The slow erosion of meaning from the brands we build and the work we create.

Marketing has been slowly losing its nerve for a while now. Not in some dramatic implosion … more like a house settling wrong. Quiet. Gradual. You don’t notice until the door won’t close anymore.

Somewhere along the way, creativity got flattened into “content.” Content got flattened into output. Output got flattened into deliverables. Brands started acting like software companies. Agencies started promising scale instead of ideas. And a lot of smart people quietly handed their instincts over to dashboards and algorithms, like those things were better listeners.

Somewhere along the way, we forgot that brands aren’t machines. They’re not funnels. They’re not logos waiting for feedback. When they work, when they really work, they feel alive. And anything alive needs a soul, not just a growth chart.

The next few years are going to make this painfully obvious. The brands that last won’t be the ones producing the most AI-generated noise before lunch. They’ll be the ones that actually stand for something. Meaning beats volume. Every time.

“Soul,” unfortunately, has become one of those words people like to embroider on pillows and then ignore. It’s not your tagline, your color palette, or your mission statement from that offsite no one remembers. It’s the conviction underneath all of it … the thing that makes people care, root for you, stick with you even when you’re imperfect. 

People don’t connect to perfection; they connect to humanity. They connect to tension, ambition, conviction, identity, vulnerability, aspiration. They connect to the feeling that a brand stands for something real. A sense that someone on the other side actually believes in what they’re doing.

What kills that soul is usually two things: speed and safety.

Speed is the obvious one. We’re addicted to immediacy: weekly reports, instant performance, constant optimization. When creativity is compressed into timelines that leave no room for insight, emotional intelligence, or the kind of deep listening that makes good work great, we lose the moments where breakthrough ideas are born. The unexpected connections. The uncomfortable conversations. The willingness to walk past the obvious answers in search of the right one. We end up with something that looks like creativity but feels like nothing.

Craft becomes an afterthought. Care becomes optional. Soul becomes collateral damage.

Speed isn’t the only threat. There’s another force quietly draining soul from the work, there’s safety, which is sneakier. Especially when it comes to partners. Safe agencies say the right things, avoid friction, and deliver work that offends no one … which is exactly why no one remembers it. Comfort feels good in the short term. It also quietly murders breakthrough ideas. The cost isn’t what you paid; it’s the risks you never took and the stories you never told.

The antidote isn’t revolutionary. It’s just unfashionable. Real Partnership.

Real partnership ... the kind built on honesty, curiosity, and a willingness to challenge each other. Not transactional politeness, actual collaboration. And a commitment to the long game. Because connection compounds. Trust compounds. Meaning compounds. That’s the moat no competitor can copy.

And, yes, it takes courage. To be different. To tell the truth. To resist the constant pressure to be faster, safer, louder.

The world doesn’t need more content. It needs more meaning. And the one thing that will always remain … the one thing no competitor can copy, no algorithm can manufacture, no shortcut can replace … is soul.

And the brands who honor it, articulate it, and express it with courage will own the future.