This Old Marketing - Content Marketing News with Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose

This week Robert flies solo (Joe’s busy revolutionizing dairy on the blockchain) to ask a question: 

What if slower is the new smarter?

After riffing on OpenAI’s burnout‑induced shutdown, he unveils a sneak peek of his upcoming book, Valuable Friction. From Netflix’s “Skip Intro” button to AI‑generated sameness, Robert shows how our obsession with frictionless everything is draining the meaning out of marketing...and life.

Tune in ...

After a quick cover of the Cloudflare news where it will be possible to select and make money from AI companies crawling your site, Joe and Robert dive into marketing plan B.

Specifically - 

The New Normal: Why Everyone Needs a Personal Brand (Even If You’re Not Selling Anything)

The collapse of the idea that a job = stability.
From creators to CMOs: why everyone needs visibility.
The difference between self-promotion and self-pres...

AI hits the headlines again. Anthropic wins a lawsuit for its training data procedures, but the judge leaves room for additional lawsuits. In the greater scheme, will any of the lawsuits really matter?

John Oliver's AI Slop video is "must-see-TV" and AI content continues to become a bigger part of our lives in content creation and marketing. What do we need to do?

And Zohran Mamdani wins the Democratic nomination for mayor in New Y...

Huge research uncovers the obvious. Television and "traditional media" is going obsolete, as social media revenues and watch/listen time dominates. It is indeed the end of the living room. The boys review reports from WPP and NiemenLab.

In marketing winners, Terry Moran launches a substack after being fired. But shouldn't he have had one already? Contractual reasons aside, the boys detail a marketing/creator survival plan that's no...

Joe and Robert break down Mary Meeker's "Future of AI" report and discuss the biggest opportunities and threats for marketers and creators in the future.

Disney sues Midjourney in yet another lawsuit against AI companies. When will it stop and why should we care?

And Meta invests $15 billion more in AI, trying to catch up in the AI race.

In winners and losers, Joe discusses how to get found in AI searches and Robert talks about the...

Did someone say McDonald's is bringing back snack wraps?

In other news, who knew that artificial intelligence would force brands and publishers toward an indie-creator model? If Google AI is undermining journalism, perhaps the way out is through the individual human creator.

In another AI scandal, Builder.ai collapses, even with a large sum of money invested by Microsoft.

And Netflix adds advertising to its IP. Good decision?

Winne...

AI is again in the headlines this week with Anthropic announcing that its AI will do anything to survive...even bust you for cheating on your wife.

AI layoffs are starting to hit home. It's almost to the point that people are being laid off "by" AI itself. Joe and Robert uncover the truth.

Rand Fishkin discusses 10 ways to understand no-click search...and it's mostly stuff we can actually do.

And long live print, as Microsoft launc...

Google's big marketing event was an explosion of AI - a new home screen, more agents, AI video and even smart bidding. Why? Google's main revenue stream (search ads) is in big trouble. 

Is Google going the way of the yellow pages? The boys ponder.

And Apple is in trouble too. OpenAI buys IO, run by the designer behind the iPhone. It seems that OpenAI is going into the hardware business, with their sights directly on Apple.

In other...

The boys have finally jumped the shark with this episode.

But first, Mark Zuckerberg declares war on the advertising industry. Meta's AI Do-It-Yourself tool will either win big or be fly by night. There is no middle ground.

The BBC will push its mission and content into TikTok and Instagram. But is it too late to fight disinformation?

Max becomes HBO Max (again). It will be just HBO in 15 to 18 months.

Marketing winners are Nutter ...

Buckle up! AI is driving now.

Zuckerberg at Meta AI doubles down on their cure for loneliness and more friends, but have taken out any sort of safety precautions. We need to be worried. Very worried.

Trump wants to tariff the movie business. Tell me exactly how that would work please?

And Virginia signs a social media scrolling reduction that won't reduce scrolling.

Winners and losers include LEGO and Warren Buffett.

Rants and rave...

Special episode breaking down the state of content creators, content entrepreneurs and how marketers fit in. Including:

• The Rise of Creators in 2025
• Renting vs. Owning
• The TikTok Effect
• Community as Currency
• Revenue Mix
• How to Get Rich as a Creator

Here's a link to the complete study.

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This week's sponsor:

You don't become the world’s most valuable women's sports franchise by accident.

As Tariffs hang over the US Advertising industry, more companies start to look internal. That means internal communications, internal influencers, owned media and more. Could Trump's Tariffs be a boon for content marketers?

Google loses their online advertising monopoly case. The boys put on their prediction hats to let you know what will happen.

A judge has blocked the termination of VOA. But is it too late? Joe thinks it is.

And ...

The boys are back with news that OpenAI (led by Sam Altman) is considering a social media platform that may compete with Elon's Twitter/X. Let's face it...we know what this is really about. Joe and Robert bring it home for you.

META's big lawsuit with the FTC gets started. Did Zuckerberg grease the skids enough to get this one through?

Creator Economy jobs (aka content marketing) are up, up, up. Why is that?

And the top Gen AI use ...

Has AI finally killed search? Does Google even matter anymore? Must we now build our content on rented land?

The boys go through each of these questions and talk about if "do not build your house on rented land" is still a thing.

In other news, the TikTok deal is delayed (again).

In marketing winners and losers, Joe takes on the Catholic church while Robert gushes over Duolingo.

Rants and raves includes London's takedown of Leon, w...

Possibly our dumbest episode yet.

Joe and Robert go deep into the dumbery to try to make sense of an incredibly weird (and dumb) week.

TikTok is for sale. No it's not. Maybe it is. Will we know this week?

Elon Musk merges his two companies into one, creating the dumbest valuation in the history of corporate mergers.

And META's AI steals a bunch of copyrighted books. Heck, they've probably already stolen this podcast.

Marketing lose...

A very special episode on what makes a successful content marketer or content creator. Robert and Joe talk about what works today to successfully build and monetize an audience with these five keys.

1. For marketers, setting a clear goal up front - sales, savings or sunshine and then find a measurement tool that aligns with current corporate measurement. From the creator side, what's my goal? You exit at the beginning.

2. What's t...

New data suggests that advertising growth is slowing. Overall marketing is soon to follow. Will the current political environment drive us into a marketing recession?

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei proclaims that AI will take over all coding in the next year. Robert takes offense and the boys talk about the reasons these types of proclamations are made.

And is AI slop a brute force attack on the major platforms? The point? AI content i...

The boys are back and the buys are heating up.

Food-delivery startup Wonder purchased Tastemade, now boasting content creation to meal preparation to delivery all in one. Is more on the way? We think so.

Spotify paid $5 billion dollars to indie creators last year. Is it better to go outside the labels than sign with a big agency?

And Unilever ups their social media budget to 30 to 50 percent of total marketing budget...all for targ...