When marketing lost its soul, the best brands didn’t panic. They got curious, slower, a little weirder. That’s where the real traction lives now.

For the ones building brands with heart, brains, and just enough weird to feel alive again.

(file this under: founders rediscovering their humanity in Q4)

Every Monday this fall, a few friends and I meet in this absurdly cinematic park near my house. I’m talking about swans, old columns, water fountains… you’ve got the scene.

We even have a WhatsApp group called Fall Walks in the Park where we track the trees changing week by week.

It’s our ritual: walking, talking, watching nature do change quietly, gracefully, on her own timeline.

And every time I leave that park, I think: the internet could never.

Because online, everything’s trying too hard.
The tone’s too polished, the rhythm too rehearsed.
Somewhere between the funnels and the filters, marketing forgot how to blush.

But lately? I’m seeing something shift.

The smartest founders & brands I know aren’t chasing the next hack.
They’re getting weird again…letting the cracks show, storytelling, leading with heart, writing like real people who sometimes spill coffee on their keyboards.

And the best part?
It’s working.

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Welcome to the Attention Apocalypse

We were raised in the religion of “post more, sell more.”
We were told the algorithm was a god we had to appease with carousels and reels.

But radically quiet founders are rewriting the rulebook.

They’re learning that reach without resonance is just noise in heels.
They’re realizing that the most magnetic brands: the ones people feel & pay attention to belong to founders who aren’t afraid to sound like themselves again.

So here’s the heresy:
You don’t have to sound perfect to sell.
You just have to sound true.

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The Algorithm Isn’t Evil—It’s Just Bored

The problem isn’t that AI is taking over.
It’s that too many humans are starting to sound like it.

Perfect cadence. No pulse.
But when a founder posts something alive, messy, curious, (gasp*) human….people stop scrolling like they just saw color for the first time.

Because the human touch feels rebellious now.
A typo, a tangent, an honest story that rambles on is proof there’s still a pulse behind the post.

Automation killed novelty.
Humanity and yes, weirdness is brining it back & thank Gawd, right?!

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The Next Marketing Moat: Emotional Intelligence

You can’t out-post the internet.
But you can out-feel it.

The beauty and wellness industry runs on feeling. Always has.
People don’t buy a serum. They buy how they imagine their skin will feel under morning light.
They don’t book the retreat for the itinerary they book it for the exhale they can already picture having there.

Every purchase is a nervous system decision disguised as a business one.

The founders thriving right now understand that. They know energy is strategy.
That your tone, timing, and pacing matter more than any hashtag ever could.
That your calm sells your credibility more than your copy does.

You can have flawless branding, luxury packaging, and still repel buyers if your energy says, “I haven’t exhaled since 2021.”

Because in beauty and wellness, your audience doesn’t want your hustle. They want your regulated presence.
They want to feel what you feel.

If you’re grounded, they trust you.
If you’re rushing, they retreat.
If you’re at peace, they’re persuaded before they even know why.

So no — you don’t need another content system.
You need a nervous system.

That’s the shift.
From output → aura.
From consistency → coherence.

Because in an industry built on feeling, your energy isn’t a nice-to-have.
It’s the product.

We don’t need louder founders.
We need regulated ones.

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Your Humanity Is a Feature, Not a Flaw

You are the algorithm’s worst nightmare:
Unpredictable. Emotional. Deeply specific.

You cry in meetings.
You change direction mid-launch because something felt off.
You write captions like diary entries—and somehow, they convert.

That’s not unprofessional.
That’s intuitive marketing.

If your weirdness is grounded in care, it doesn’t confuse your audience, it connects them to you.
You don’t have to shock people to stand out; you just have to stop sanding down every edge.

Your audience doesn’t want a brand that’s flawless.
They want one that feels familiar.

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We Optimized Everything but Meaning

Automation was supposed to free us to create.
Instead, we used it to make more stuff.

We turned content into a production line, and now everyone’s exhausted and no one’s inspired.

But the quiet rebellion happening under the noise?
Founders are remembering that people buy texture.

They buy the scent of your studio candles, the handwriting on your thank-you notes, the way your captions sound like late-night voice notes.

That’s the new luxury: attention that feels human.

So if you’re a big-hearted founder who actually cares about your work, your clients, your impact—this is your moment.
The world is finally ready for your kind of marketing: thoughtful, sensory, slightly weird, deeply felt.

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Back to the Park…..

Every fall there’s a week when the trees stop trying to keep it together.
They just let go….bold, messy, unapologetic.
Not collapse. Design.

Maybe your business needs that wind, too.
Not to disappear, but to make room.
To drop the polished posts that said nothing.
To drop the ideas that don’t fit anymore.
To drop the need to prove you’re still “crushing it.”

Because the brands that last?
They’re built by founders who let themselves evolve in public: BTS, awkwardly, beautifully, weirdly.

Let the algorithm chase reach.
You build resonance. It has lasting ROI.

One smells like hype.
The other smells like home.

And in a world obsessed with optimizing everything, your weird, human energy might just be the last thing money can’t manufacture.

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Because that’s what this moment demands of us — not more noise, but more nerve.
Not bigger audiences, but deeper ones.
To stop performing and start resonating.
To remember that the most magnetic thing you can be online is still unmistakably, unapologetically human.

So I’ll leave you with this:
What does “building like a human” look like for you right now?

If this cracked something open, if you’re craving marketing that feels soulful, strategic, and a little bit spiky — I write about it here every week.

Postcards from a Strategy House is for founders building brands that breathe, sell, and still feel like them.