That Time I Learned Your Brand Strategy is Probably Making Everyone Sad (Including You)

Look, I'm just going to say it: Your marketing sucks and you know it.

Not because you're bad at your job. Not because you didn't hire the right agency or use the right tools or post at the optimal time according to some AI that's definitely lying to you.

Your marketing sucks because somewhere along the way, you forgot that humans exist.

I know, I know. Revolutionary concept. But hear me out.

The Nike Storyteller Who Makes Healthcare Feel Like Something

This week I sat down with Gina Clementi—brand strategist, founder of Good Story, and someone who's spent serious time making Nike and Providence Healthcare actually give a damn about people. And she said something that made me want to flip a table (in a good way):

"We've optimized ourselves into irrelevance."

Oof. Right in the business model.

Here's what's happening: You're drowning in data. Customer surveys. Engagement metrics. Click-through rates. Conversion funnels. And somehow, with ALL of that information, you still don't actually know your customers.

You know what pages they visit. You don't know what keeps them up at night.

You know their job titles. You don't know their dreams.

You know their pain points (allegedly). You don't know their actual pain.

The Algorithm Isn't Going to Save You (Sorry)

Gina dropped this gem that should be tattooed on every CMO's forehead:

Surveys tell you what people think you want to hear. Real connection tells you what they're too scared to admit.

Want to know the secret sauce behind Nike's cult-like following? It's not the swoosh. It's not the celebrity endorsements. It's that they bothered to understand what their customers were actually trying to become—not just what shoes they were trying to buy.

Healthcare? Same thing. People don't want "patient-centered care" (whatever that means). They want someone to see them as a human in their most vulnerable moments, not as a billing code with legs.

Your Community Isn't a Newsletter Subscriber List

Here's where it gets spicy.

You think you're building community by having a Slack channel or hosting webinars. That's not community. That's an audience. Maybe.

Real community—the kind that turns casual users into ride-or-die advocates—requires something most B2B companies are absolutely terrified of:

Vulnerability.

Yeah, I said it. In your pristine, professionally-optimized, legally-approved marketing presence, you need to be... vulnerable.

Because nobody forms deep connections with perfection. They connect with honesty. With struggle. With the gap between who you are and who you're trying to become.

Gina's work at Providence Healthcare proved this. When they stopped talking AT patients and started having actual conversations WITH them—messy, real, uncomfortable conversations—that's when the magic happened.

The Part Where I Tell You What to Do

Stop hiding behind your brand guidelines.

Start actually talking to your customers like they're people at a dinner party, not prospects in a funnel.

Build communities where people connect with each other, not just with your product.

Tell stories that matter—not because they went viral, but because they're true.

And for the love of all that is holy, inject some actual human personality into your content. Your customers are scrolling through the same beige LinkedIn posts as everyone else. Give them something that makes them feel something.

The Bottom Line (Because I Know You Want One)

In a world where everyone's optimizing for algorithms, the real competitive advantage is optimizing for humanity.

Your competitors are all playing the same game—better targeting, smarter automation, more sophisticated analytics. Cool. Let them.

You? You're going to remember that business is still, at its core, humans trying to help other humans solve problems.

And when you get that right, the metrics follow. Not the other way around.

Listen to the full episode with Gina Clementi here because honestly, she explained this way better than I just did, and you need to hear the story about the Nike focus group that changed everything.

P.S. If your brand voice sounds like it was written by a committee of lawyers and a ChatGPT prompt that said "make it professional," you're doing it wrong. People don't connect with committees. They connect with humans. Be one.

Also, Gina's at itsagoodstory.com if you need someone to help you remember how to be human again. No, she's not paying me to say that. Yes, you probably need her.

Karl Pontau hosts The Human Connection Podcast, where we talk about the stuff that actually matters in business: the humans running it. Because whether you're B2B or B2C, it's really H2H—human to human. Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode where we probably say something that'll make your HR department uncomfortable.