The Future of Marketing Is More Human Than Ever

0:08Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tapeaket marketing podcast. This is Jon Jansson. My guest today is Carlos Gill. He's a global marketing leader and author. He's a U.S. brand evangelist at GetResponse with over a decade of experience helping brands thrive in the digital age. He's also known for his bold results-driven strategies and insights on leveraging AI, social media, and email marketing to drive growth and engagement. Today, we're going going to talk about his latest book, The End of Marketing, Humanizing Your Brand in the Age of Social Media. So Carlos, welcome to the show.

0:44It's great to be here on the show, John. Thanks for having me. Wait, marketing is over? It's not just evolving? Like it's the end? What do you mean by the end? The end is just that. Look, you know, the first line of the end of marketing, it's real provocative. The title itself is intended to be a provocative, engaging title to reel people in. And the first line of the book, not to spoil it for anyone, because I hope you go and buy it, but it's marketing as we know it is dead. Right. And like, that's the caveat that as we know it. And I say this because I, myself being millennial, right. I've been around now for multiple decades and generations.

1:19I've been able to see this kind of shift throughout my lifetime from once not having digital technology to having digital to having the web to now everywhere we turn, we're seemingly connected. And there's this just friction between brands and consumers. And I know we're going to talk about the books. I don't want to give too much away early on, but the whole premise of the end of marketing is that brands want to be able to rise above all the digital noise that's existing today. They need to become more human. And look, to be transparent with you, I wrote this book in 2019, came out in 2019, the very end, this was before COVID.

1:57I then sat down and wrote the second edition during COVID in 2021, the second edition came out. And I have folks that reach out to me through social media just about every single day, John. And they say like, wow, like you predict what was going to happen, especially with like the whole AI piece, because I would say then the marketing speaks more so today to a 2025 reader, honestly, than in 2019 when I wrote it. You know, I think though that that's actually, I mean, I've been around a little longer than you, Carlos. So I've been doing this a little longer. And so I've seen these ups and bounds.

2:32And I mean, people have kind of used this idea of the end of marketing numerous times because anytime something really changes, they're like, oh, the old way is dead. So I 100 % agree. It's changing faster than ever. This idea of all the AI is creating more sameness and more noise than ever before. So touch a little bit more on this idea. I've been really preaching lately that I think branding or brands are going to become more important than ever. You use the word humanizing brands. How does a business need to be looking at that today? Look, when I wrote The Under Marketing, one of my inspirations behind the whole thesis, which is that if brands want to survive this AI apocalypse that we are right now in.

3:21Whether you want to accept it or not, yes, it's still the early days of AI, but what does that really mean? AI is evolving really fast. So early days of AI might mean that a year from now, everything that you know about business just completely flipped upside down on its head. So when I wrote this book, I started thinking about what's the competitive advantage from a marketing standpoint for any business or any brand, and that's relationships. And I know this, having worked previously on the inside of brands leading social media, having previously worked for LinkedIn, being a social network that you can't really scale or automate relationships.

4:01So when you think about what AI is able to do, yes, AI can write copy for you. A lot of the AI that we refer to as more so language models, such as chat GBT. So yes, AI can write website copy and social media copy, and it can operate a lot faster than a human being. Great. I love it. But at the end of the day, is it as effective as a human behind the controls? I think that's TBD. What I can tell you that AI cannot do is automate relationships between humans. That's like a core theme of the book. The core theme is just that. At the end of the day, whether you use technology to help you do your job or not, a relationship means a lot.

4:46And especially in this era that we're in, where I fully believe by 2030, the value of a relationship, I'm not talking about social media follower. I'm talking about a real relationship, being able to hop on a webcast, do something like this with you, connect people, sit down, have human to human interaction, there's going to be an immense premium on that experience. And for brands, in order to stand out, you can't automate that. So how do you stay competitive when you're a multi-billion dollar brand and you're looking to stay competitive within your own category? Well, it's simple, right? You've got influencers, right?

5:23That is one solution. But influencers, as I write in marketing, they're really just a band-aid. They're a temporary solution, You hire an influencer, they promote your brand, you see a little temporary bump in traffic to your website. It looks good. But when that influencer goes away, they take their following with them. So in order to sustain that success, you need to start making people the faces of your company. And ironically, the role that I'm doing now, what I've been doing with GetResponse for the last year, GetResponse being an email service provider that was created in the late 90s, is they brought me on board to serve in this brand evangelist role.

6:02It really was that me. So I wear multiple hats, right? Internally, I'm a marketing strategist, thought leader within the brand, but on the outside, I'm doing this. I'm on podcasts. I'm a company spokesperson. I'm speaking on behalf of the company at events. I just came back from South by Southwest. I was on the scene creating video content. This, what you're kind of seeing in action through myself is honestly, John, like the perfect bow to put on my own book that I wrote, The End of Marketing, because I'm living it. I'm doing it. I'm showing other organizations out there. This is how you humanize your brand through people.

6:41It's not always hiring influencers. It's having a really strong and effective employee advocacy strategy. It's training your employees to really humanize your brand through their own content. And then it's also going out and finding individuals that can embody your brand and bringing them within, whether it's hiring an influencer in-house, right, to work for you for a year, whether it's hiring someone like myself to go out and create content on your behalf. It puts a human face and voice on the company. And I tell you what, this, I believe, is the new wave going forward for brand marketers and the smart ones that figure out that balance of how to still sell, how to still market, but doing it in a way that feels authentic.

7:22you're doing it through a real human being, those are the ones that are going to stand out. Otherwise, I really believe you're going to start seeing a lot of companies start scaling back on social, start even scaling back their digital presence because, and you've got AI that now is able to operate faster, move more lean, create content for you. And that in itself creates a real challenge for brand marketers. You know, I'm seeing actually there's this whole kind of AI is going to replace people, you know, kind of a meme that's out there very wide. And there's no question it's replacing functions.

7:59But I actually had someone on the show the other day that has created an AI tool. And they said that what it's actually doing is they're using AI to do a lot of, I don't know, let's call it grunt work that people used to have to spend their time to do. And it's actually freeing their people up to do more relationships and to spend more time, just meeting with people over lunch or whatever it might be. And I think that that's actually the way, the smart way that people are going to invest in their people is to not look at this as like, oh, we can go down to two people now because we can have AI do all this.

8:32It's like, no, we can actually realign or refocus what our people actually do that is going to establish this brand as a different standout brand. Yeah. Look, 100%. I have a love-hate relationship with AI. I use AI throughout my day. But what I will say is that it's very easy as a marketing professional to become reliant on AI to the point where it almost makes it hard for you to think for yourself. And that is the slope of all this technology, right? You become super reliant on it. And then ChatGPT goes down. It's like, oh my God, I forgot how to write. It literally becomes like that. So what I always say is like, look, you need to find ways to make AI, your trusted assistant.

9:16Historically, you have a marketing agency that you work with. You lean on them to write your social media ad copy. You lean on them to help you ideate. You have to build a relationship. You're using chat GPT, right? You have to build a relationship with your chat GPT. There's no other way around it. I have now spent a couple of years in nesting and refining. But what I will say is the way that I use AI helps me actually be much more creative because I know now that I have a trusted companion within ChatGVT that if I'm, for example, in an airport and an idea comes to my mind, I can speak into my phone and I can get real-time feedback.

9:55I can help ideate with the help of AI without having to call someone, without having to pay an agency. So there's that aspect of it that I believe has its good. But then there's the other aspect of it that if you rely so much on AI to do all the heavy lifting, all the grunt work, as you call it, or the menial tasks, now you are removing the human element out of things like copywriting or even writing an email or a text message. Like, it's crazy. I see people all the time now. I'm on airplanes a lot. And they're writing a text message and they go over to ChatGPT to almost like copy edit the text.

10:34And then they go back. It's like, my goodness. Like this is going to continue to create this friction, as I like to call it, between humans and technology. Imagine we have an entire generation that that's all they know. Well, like imagine what's really scary is imagine you and I not even have to record a podcast because there's so much content of you and there's so much content in me over the years. The AI knows my face and my voice and it could just recreate this conversation like it exists right now. There's people are doing it. AI conversational platforms that you can record 15 seconds of your voice and it will just record a podcast for you.

11:10It's insane what it can do. And that's great. We're going to continue to see that. I firmly believe that we're entering an era where there'll be bestselling books written by AI, top podcasts on Spotify that are created by AI. There's going to be new billionaires are created. There will be new billionaires created because of AI, because of systems. My whole point here, though, is don't lose sight of human to human relationships. Like that will always outweigh what technology can do. And the reason for that is because, you know, this is like just old school business, right? It's like, I'm going to speak right now that the Gen Zers out there that are listening or watching, like business has always been predicated based on who you like, trust and relate to.

11:54So if you like someone, you have a higher likelihood to do business with them. You trust them. If you relate to them, you want to do business with people that you like, trust and relate to. And I'm sorry, in an AI driven world where it's really noisy, yes, it becomes challenging to sift through that noise. But inevitably, if you're able to connect with people, IRL, or you're able to connect with people online and wean out the AI element of that relationship, like, yeah, man, it's just old school business 101. You know, a lot of times people, I think everybody gets that, you know, that idea of be more human, be more human.

12:32But this sounds really silly, but I have a lot of people who are like, well, how do you do that? You know, how do you, how do you communicate that? And I, and I think the real thing that AI doesn't do is it can't make up a story that only I know never will, you know, right. So storytelling vulnerability, I don't see too much AI kind of saying, look, I made this mistake and here's what I learned from it. So, I mean, I think some of those things, those elements need to be in our marketing to kind of show or communicate to human that's something. Absolutely. And look like the other element of this that I want to reel, and it's something I'm very passionate about right now, is this whole notion of owning your data, right?

13:07Like AI aside, AI is great from an operational standpoint, but we are living right now in this just noisy digital ecosystem. And I write about this in the book. I talk about this when I'm on stage. I take it you've seen the movie Cast Away, John? Oh, yeah, sure. It's one of my favorite movies of all time. And anyone that follows my work, whether you read it or you read a podcast like this, or you see me speak on stage, I always make analogies. I'm like, what kind of has helped me as a marketer define my voice in this whole space is I'm not a textbook marketer. I'm one of these guys that I've been in the trenches.

13:41I've done the work. I've worked in corporate. I've started businesses and I learned and then I go out and teach and I use a lot of analogies. So my point of where I'm going with this is that in the movie Cast Away, Tom Hanks is stranded on this island. And throughout the movie, he's talking to a volleyball named Wilson. And I often use this comparison that we as digital marketers are the equivalent of Tom Hanks speaking to a volleyball. We produce all this content. We spend all this time in the lab making videos, making shorts, making reels, writing blogs. And if no one consumes them, no one's listening, then that is the equivalent of Tom Hanks speaking to Wilson.

14:15So you have all this noise that's taking place every single day. And it's not just brands competing against other brands. Like way back in the day, I used to run social media for a brand named Winn-Dixie, a supermarket chain here in Florida. And the primary competitors was Publix and Walmart and Albertsons and a couple other stores. Well, nowadays, if you're a supermarket chain, just using this example, you're not competing against supermarkets who are talking about food. You're competing against bloggers or vloggers. You're competing against influencers, cooks. You're competing against anyone that's in your category that's taking market share away from your brand, which is why I go back to the basis of relationships be important.

14:54And one of my passionate topics right now in this era that we're in is this notion that you need to own your data. You cannot rely on these social networks to give you reach. You cannot rely on the little breadcrumbs that Meta or Instagram give you. You just can't. We recently saw TikTok go through a very scary situation where they were temporarily banned. And that, I believe, should be a wake up call to every single business, every single creator, influencer, anyone who's relying on these technologies to grow and promote their business. You cannot rely on them. You need to use them for reach.

15:29You need to use them to create awareness for your business. But inevitably, you need to be taking those relationships, i.e. those followers, you can move them over into systems and platforms like email. You need to own data and you cannot be reliant because unfortunately, when you do become reliant on these systems, you are just putting too much control in their hands. Yeah, you know, it used to be, I mean, when, I don't know, let's say 2005, 2006 or so, when social media started popping on the scene, it was very much seen as a top of the funnel. Like, here's how to get reach, here's how to get exposure, here's how to get seen.

16:04But you got to drive people back, you know, to the property of your own. Mainly, we tried to drive people back to our websites, right? We'd post our blog and say, here, come read my blog here. Well, now a lot of those platforms don't ever want you to leave. And so you get penalized for doing any of that kind of drive people back. And another thing I'm seeing happen is on TikTok, you're seeing entire journey or entire funnel happening on TikTok. It's no longer just top of the funnel. People are actually transacting. So how do people kind of balance that idea that I now need to be more places with a full range of content as well as, I 100 % agree, own your own data?

16:51I've been saying this, John, since probably about 2015 when I started speaking. I go back and I look at some of my earlier content. I'm like, man, I've been saying the same thing for a decade now. And one of the key terms I have said to folks, and this goes back to when I worked in corporate marketing running socials, have an omni-channel presence. Don't be married to one platform. Use these platforms the way that they use you. And I'll just tell you, as someone that has spent a lot of time in these platforms, as a user and, again, having worked for a major social network, these social networks, at the end of the day, they all do the same thing.

17:27They're all digital advertising platforms. And I think this is something that's lost upon the majority of creators. Because again, like think of it, your average business owner, your average influencers using platforms, they're just trying to get rich. They're trying to continue to build a community, get followers. The name of the game would not be to get followers. Your objective as a business needs to be to generate more revenue, right? Followers, it's a vanity metric, right? Like you know that you've worked in the industry for a very long time as well. So I always am constantly preaching this.

17:58Use these platforms the same way they use you. The way they use you is they're using you because you're creating content, keeping people on the platforms. And as long as you're keeping people on the platforms, they're selling more ads and they're making more money, right? Like they are in the business of making money. That's what these social networks do. And again, let's throw Google under the bus too. I mean, that's what Google's, you know. Yeah, it doesn't make them bad. Like by any means, like if anyone from Google or LinkedIn or better, any of these platforms are listening or watching, like this doesn't make them bad.

18:26It's just understanding the game. Like these are businesses. So if I am running a business, I always use this analogy again, going back to the analogy. If I, for example, am running, let's just say a flea market, right? We all know what a flea market is. You cannot walk into my flea market and set up a table and sell without paying a hundred bucks to the owner of the flea market to rent for a day. If you're a barber, you can't go to a barbershop and cut hair and not expect to give the owner his or her cut. That's just business. Social media networks operate the same exact way. And again, it doesn't make them bad.

19:02You just have to understand the rules of the game. And normally when I do my talks, I have like, sorry, I have this slide behind me and it has like a casino and like Zuckerberg's face in front of it. And I always say like, look at Meta, for example, and like they are a form of a casino because they'll give you a low dopamine. They'll let you win here and there in the form of a viral video or your post might reach more than a 1 % of your following audience, but they're not going to let you win all the time. They're not going to let you do it for free. You have to pay to play inevitably. And again, I love this space.

19:37I know we've talked about AI and we're trying to get as much in in the time that we're together. I just love this space, man. I've worked in social media professionally since 08. I got onto social media in 1995 back then when I was 12 and it was known as AOL. I have grown up evolving with this in my life. I've made a lot of money as an entrepreneur using it. I've made a lot of money as a creator using it. I've helped businesses make a lot of money using these tools. I love them. They're great. However, where I do keep it 100 as a thought leader and speaker in this space is what I've already said.

20:14And I'll repeat it one more time if it's cool. you cannot rely on these networks alone. You have to have an omni-channel strategy. And that means go wide, have a presence on multiple platforms, build a community within those platforms. Don't just rinse and repeat your content because now you're not giving people an incentive to go follow you in different channels. And most importantly, you need to find ways to own your data, which is pretty simple. Start up a newsletter, right? Get a response, sign up, get a newsletter. And then as you're creating content that people enjoy seeing, remind them, hey, if you want to see more of this, if you want to be a part of my insider circle, my club, my mastermind, however you frame it, now you have a solution to give people that you are.

20:55You don't have to rely on the algorithms. Yeah. And just another practical nod to that idea is that a lot of times people have to bump into you in about five places before they start paying attention. So it's the old, I got to hear your message or see your sign or whatever it is multiple times before I'm really going to start tuning in. Carlos, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Where would you invite people to find, to connect with you first off, but then find out more about the end of marketing? Yeah, for sure. So once again, John, thank you so much for having me on your podcast today.

21:29It has been a pleasure. You can learn about the end of marketing by going to Amazon. Just look up end of marketing. There's the first and second edition. Also, I want to call out GetResponse. Shout out GetResponse. Go to GetResponse.com. You can sign up for a free trial there. If you have any questions with regards to setting up a newsletter, email marketing, please be sure to reach out to me. You can connect with me on all the socials, CarlosGill83. LinkedIn is my go-to platform of choice. So if you want, you can connect on me there. But I love Instagram. I love TikTok. I love Facebook. I am a proponent of, look, let's get to know each other.

22:02LinkedIn is great, but you're only going to get to know so much about me and me of you on LinkedIn. It's a professional social network at the end of the day. so if you're on instagram look me up at carloskill83 let me know that you heard this episode of the duct tape podcast and any way that can help you out just let me know i'm here i got you awesome i appreciate it carlos and hopefully we'll run into you on one of these days out there on the road all right john i appreciate you