Is Tomorrow's Marketing for Humans or Bots (539)?

This week on This Old Marketing, Joe and Robert dig into a very strange new reality for marketers: the next audience may not be human.

First, Anthropic's Fable and Mythos models get caught in the middle of U.S. export controls, raising a huge question for any company building on AI platforms. Then OpenAI reportedly floats the idea of giving the U.S. government a five percent stake in the company. Is AI becoming national infrastructure? And if so, what does that mean for marketers building on someone else's platform?

Next, the boys look at the big takeaways from Cannes Lions, where creators, talent agencies, retail media, sports, and AI took center stage. The ad business is still talking about creativity, but the power seems to be moving toward those who own trust, audience, commerce, and distribution.

From there, Joe and Robert discuss new research showing that AI search citations do not line up neatly with traditional Google rankings. In other words, winning SEO may not mean winning AI search. The game is shifting from ranking to being cited.

Finally, they break down the rise of AI agents as web visitors. If bots are now browsing, comparing, filtering, and buying on behalf of humans, then websites, content, and marketing strategy all need to be rethought. Your next customer may not visit your website. Their agent might.

In Marketing Winners, Robert loves Kraft jumping on the World Cup ranch dressing craze with its TSA-compliant ranch idea. Sometimes the best marketing comes from simply paying attention and moving fast.

In Rants and Raves, Joe raves about Stella Artois' World Cup activation and the brand's push to make the bar the true home of the World Cup experience. Joe also shares his personal rave from his World Cup trip to Kansas City. Robert closes with a rant on the latest AI music controversies, from synthetic artists to royalties, labeling, and what happens when human creativity gets buried under machine-made volume.

Subscribe and Follow: Follow Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose on LinkedIn for insights, hot takes, and weekly updates from the world of content and marketing. 

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This week's sponsor: Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data?