with lived experience and tell stories that involve real people and real situations. We had (past tense) a client who insisted on having us load up their website with AI-generated fitness articles for their blog. They insisted that it was just too convenient not to spam their website with “listicles”. The numbers showed that no one was reading the articles and the reason being that none of them featured people. Fitness is all about people, not lists. AI doesn’t have experiences, it just knows how to crank out words – even if they aren’t relevant. Always be telling a story.
For example, instead of “5 ways to boost engagement,” try “How I doubled a client’s engagement in 2 weeks (and the mistake I almost made).” - Get feedback from real people. It’s okay to use AI to spell-check and proofread, but AI isn’t a person and won’t give you an honest opinion about the quality and creativity of what you’ve created. In fact, OpenAI (the makers of ChatGPT) recently admitted that their AI was giving users too much flattery and they changed the system for ChatGPT 4o. When you want to see how well brand messaging resonates with people, use real people not digital twins.
- Lean into your humanity. Humans aren’t perfect robots spouting off the perfect statistics all the time. Use humor, something offbeat, or even pop culture to tie into your own marketing. Make it fun and relatable. Talk about your mistakes and your journey. People are attracted to that! It’s real.
Creative video content helps our client Farmhouse Printing reinforce their values of community and customer service by showcasing their staff.In short, keep your brand personal.
Ready to cut through the AI clutter and build a brand that actually connects? Let’s create content that feels human, tells real stories, and resonates with the people you’re trying to reach.
Reach out today– your audience is waiting!
