According to Andrew Wrobel, the modern consumer is evolving, moving beyond the role of a static audience to become a work in progress. This shift necessitates a change in how brands connect with people. The article suggests that brands should resist the urge to position themselves as life coaches or therapists.
Traditional marketing models relied on segmenting consumers into fixed types—the parent, the commuter, or the professional—a process that was effective for decades. However, contemporary life is characterized by shifting careers, reassembling families, and testing identities across multiple platforms. Consequently, the consumer is better understood as a draft in development, rather than a stable demographic.
Many brands risk misinterpreting this trend, attempting to mask a lack of depth with superficial initiatives like purpose-driven films or basic AI-driven personalization. The analysis argues that such performative purpose is insufficient. Instead, lasting relevance is found when a brand facilitates personal development.
Successful models, such as those used by fitness or language learning applications, succeed because they contribute to the user’s capability or identity, rather than solely pushing a transaction. The author cautions that while AI offers potential for democratizing personalized support, it also risks creating an “industrial quantity of false intimacy.” A relevant brand must therefore exercise restraint, knowing when to guide and when to remain unobtrusive. The core challenge for any organization, as Andrew Wrobel suggests, is to determine if their engagement makes customers more likely to buy, or if it better equips them to act, learn, choose, and change.
For a brand to matter today, it must focus on reducing friction and expanding user agency.
Topics: #brand #not #andrew
