00;00;00;00 – 00;00;27;21
Unknown
So Jen, we just got a lot of different trends covering really the whole gambit of of marketing and gambit. Yes. Is that gamut gamut. You know, I was thinking of The Queen’s Gambit. Oh, Netflix. Checkers. Chess. Trends. Predictions. Gambit.

00;00;27;23 – 00;00;55;05
Unknown
Hello and welcome to Think Fresh, a podcast brought to you by the Nova marketing collective. Creative. Coming to you from our Ideas Institute and here to talk about all things marketing. Insights on new trends, innovative ideas and marketing tools you can use in your day to day life and whatever else we deem relevant. I’m Jen Neumann, de novo CEO and your host, and I’m Ryan China, account manager, innovation and education lead and resident nosy eavesdropper, always looking to push the envelope.

00;00;55;09 – 00;01;15;12
Unknown
He is indeed very, very nosy. Today we’re going to talk about our 2026 trends. We’re calling this our popcorn episode because we’re going to have various de novo team members popping in and out throughout our recording. Well, how about a it’s a new year, Ryan. New new year, new Ryan, new year, new Ryan. Unfortunately very similar to the same Ryan.

00;01;15;12 – 00;01;36;11
Unknown
For all of you keeping track of last year, I made a resolution that I would be able to do a handstand. In the goal of doing a handstand. Was that so I could pull myself up in a life or death situation? I still cannot do a handstand, and if I’m in a life or death situation, I don’t know which way it would go if I have to pull myself up.

00;01;36;17 – 00;01;55;20
Unknown
I don’t know. All right, well, continue to live in bubble wrap until you until you get this mastered. So you’re not making that your new resolution for the year. I am not I am not going to have a resolution this year. So anything on top of that is just anything I do is a bonus, right? My, my my current resolution is status quo.

00;01;55;24 – 00;02;17;06
Unknown
Oh that’s horrible. But, no verbal resolution this year. Every year my resolution is to do a yoga headstand, not even a handstand, a yoga headstand. And I still can’t do it. And it’s still my resolution for this year. So when I go to Nicaragua next month for the yoga retreat, I’m going to work on it every single day.

00;02;17;09 – 00;02;43;23
Unknown
My daughter can do it just fine, but I, I cannot, and the headstand is using your hands, right? It’s you. You’re not just balancing on your head. You’re using your forearms. You’re really putting a lot of weight into your forearms. Okay? But I think I might have just, like, T-Rex arms or something, because I feel like I can’t put enough weight into my forearms to take the pain out of the point of my head pushing into the floor.

00;02;43;23 – 00;03;07;12
Unknown
So, that I think that’s part of the it’s I think it’s all in my head, one of my favorite holiday traditions is when my family, gets a little tired of spending time together and starts playing. I can do this. Can you? And it is a really fun game. Very self-explanatory. It is when all of us adults and now my nieces and nephews who are in their 20s, learn a fun new trick and you get to do it.

00;03;07;15 – 00;03;24;01
Unknown
And you say, I can do this, can you? And it’s just like people are doing tripods. People are doing blitz. Yes. Yeah. You would what you would party trick. Right. Like I can still do the splits. So. Right. And maybe that should be your resolution for 2026 to be able to do the splits a lot more, stretching a lot more.

00;03;24;08 – 00;03;47;08
Unknown
Just a lot more stretching and general. You’re not the most flexible person in every way possible. I wish I was, but but no, when it comes to when it comes to that, not not bendy or flexible in the slightest. So Jen, we we don’t have super intense resolutions. We will we will keep track. We’ll I’ll follow up after Nicaragua to see if you were able to do the headstand.

00;03;47;11 – 00;04;04;01
Unknown
All right. All our listeners can be my accountability buddies. Right. So if you see Jen out and about, ask her to do a headstand so everybody know how many people don’t listen to our podcast. Oh, no. But a lot of times at the end of the year or at the beginning of a year podcast predictions, they put predictions out there.

00;04;04;01 – 00;04;25;28
Unknown
Have you been listening to anyone’s predictions too? Oh yeah. Heard any predictions that you’re like, what? You know, actually I read, an article the other day. It was Joe. Pulizzi. Pulizzi. Right. The Content Marketing Institute guy. Right. Like, his newsletter is actually really good. It’s called the tilt. So there’s an unpaid advertisement for that.

00;04;26;01 – 00;04;47;01
Unknown
But he talked about how annoying it is that marketers, like, predict the demise of something in marketing. Every year. And I thought, oh, guilty. I, I think this is more of a wish for me. But like I have predicted multiple times, that email is dead as a tool. It is not dead. And in fact, I feel like email is getting its new, you know, second wind.

00;04;47;05 – 00;05;11;23
Unknown
Yeah. And that but you know, I think about, you know, how many years in a row they predicted, traditional media would be dead. That print would be totally dead. That direct mail is dead. So my prediction, that that I’m doing this year is like, how many around how many predictions will predict the demise of a marketing tool?

00;05;11;26 – 00;05;35;18
Unknown
And I’m going to say five arbitrarily and then I’ll try to measure that. But, you know, a lot of the predictions I’m seeing have a lot more to do with the markets. Yeah. Than anything else. But there is an opportunity, I think, right now, fourth quarter earnings calls last year, they talked a they they noted that a lot of CEOs talked about the importance of storytelling.

00;05;35;20 – 00;05;56;21
Unknown
And I thought, well, first of all, duh. I mean, we’ve all been saying this as marketers for how long? Forever. And so, you know, my prediction is that those of us in marketing roles, whether marketing director, CMO is BP’s, if they’re talking about it in the C-suite, go get some budget for it, right. They’re finally taking it seriously this year.

00;05;56;28 – 00;06;22;16
Unknown
Lean into it for as long as you can get that budget and go hard on that, because, I mean, it is probably the most important tool in a marketer’s toolbox. So, you know, my prediction is going to be that people get some actual budget for storytelling this year. I would love that. That would be great. And when it comes to the the death of different pieces of marketing, I am going to put a a prayer, a prayer, not even necessarily a prediction.

00;06;22;16 – 00;06;41;20
Unknown
And I know that this is an election year, but I would love for political text to die. Oh my God, I would love it. It makes me not want to donate any campaigns, no matter what. It seems like I’m getting text from people in Arizona, Hawaii, everywhere. You donate to one person in Iowa, and all of a sudden you’re getting text from everybody.

00;06;41;20 – 00;07;01;01
Unknown
I’m never I’m never going to write a check or do that online again. I’m going to put up a bunch of money and throw it under a door. At this point in time, before I give to a political organization or even directly to a candidate in that way, it’s invasive. Yeah. And they skirt the rules. It’s it’s a little too intrusive for me.

00;07;01;01 – 00;07;21;23
Unknown
This isn’t Partizan like both sides of the equation really just need the the can it it’s so it just it’s intrusive and not welcome and probably turns more people off than it turns on. And Jen, one of the predictions that we had kind of leads back to last month’s episode when we talked about trust and the trust barometer.

00;07;21;23 – 00;07;56;27
Unknown
Right? I think that that’s going to be a big piece of a lot of a lot of marketing. The 2020 barometer is actually gets released. So we are recording this on January 12th and the, 2026 trust Barometer comes out on the 13th. Oh, so we’re not going to have an update on that before the podcast, comes out, but I am really interested in what it says regarding trust and the, you know, the 2025 phrase was crisis and grievances, which we’re certainly feeling that, has that trended upward?

00;07;56;27 – 00;08;22;06
Unknown
I can’t imagine it has trended downward. Right. So it will be really interesting to see what comes of that. And, and maybe we can find some time to talk about that in the future. An interesting prediction I heard the other day, Audie Cornish said the other day, and she admitted that she, she thinks it might be a wish as much as it is a prediction that a social media channel will emerge that allows you that really is only real and authentic content.

00;08;22;08 – 00;08;44;07
Unknown
I think if I was going to turn that into something myself, I would say reels and TikTok and, you know, basically all the, the video platforms really need to allow users to toggle off receiving content that’s developed by AI, and it should be self-reported by the people that are doing it, but it also needs to be detected.

00;08;44;07 – 00;09;05;15
Unknown
That is going to drive people off the platforms if they don’t do something like that. So I’m going to take Audie Cornish as prediction and twist it just a little bit that, you know, this might be the year that one of the platforms, says you can toggle off receiving AI content, because I just don’t think that, you know, the algorithms are really picking up on that yet.

00;09;05;22 – 00;09;30;25
Unknown
And why would they? Because they’re making money off of it. Yeah. That leads into one of mine that we’ll get into a little bit later. Jen. Good, good teeing up. Good teeing up. So to kick us off on our on our popcorn version of this podcast Ryan I am wondering what you think is coming in 2026. Yes, yes, I would say this is from the lens purely of AI and innovation.

00;09;30;25 – 00;09;52;01
Unknown
This is from our AI and Innovation Committee. And I do predict that a few of the predictions coming out from different members of the team will have an AI lens. So I do want to touch a little bit on this. I would consider 2025 the year of AI experimentation. Right? People are downloading it, they’re logging in, they’re getting used to it.

00;09;52;01 – 00;10;21;22
Unknown
They’re playing around, learning more about it. And when you’re doing that, when you’re playing, when you’re when you’re learning something, you’re trying to determine how you can use it in different aspects of your life. One of those being for work. Right. I predict that 2026 will be the year of actually doing things, implementing new things in 2026 with AI, whether that’d be team wide training to ensure that there are processes behind it, creating new programs, ways of using it, maybe even building.

00;10;21;28 – 00;10;50;02
Unknown
I work systems for you and your team. I think that 2026 will be the year of usage. Right? So from experimentation to usage, so will 2026 also be the year of evaluation? Or do you think we’re going to push that off to 2027 and say what worked and what didn’t? I actually really like that question because and your response to the question, I think that that you have to have an extended period of time of implementing this, right.

00;10;50;02 – 00;11;09;07
Unknown
There will be pieces that need to be tweaked, that need to be refined. I would say end of 2026 into 2027. That is when you’re going in refining your processes. There’s definitely going to be some things that are happening throughout. But what I, what I want to do is make sure that we are giving something a solid try, a solid effort.

00;11;09;07 – 00;11;29;11
Unknown
A lot of these AI test cases and AI pilots at companies, they are news stories that saying they are not doing well, or they are actually not benefiting the company as much as they thought. I want to ask if everyone on the team is leveraging them, right. We’re learning that there’s there’s these new processes and there’s these new AI tools, but there’s never the training behind it.

00;11;29;16 – 00;11;54;10
Unknown
And I really want to make sure that companies, before they say things like that, they can say, oh yeah, I have trained my team. We do have a process in place for this. And it’s not just training the team, it is using it as a team in order to spark that creativity and and that usage. I think it’s it’s important that these companies are asking themselves some serious questions along those lines, but also as they go figuring out what what works and what doesn’t.

00;11;54;10 – 00;12;13;24
Unknown
So even though that is implementation, in a way it is still experimentation. Yeah. And I think the, the fact that a lot of companies are just like, hey, we’ve got some AI, you should use it and and don’t hire anybody. Because we’re going to do things with AI. Those are the ones that aren’t thinking about how you invest in your team and training.

00;12;13;26 – 00;12;34;03
Unknown
And those are, you know, you think about might like Michael Berry, who is, you know, very bearish on AI and predicts an AI bubble. You know, those are the companies that are going to say, oh, this wasn’t worth it because they didn’t necessarily give it a fair shot and they didn’t think about even down to the elements of how are we going to use it and not use it as a company.

00;12;34;06 – 00;13;03;14
Unknown
So I, I like that I like that prediction. So this is the year of implementation. I hope some measurement happens. Right. It’s 2026 for those companies as well. Yeah. And then going down the AI rabbit hole a little bit further AI slap. We’re hearing it more and more. It’s a term that means things that are used with generative AI, but they lack the effort, quality or meaning that we are used to in our, in our media consumption and as social networks make AI creation more popular.

00;13;03;14 – 00;13;26;14
Unknown
So like llama, for example, metas llama, you can create things. Twitter has grok their feeds are being overrun by AI content right now. All of a sudden it’s like, oh, you’re just going to Twitter, Instagram and you’re seeing full AI in the feed like you were talking about. I think that this is the other platforms will separate out that AI generated content into their own feeds.

00;13;26;20 – 00;13;52;26
Unknown
You mentioned a toggle, which I think would be great, but meta themselves has already created a completely separate app. So Meta Vibes is a way that you can quickly go in and leverage Meadow’s AI video creation opportunities, and also publish it so you can have your own AI social feed. And then OpenAI also created their first foray into a social network.

00;13;52;28 – 00;14;16;12
Unknown
So remember OpenAI, they’re a content creator right now. Like they give you tools to create content. They don’t have search, they don’t have, social network. They’re realizing they need those things to compete. So OpenAI created Sora two, which is now their version of, like real or or TikTok, if you will. But it’s 100% AI generated.

00;14;16;14 – 00;14;57;00
Unknown
So the the prediction that Audie Cornish from CNN gave was that there will be one that is only authentic, content. So these companies are leaning into the fully AI content side. I think there will need to be a end of that. Yang. Well, and if you think about it, if meta has a platform that is 100% AI generated content, that means they can train their model on this is what I looks like, and then they can go in and say if it appears on this network, if it’s on vibes, we don’t want to show it on Instagram, or we don’t want to show it on Facebook like it’s it’s giving them the information and

00;14;57;00 – 00;15;15;05
Unknown
it’s giving them the technology to differentiate between it in hopes that there then might be what we can hope exactly this. They’ll give us the toggle. Right. So right. And I do think that there is there’s some content that is funny. It’s very clearly AI but I would consider it fun. I slop right up those types of things.

00;15;15;05 – 00;15;38;12
Unknown
It’s like, okay, that’s obviously AI, but I don’t need it coming up my feeds. Okay. The last one that I have, is pulling in AI for practical purposes. So I usage I mean, I’ll admit I have generated pictures of my coworkers looking like different vegetables, so Chad became some Swiss chard, for example. Maybe we’ll throw that in the show notes.

00;15;38;12 – 00;16;00;21
Unknown
Who knows? But those are those pieces that I, I get. This is why I get complaints. This is the post-it notes on my desk complaining about Ryan C. But what this is, is that is AI experimentation. I am using something that I am familiar with in order to learn their coworkers, to learn it, in order to figure out that best business, that business usage.

00;16;00;23 – 00;16;26;14
Unknown
But right now, that’s all about experimentation, right? And I do think that there’s going to be some price increases that come with this usage. So every time you use an AI platform that technically has some AI cost to it or some server cost, they call them tokens in a lot of platforms right now, Gemini and right now Gemini and OpenAI, they’re they’re pretty much giving you a lot of things for free.

00;16;26;14 – 00;16;47;17
Unknown
They’re saying, you know what? We’re not going to actually limit how many tokens you can use. They’re tracking it though. And as more things come about of the energy consumption, the water usage, the water waste that comes along with all of these, they are going to have to get people to stop using these or use them less or charge because somebody is going to have to pay for that.

00;16;47;17 – 00;17;04;23
Unknown
I don’t think they’re going to say, oh, we don’t want to create waste and we don’t want to use water. We have to pay for that. So you have to pay for it. Yeah. And one way to decentralize something is to charge more for it. Right. So it’s that natural, like, okay, we have to pay for this.

00;17;04;23 – 00;17;24;14
Unknown
And I do think that when that happens, we are going to see less of people using AI to create slop. Right? It’s going to be those practical uses, or they’re going to have to monetize in a different way, which will, you know, to use a term that I didn’t coin and shit ify those platforms. Right. And I think that there’s there’s different streams for monetization.

00;17;24;14 – 00;17;46;12
Unknown
I think that one will be increasing, increasing the cost of these platforms. But I think we might cover today some other ways that they could monetize. Who knows? But I do think that, there’s going to be some changing to the cost structure of AI. Someone, whether that be the consumer, whether that be a business, will have to be paying for that AI usage one way or the other.

00;17;46;18 – 00;18;09;22
Unknown
Do you think that will really start to take a hold in 2026? Or you think this is next year? I do, I think this is going to be a 2026. I think that there will be some opportunities, for ChatGPT open AI to expand into the browser based market, the true search arena. And I think that that will mean that they either need to be making making money some way.

00;18;09;22 – 00;18;25;21
Unknown
They are huge company with a very high valuation. They don’t have a whole lot of revenue coming in yet. They’re going to have to turn the tides on that if they want to keep their, their valuation. Yeah. I think they already switched from being a nonprofit, you know, to being a for profit company. Oh, yes. Oh yes.

00;18;25;21 – 00;18;45;22
Unknown
I forgot that they made, like, the signal. Like they’re not doing this out of the goodness of their heart. I mean, this is a moneymaking venture. Ultimately. So, All right, I I’ll be curious to see if those happen. I think they’re all going to happen if they happen not in the timeline that you’re predicting. That’s how I’m getting grade your AI and that’s how you’re going to get an A, B, C, D or F.

00;18;45;24 – 00;18;59;23
Unknown
Ooh fingers crossed. Well that was me. That was me. We want to bring in some other members of the Genova crew to get their predictions and trends for 2026. So let’s let’s get started.

00;18;59;26 – 00;19;21;03
Unknown
First step in our popcorn episode is Andrew Rivera, our senior video producer. So Andrew, you are usually behind the the headset and the the computer. Today you’re on the pod. Yes I am it’s it’s weird to be on this side because I get to speak into the mic and I have to worry about the levels and everything. So it’s fun to be on this side of the podcast.

00;19;21;04 – 00;19;40;15
Unknown
Welcome to the pod, Andrew. Thank you. Ryan. It’s like I said, it’s cool to be here. It’s cool to be able to talk about these these predictions. So use your radio voice though when you say that like really dig in for me Andrew. Let me see if I can. It’s really good to be here and, talk about, predictions for 2026.

00;19;40;16 – 00;20;23;10
Unknown
There you go. Wow. Andrew’s coming for my my seat on the podcast. Look at that. Andrew, what are your your 2026 predictions when it comes to the video side of marketing? Well, Ryan just talked a lot about AI. And I think this episode especially is going to be very heavy on the AI side. My prediction in 2026 is the video world is going to be using more discernment when it comes to making decisions using AI within their platforms, and I specifically see AI as a tool, and it’s a really powerful tool that you can use in video and photo and in this digital world that we are in, and it’s really digging in and knowing,

00;20;23;13 – 00;20;48;09
Unknown
should I use AI? Yeah. What are some situations when you’re like, yes, this is easy, I’m using it. We have used it a lot in pre-production. So storyboarding is, a huge thing that we’ve used it in in the last few years. I use it a lot to help with writing, so I use it because I’m not the strongest of writer, and ChatGPT can really help me with that.

00;20;48;13 – 00;21;19;11
Unknown
Yeah, and just knowing from some video and photo, mainly photo side of things, it’s made editing some photos a little bit easier, right? Like hair flyaways. I know that that was always something that, the photo team hated dealing with. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Hair flyaways are the bane of my existence, and having this tool of AI being able to just circle around somebody’s hair and just type in a prompt that says, remove hair.

00;21;19;11 – 00;21;43;16
Unknown
That and it just poof, goes away. Is that what happened to my husband? Made it. Oh no. Poor dog, poor dog. Well, we could actually, circle his head and add back that hair back in if you want it to. Oh, I would love that. I would love that. No. Where’s the situation where, you think using AI in video or photography is inappropriate?

00;21;43;18 – 00;22;08;24
Unknown
I think the most inappropriate time is when you’re trying to make that human connection. Right. So you have to really think about what the story is and what you’re trying to tell through that story. So there’s already stuff that you’ve already talked about, how companies have been experimenting a lot with AI. I have an example at Coca-Cola. They did this Christmas commercial and the entire thing was made using AI.

00;22;08;26 – 00;22;30;13
Unknown
And there was a lot of pushback from that. Right? Companies are testing this and seeing does this should I be using AI to tell these stories and when should I use it? You know, it’s interesting. I think back to you remember the polar bear advertisements that they used to do? They were very highly produced animations. They did not look like real polar bears.

00;22;30;13 – 00;22;54;16
Unknown
If they can produce something in that quality along that vein, they’re not trying to pass it off as real people. What are your thoughts on that when it comes to discernment of knowing when to implement and maybe augment with AI versus, when you shouldn’t? I think it all depends on like, who is your customer base, you’re looking at, who’s your clientele, what is the story you’re trying to tell?

00;22;54;16 – 00;23;15;15
Unknown
What are you trying to, you know, get by with what you’re filming? If I can help with that. Absolutely. It’s another tool in the toolbox, and it really speeds up the process. But if it’s going to take away from the story in any way, might not use it, it might not be a good, good reason to use it.

00;23;15;18 – 00;23;39;13
Unknown
Yeah. Like leveraging tools. I thought when you were talking about the Coca-Cola example, Jen and, the bears, right. I thought of character animator like that is something that Adobe has had out for a number of years, and that was almost before the AI boom, before people were talking about AI, but character animator used AI uses AI. So I think that it just all comes down to that discernment, like Andrew is talking about.

00;23;39;20 – 00;24;00;29
Unknown
When does when does leveraging AI either make something more economical for you or when is it either potentially putting up roadblocks? Because sometimes AI is, we think we always assume the air will make something faster and it will make a process better. Sometimes there are processes that can get gummed up, and it’s a matter of figuring out the right tool.

00;24;01;02 – 00;24;24;19
Unknown
And we talked about some tools a little earlier, but knowing the right tool is a new skill. Is the new skill of the AI empire right? Discernment? Exactly. It’s like, I like that you use the word discernment in this. It’s like knowing what to use and when to use it. You know, one example, when people have asked me like, how can you incorporate AI into, you know, how you work, when you work in a creative agency?

00;24;24;19 – 00;24;46;06
Unknown
And I think a lot of people ask me, are you threatened by AI? I’m like, I’m not threatened by AI. I’m realistic about AI. If there’s a way, might. One of my favorite examples is if a if we’re doing a video shoot and a client says a phrase wrong and or something has changed and we’d have to bring them in and rerecord.

00;24;46;09 – 00;25;11;01
Unknown
If we can use AI to rerecord that audio, cover it with a little B-roll and have it go out, you know, correct. For the client. I think the client appreciates the cost savings there. Yeah, it’s it’s really about digging in and understanding the tools that you have available to you. So my wife, who will be on this podcast a little bit later, she really loves kitchen gadgets.

00;25;11;03 – 00;25;32;06
Unknown
She’s got a kitchen gadget for so many things, and I always give her a bunch of crap about another kitchen gadget showed up. There’s another one, another box. Well, there’s a reason you have all these kitchen gadgets because they do a task and they make that task easier. One of the greatest kitchen gadgets we have is a Kitchen Aid mixer.

00;25;32;08 – 00;25;52;14
Unknown
Oh yeah. So I feel like most people know an appliance in my opinion, right, that you can have in your kitchen. Right. It’s it has all these attachments to it. You can you can add like a meat grinder, you can add a juicer. So it’s a very, very unique tool to have in the kitchen. It makes your job really, really easy.

00;25;52;17 – 00;26;21;06
Unknown
That being said, it’s still a tool and you have to choose when to use it. Most of the time if you’re baking, you’re probably going to use it. You’re going to add your ingredients to it, it’s going to mix it up and out pops the thing, but it’s helping you get to the end. The end result, which is maybe you’re baking cookies or a pie or whatever it is, but you have to remember that it might not be the best tool, because maybe the batter that you’re using or that you’re making needs to have a little bit more finesse to it.

00;26;21;08 – 00;26;45;09
Unknown
So that’s how I view I it’s the KitchenAid mixer of the digital world right now. You’re adding all these ingredients to this, this machine that can pop out something. But it’s only as good as the ingredients that you add to it. So yeah. So like, when you’re typing in a prompt to get, an image or a video, that video is only going to be as good as how good your prompt is.

00;26;45;11 – 00;27;05;03
Unknown
So you’re the you’re the baker of this, this creative journey. And I is your KitchenAid mixer in that. And the more you learn about it and the better ingredients you get, the better product you’re going to get. That’s a great example. I like that I do have one more prediction, and this one is just for fun because I wanted to think of another one.

00;27;05;05 – 00;27;31;13
Unknown
Ooh, bonus. So my bonus prediction is there is going to be a feature length film that is released this year that is completely done using AI. I don’t think it’s going to be released in theaters, but I think it’s going to be released on like Netflix or Hulu or one of the bigger platforms. I like that, I like that, I know that there’s a new I heard this on a, on, podcast or maybe on I don’t know where I heard it.

00;27;31;19 – 00;27;47;24
Unknown
Chris Pratt is in development of something that is not maybe not 100%, but highly AI produced. So I think you might have I’m a huge Chris Pratt fan, so I’m going to have to, I don’t know, look that up. Me too. And I don’t know how I feel about this. I predict I’ll hate it. We’ll see. We’ll see.

00;27;47;26 – 00;28;00;02
Unknown
Andrew, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast today. Discernment. That’s that’s my takeaway. That’s that’s the word of the that’s the word of the year now. Okay.

00;28;00;05 – 00;28;20;22
Unknown
Our next innovation is going to be Brooke Rockcastle. Brooke is our web development lead here. And Brook is going to be covering the the web space for our 2026 trends and predictions. Brooke, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Glad to be here. All right, Brooke, so for 2026, when you’re thinking about predictions and trends in the web space, what do you think is coming our way?

00;28;21;00 – 00;28;49;26
Unknown
I think that there’s going to be, a lot of AI generated websites and that there’s going to be with the introduction of AI agents, just crawling the web space a lot, that accessibility and performance are going to become very important for those agents as well. Have you seen a lot of AI generated websites yet that you’re like, that is clearly AI that you know, that doesn’t perform right?

00;28;49;26 – 00;29;17;03
Unknown
Like, what are you seeing already? Yeah. And I think it’s not like performance necessarily. That signifies like an AI generated website. But they’re very safe. They use safe coding like that’s already been kind of done before. You’re not going to see anything unique from an AI site. It’s going to be very plain. There might be some like animations or things like that, but it’s going to be very limited because they are optimized for performance.

00;29;17;10 – 00;29;46;06
Unknown
Yeah. And I imagine that they probably also use AI generated images, which can be problematic at times as well. Right. And you’ll often see it’s just changing colors and images, based on the the client site or the brand and not necessarily like having the site feel like that brand. Or do you think AI platforms will exclude or or devalue AI generated sites?

00;29;46;06 – 00;30;20;29
Unknown
I mean, it seems like it’s in their best interest to, to support AI generated sites, but also they want, you know, integrity in their search and search results. So, you know, that’s I reject itself. Or does I embrace itself here? Yeah, that’s a really good question because I’ve often thought that too, because it does seem like, Google search will ding sites for having like AI generated copy because they’re getting good at recognizing that, but they are also providing ways to generate that content.

00;30;21;06 – 00;30;45;08
Unknown
And then like we mentioned already, but the entire website, like the coding for the website as well, I think the coding is less under fire and in that situation, but the content is definitely what’s going to be I mentioned it’ll be safe code and pretty generic. Which safe code. I think in my mind means that it’s not going to throw up security errors or a lot of big problems.

00;30;45;08 – 00;31;09;28
Unknown
So it might perform okay in that aspect, but it’s not necessarily going to, from a marketing perspective, be a true brand representation. Right. And safe code too is it’s just like it’s been tested for accessibility, things like that. But that just means that it is going to be very basic code. It’s like code that’s been used over and over again before.

00;31;10;03 – 00;31;31;24
Unknown
And that can also lead to like different layouts and things. So you might be seeing the same type of layout on a page, whether that makes sense for the content that’s on that page or not. Very template based. Like even before I, you could, you could buy a website template and or and Squarespace or some other platforms. You would just try to fit your content into the existing template.

00;31;31;24 – 00;31;55;28
Unknown
And sometimes that didn’t always feel authentic or make a whole lot of sense. Right? Exactly. When you talk about accessibility, you said accessibility is for everyone. And now that includes AI. What are some key pieces of accessibility that you want to make sure remain in our focus when it comes to website development? I think when everyone thinks of accessibility, they automatically think of like alt tags.

00;31;56;05 – 00;32;19;22
Unknown
And now the newer strain of that is Aria tags. And those are still very important. But when it comes to AI, using clear language and hierarchy, having the content flow in a logical way, I think is going to be even more important. That also does help everyone who’s reading it, whether they have a disability or not. Do you think AI is developing sites?

00;32;19;22 – 00;32;46;05
Unknown
And I know we haven’t seen that many instances of it yet, but I agree with you that it’s it’s coming. You know, when you think about things like contrast ratios and, and things like that, that visually make a site more accessible, do you feel that I will do a good job with that or. I think it’s going to vary, based on probably the, the generation tool that you’re using.

00;32;46;10 – 00;33;12;20
Unknown
And there might be different levels, of like premium or like, I guess different costs associated with that. So if you want your site to be more accessible, maybe there will be an add on for that. Yeah. Because those websites, those, those those AI generators. Right. They have access to the same tools that we technically would use where we’re checking those contrast ratios.

00;33;12;22 – 00;33;30;17
Unknown
It just adds another step, and it makes it slightly more difficult for that AI agent or that AI platform in order to go in and check it. One thing that I don’t necessarily know if they will be able to do, they’ll be able to find those contrast ratios, right? Like black and white. That is a very high contrast ratio.

00;33;30;17 – 00;33;52;07
Unknown
Black text on a white background. They’re just looking at the numbers of that ratio. They’re trying to get that number, that contrast ratio really high. It doesn’t necessarily have the design AI in order to choose the right colors. Right, right. And a lot of those AI generators, they’re going to ask you for your brand colors. And they’re just going to plug those into the different template areas that have colors.

00;33;52;09 – 00;34;28;27
Unknown
I don’t know that they’re going to necessarily, especially right now, be able to to provide feedback on whether those colors and, combinations are going to be, efficient for accessibility ratios. Do you see, Gulf starting to open between the AI and template based sites? We’ve always had template based sites out there. Right. And you can tell when something is a really basic template and somebody doesn’t have the experience or the skill set to code something, so that it really represents their brand in a unique way that’s always existed.

00;34;28;27 – 00;35;02;18
Unknown
Do you see a wider gulf opening between AI generated templated sites with AI generated imagery and human designed sites? And is there an advantage, for the AI, developed sites out there at all? I do think that there will be, a broader gulf, just as we kind of push against what that AI generated site looks like when we try and design, different sites and get out of that sea of sites that are all going to look the same.

00;35;02;18 – 00;35;24;05
Unknown
I think that there is going to be a branch, maybe that we go into that design as well. And, that’s just because that’s what people are used to and they’re going to be familiar with those types of layouts. But I think we can push it in another way with navigation or, adding those elements that are for the brand.

00;35;24;05 – 00;35;50;26
Unknown
And I when I speak about, pushing it in the other way and adding those flair elements, we’re not talking about like flash videos like, or anything like that. But it still needs to make sense and be with intention. I don’t think we want to just start adding those, that flare, just to add it, to show that it’s not an AI site, because then I think we’ll take away from the content of those sites, too.

00;35;50;28 – 00;36;12;09
Unknown
It all comes back to the usability, and you want those flare pieces, right, to encourage people to keep scrolling, to keep learning. And as things change, when it comes to search engines, when somebody lands on your website, if they get to your website, when they’re on your site, you want them to be using it. You want them to be looking, you want them to be engaging with it and I think that those those flare pieces do encourage that.

00;36;12;11 – 00;36;50;19
Unknown
Great. So where can I integration be helpful in website development? On the on the user experience side of things. Yeah, I think that we’re going to see more AI integration in forms. I think that, AI agents may be used in that way, or even just hooking into AI models, within forms could be a next step towards like or I guess above conditional logic and forms and conditional logic is where you might enter something into a field and then another field pops up based on what you entered or selected from, say, a dropdown or something like that.

00;36;50;21 – 00;37;18;10
Unknown
But with the AI integration, it could be more like you enter something into a field and it gives you three AI generated questions that you can then respond to in the next field, something like that. I think that’s already happening with chat bots too, and that really I like to joke that people want to search, the internet the way my mom thought that you should search the internet, which is to ask a paragraph long question in the search bar.

00;37;18;12 – 00;37;42;12
Unknown
Searching conversationally is how people now are starting to get used to doing it, and even within a website. And I see that, becoming more and more important, in, in sites, in the user experiences that they can ask that conversational question and get a converse rational answer based on what’s on that site or what it’s been trained to.

00;37;42;14 – 00;38;05;05
Unknown
And I still, you know, any time I can not talk to a human being when it comes to customer service, I’m happy. But I think that they’re still just such a huge role for that human element, to, to come into play. So, you know, I think we’ll see more combination of, you know, a chat bot that tries to answer your question and then get to a human shortly after.

00;38;05;05 – 00;38;25;26
Unknown
And I’m thinking about chat bots in the, in the, in the, scope of it, like, they are a type of form in a way to. Exactly. And I think it could help, not only the user when they’re entering in, but, on the other end of that, those receiving those forms, it can narrow down kind of like the general submissions that they get.

00;38;25;26 – 00;39;01;27
Unknown
If that submission then has an AI respond to it, asking more detailed questions or, there may be ways where, you have the fields and you get the data from the form, and then an AI takes that data and does some extra steps, completes another task that you don’t have to do then. All right. So is your prediction or trend that human designed sites are going to be more important or is your is your trend that I will play a bigger role in site development?

00;39;01;29 – 00;39;25;08
Unknown
I think it’s going to play a bigger role in site development, but I do think that the human design sites are still going to stand out and be more effective on the web. So both so both I love it, I love it. Two things can be true. Exactly, exactly. Brooke. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast for our 2026 Trends and Predictions episode.

00;39;25;15 – 00;39;48;24
Unknown
Thank you. I can’t wait to see what comes true. Next up on this popcorn episode is Allie McCullough, our digital strategy lead. And this is one of the segments that I’ve been looking forward to the most because I could just geek out on this and listen to you talk about it forever. So what are the trends and predictions for 2026 when it comes to digital advertising and strategy?

00;39;49;01 – 00;40;10;25
Unknown
Well, first of all, thank you, John, for having me on. But not Ryan, but not Ryan, not Allie. I’m also very excited that you are here, obviously. All right. Fine. Thank you. Ryan. Okay. So trends for 2026. I think what we’re going to see most of all is, is more AI, it’s it’s not going away anytime soon.

00;40;10;28 – 00;40;54;15
Unknown
I know we we actually spoke, a little over half a year ago. Yeah. About SEO and AI and what the future of that looks like. And at the time, it was very much up in the air. A lot of people were saying, oh, there’s it’s pretty much the same thing. And while we do still want to be looking at SEO and and keeping those, best practices into account when we’re creating content and building websites, Geo does have its own kind of tactics that we’re, we’re going to be looking more into to optimize for showing up in those generative engines.

00;40;54;15 – 00;41;22;21
Unknown
So like ChatGPT, like Gemini, a few months ago, six months ago or so, we were saying the best practices of SEO will also do a good job when it comes to geo. And what is Geo as compared to SEO. And so Geo does mean generative engine optimization. So this is ways to ensure that you’re showing up in those LM inquiries on the different AI platforms.

00;41;22;23 – 00;41;50;14
Unknown
And then SEO is purely search engine optimization. It is based on keywords. It is based on ranking your results, whereas Geo really is more about your content being picked. And, and then just showing up rather than a listing, moving up in the queue. And we’ve been seeing more and more of our clients websites with ChatGPT or Copilot as a referral source, which is always exciting.

00;41;50;14 – 00;42;16;03
Unknown
Yes. It means we’re showing up. Unfortunately, we’re still a little in the dark as to what those specific inquiries are. That that we’re showing up for. That is definitely something we’re expecting to see change in the very near future. We’ll have more, insight into, much like we do with our search terms, and getting that kind of SEO data or search engine marketing data.

00;42;16;03 – 00;42;42;23
Unknown
And that just means I we right now, we only see when somebody clicks from ChatGPT to our sites, right? We don’t see anything else. We don’t see the question that they asked. We don’t see any of the conversation that they asked. Right now, there’s a big divide between the LMS and the analytics information that we’re getting. Definitely. And it’s also important to take into account how often people are actually going to be clicking through.

00;42;42;26 – 00;43;15;22
Unknown
So with SEO, we’re able to quantify, a little bit more the success we’re able to see. Okay, we showed up this many times, we got this many clicks through to our website where with Geo, people might not be clicking through. They’re just reading the answer right there so they don’t have a need to, and so it’s going to be more and more a focus on the type of content, and making sure that we’re included in those results, on platform, rather than getting people to click through to the website.

00;43;15;28 – 00;43;42;03
Unknown
I have noticed more and more that links are appearing or and and I’m a primarily a Gemini user. It will offer to provide the links, which is interesting. Yeah. And then sometimes has problems producing those links. But I have noticed even in the, you know, Gemini search results that show up when any anybody on Google is searching for an answer, that those links are beginning to be more prevalent.

00;43;42;03 – 00;44;11;22
Unknown
Yes. But those aren’t necessarily, we’re not getting a lot of data from that yet. We can just tell that somebody came via of an Lem. Yes. So for Google, I think those are still for Gemini. I think those are still showing up as from Google, organic search. So we aren’t even getting the data about whether someone’s clicking on an organic listing or from the Gemini I overview for that way.

00;44;11;25 – 00;44;32;19
Unknown
For our other platforms. So for copilot, for ChatGPT, we’re just seeing that someone visited from that source, and that’s about as far as it goes. You would think Google would want to prove that Gemini is useful. So like that would would you predict that they will segment that traffic in the, let’s say, in 2026? Oh, I definitely think they will.

00;44;32;21 – 00;44;51;01
Unknown
I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes its own platform. Right. And especially as they try to monetize it, people keep saying search is dead, right? Search is dead or SEO is dead. Going back to what Jen was saying earlier in the episode, but Google’s bread and butter, still, no matter what they say it is still search.

00;44;51;04 – 00;45;24;27
Unknown
Yes, and that is how they monetize it. Do you expect any monetization on not only we we’ve already got search monetized, right. But what about in the LM space when you’re actually having those conversations? I do think that we’re going to be seeing these opportune ads for advertising on LMS coming up very quickly. Whether it’s maybe a little more general, kind of like display advertising, where you’re just trying to reach people in a more awareness based way, or if it is going to be a little bit more search related.

00;45;25;00 – 00;45;53;03
Unknown
It’s it will be interesting to see, though, because when we think about search ads, it’s, it’s keyword based, right? It is about the terms people are using, where everything we know about AI is that it’s, it’s less term based and more full question based. And so seeing how we’ll be able to target those inquiries with the ads will be interesting to see how they set that up.

00;45;53;06 – 00;46;16;21
Unknown
And that makes me curious about is Google has a natural integration that they could do with essentially Google Display ads in Gemini results. Yeah. ChatGPT would have to probably isn’t going to use Google Display ads, right? I mean, they’re direct competitors and they are two of the the top ones that are really going at it right now.

00;46;16;23 – 00;46;35;20
Unknown
So, well, do you think that will be a new ad platform, or do you think that’ll integrate it from some other advertising platform into, let’s say, ChatGPT? As you know, one of the largest players do you think will be adding ChatGPT as an advertising platform in the next year, or do you think it’ll be something else that plays well with ChatGPT?

00;46;35;23 – 00;47;00;28
Unknown
I think ChatGPT is big enough that they would want to have their own, and not have to share any of the data or the revenue, with a partner. Yeah. So for Google Gemini, we’ve got Google Copilot. I’m sure we’ll be running through Microsoft Ads. But ChatGPT is such a is in the forefront and really is its own entity at this point.

00;47;01;01 – 00;47;21;25
Unknown
I think that that’s going to be added to the mix. Any prediction? So we’re in January of 2026 when ChatGPT launches its own advertising platform. Ooh, that is a really good question. I think it’ll be before the end of the year for sure. All right. If that happens, you heard it here first. I think this kind of ties in what you are alluding to.

00;47;21;25 – 00;47;46;03
Unknown
And Ali, your your prediction with the, with the paid, when it comes to showing up like Google showing Gemini results versus search results, I think it’s going to get to a point of these platforms saying when your website was used in order to inform and answer that counts as a new form of impression like that will be like you are technically in this response, or we mentioned you in this response.

00;47;46;06 – 00;48;07;22
Unknown
And if they start measuring that, that’s how they base all their monetization. So would there ever be a world when you say Google, I will give you $0.50. If you wait our website higher. Right. If if you that that’s like how I’m thinking this might be monetized like oh if we show up for 20 search terms, we’ll pay you X amount.

00;48;07;22 – 00;48;39;16
Unknown
Or if we, show up in 20 results in Gemini, we will pay you X amount. Like that’s how I’m thinking about this monetization. And I don’t know if I love that. Right off the bat. Yeah, it does get kind of hairy when you think about how they’re going to to be monetizing. I mean, with Google and with Microsoft and other search engines, there’s so many different factors that go into where you end up, from your bid to the quality of your ad and your landing page.

00;48;39;22 – 00;49;11;21
Unknown
You take those away. And it does get, potentially a little scary, especially depending on how clear it is that these are paid results. If we’re just saying, hey, I want to give you some money. Put me at the top. That that starts to feel disingenuous. And I think that is something that they’re going to have to really think about in what format they have set up, especially knowing how conversational AI usually is.

00;49;11;24 – 00;49;38;01
Unknown
It’s not just a list of results. So how do you differentiate? I hope that it is what you both were saying. Just display ads and it’s not messing with the algorithm or anything. But the other piece of this Gemini and Copilot and all these different platforms, they have free versions, but they also have paid versions. Google has never had a paid version of Google Search where you pay to not see any advertisements, right?

00;49;38;01 – 00;49;57;14
Unknown
I don’t think they ever will. Even even if you’re using, you know, Gemini Pro. I don’t see them exclude ads. I really don’t I agree. Yeah, like this industry. It’s not one like you could do a Netflix or it’s not a commercial. Right. That is part of the platform now. And you can’t just shave off part of a platform.

00;49;57;17 – 00;50;18;11
Unknown
Yeah. Ali, thank you so much for joining us on our On our Popcorn Trends edition of the podcast. I’m excited, nervous and just eager to see when all of these trends come to fruition. Thank you for having me. I am also excited, nervous, and eager and hi, it’s me, Annie with the producers now. Well, that did not take long.

00;50;18;18 – 00;50;39;08
Unknown
It looks like one of Allie’s predictions about advertising on LMS is already coming to fruition. We recorded this podcast on Monday, January 12th, and by Friday the 16th, ChatGPT announced that it would begin testing ads in the coming weeks on both the free and go tiers in the US. They say the ads will appear at the bottom of chats, clearly labeled and separated from the organic answers.

00;50;39;09 – 00;50;48;25
Unknown
Stay tuned for more development on our predictions. But Snapchat Ali for her impeccable timing and insight. Okay, back to the show.

00;50;48;28 – 00;51;11;29
Unknown
Our next interview and joining us today is Becca Rivera. She is our creative services manager for design, and she is going to talk about 2026 trends and predictions for the design space. Becca, welcome to Think Fresh. Thank you. So no surprise AI is the hot topic of discussion and marketing. Just because it’s woven itself into every corner.

00;51;11;29 – 00;51;37;28
Unknown
We see it, you know, flooding our social media feeds in commercials and different types of advertisements. But as we look ahead to design in 2026, I predict a different kind of AI will be entering the chat, so to speak, and that AI is authentic imperfection. Ooh, good little play on on an acronym there. And authenticity is something that we’ve talked a lot about on this podcast.

00;51;37;28 – 00;52;03;26
Unknown
So I’m very excited to hear about about this. So what I mean when I say authentic imperfection, it’s really all about intentional use of human made qualities. It’s the irregularities, the nuance, texture, any of those things that just really signify there’s a human at the heart of our creative process. Oh, I love that already. And I mean, in terms of design, this can manifest itself in a lot of different ways.

00;52;03;26 – 00;52;33;04
Unknown
There’s, you know, hand-drawn, customized lettering instead of perfectly uniform type. And a great example, there’s something that we’re already doing as part of our process here at De Novo is whenever we work on a branding project, a logo, there’s always some level of that customization that goes into it. So whether it’s a, wordmark and what I mean when I say wordmark, it’s a logo that think of something like the Coca-Cola logo that’s made entirely out of letters, doesn’t necessarily have an icon.

00;52;33;06 – 00;52;58;04
Unknown
So it could be something like that, or it could be we start with a typeface where we’re typing out letters, but then going back, refining specific letters in it just to add more of that personality, get to more of the storytelling part with our logos. Some other areas where I see this coming into play, too, or just more of those nuance things like the textures, visible brushstrokes, pencil green that sort of thing.

00;52;58;06 – 00;53;21;24
Unknown
And even with illustrations, I think there’s going to be a lot more complexity to those. And what we’ve seen in the past, I think everyone’s very used to that very simplified, wide flat, especially when you think of things like icons. And I think complexity is going to be one of those things that really comes into play, more of those details that really force us as an audience to slow down and acknowledge the detail.

00;53;21;27 – 00;53;51;12
Unknown
And then finally, even photography is another area where I think we’ll see less of that overly staged, perfect, polished look that we’re used to seeing with a lot of AI generated images and leaning more into the candid, unpolished type of feel. I love that, and especially like you mentioned, the visual brushstrokes, right? That is, using a I don’t know how to how to word this correctly, but brushstrokes are something that come from a paint brush, right?

00;53;51;12 – 00;54;14;16
Unknown
And when you’re digitally using a digital paintbrush, you don’t necessarily have to have those brush strokes. But that is in order to create that style, that that human touch that you don’t necessarily have when you use a computer. So I think that that piece of it and even adding different textures, you’re adding those. Right. I just think that that adds magic, I guess, if you will.

00;54;14;22 – 00;54;39;13
Unknown
And I think that’s a whole it’s a great reminder of a phrase that we often tout with our design, that original artwork matters. And that’s something that I think in this day and age, especially in an AI saturated world, is more important than ever. Just leaning back. I think even going back to the branding example, that’s something that, you know, speaking for my own process, that always starts with pen and paper.

00;54;39;13 – 00;55;04;06
Unknown
That goes back to those artistic roots. If you were to look at my sketchbook, you’d see pages upon pages of what just looked like a bunch of random doodles. But really, that’s just me ideating. And that’s what ultimately is going to be turned into the final, more refined product with that human process. At the heart of it. It’s that process, like you said, like you can’t eliminate the process when it’s the process of creativity.

00;55;04;07 – 00;55;30;17
Unknown
I exactly I’d love to get your thoughts on this. What I think I might be hearing you say is that we’re talking about some strategic maximalism. If we’re going to follow a trend here where we’re moving away from that simple flat, you know, a lot of white space into more texture, more of that unpolished piece of it, and that the things that signify there was a human involved in this.

00;55;30;19 – 00;56;06;22
Unknown
So I, we’ve seen that trend out in the world for a while, like the maximalism trend. Do you think that that that concept is also what’s signaling what what design that is? Moving that way is also signaling, that it has more creativity involved in it. And do you see AI being able to emulate that? Well, I, I think the big differentiator for me with AI, like, I, I don’t want to discount the benefits of AI because I myself use it as part of the process.

00;56;06;22 – 00;56;39;04
Unknown
I think the key is that AI becomes more of a tool rather than a generator. So I think it could be the start of some of those ideas. But I think what differentiates us is as humans, we still have that ability to be creative decision maker. So we could go in and maybe AI forms the start of an idea, but we can kind of decide as humans what we want to refine, take further and potentially eliminate.

00;56;39;07 – 00;57;02;28
Unknown
And you had mentioned using it as a tool, and some other people have mentioned tools as well. How do you use AI or how have you used AI in as a as a collaborator? So the beauty of a lot of our Adobe software products is AI. There’s a lot of features built right into those programs. So it’s great because I don’t even have to leave those programs to utilize it.

00;57;02;28 – 00;57;25;13
Unknown
But I’d say for me personally, Photoshop has a lot of really helpful tools. There’s things in photo editing. There’s a tool called generative Expand that’s very helpful if we’re given, a photo from a client that, you know, maybe it’s given to us as a vertically oriented photo and we need something that’s really wide. It gives us the ability to extend that background, so to speak.

00;57;25;13 – 00;57;49;16
Unknown
And it actually does a pretty accurate job doing that. Whereas before that would have been something that would have taken hours and we would have sunk a lot of time into that. Whereas I see the benefits of AI as part of my creative process is it’s building efficiencies. It’s taking me away from having to spend hours doing very menial tasks and giving me the time to do what I do best, which is create.

00;57;49;21 – 00;58;28;17
Unknown
I love that, and I think authentic imperfection as our new as our new AI. As as your 2026 design trend is, I think, brilliant. But also because it brings back that humanity, piece of it. And I think, I think people are starting to crave that. So authentic imperfection and graphic design. Becca, what do you think that does for, you know, people who are consuming the you know, whether it’s advertising or whether it’s brand storytelling, what do you what do you think implementing authentic imperfection does for brands?

00;58;28;19 – 00;59;01;09
Unknown
It’s really all about bringing humanity a sense of trust and just that emotional resonance. And do our visual communication. At the end of the day, great design is really all about making a connection. It’s helping us relate to a brand, a product, a cause and feel something meaningful. And I think the inherent trait for us as humans is to put trust in something that feels real and authentic and at the end of the day, make our designs feel more approachable.

00;59;01;16 – 00;59;31;06
Unknown
Yeah, we talked earlier about, you know, the Edelman Trust Barometer. It comes out this this week and I will be so interested how it incorporates, the misinformation, disinformation and just completely inauthentic feel of many brands and communications and how that incorporates into the public feeling of trust. The core of any brand should be trust, right? So I really like that, that piece of it.

00;59;31;06 – 00;59;57;02
Unknown
So bringing back or having a new eye authentic imperfection as your your brand or your design trend for the years is just perfect. I love it. Authentic imperfection. Becca, thank you again for joining us on this episode of Think Fresh and well, we’ll be on the lookout for some of that authentic imperfection in 2026. Thank you.

00;59;57;04 – 01;00;20;01
Unknown
For our final Donovan, we are joined by Chad Cooper, the man, the voice of the rough Roughriders and a writer and content strategist at De Novo. Chad, welcome to the podcast and I challenge you to not talk about AI. Challenge accepted. And I think this is my third time. Yes, on the podcast. So there you go. The Smote triple threat appearance.

01;00;20;04 – 01;00;42;22
Unknown
Chad, what is your prediction or your trend for 2026 when it comes to copy and storytelling in 2026? From my point of view, is that copy becomes conversational, which is the way I look at it is when we think about messaging. It’s less about writing copy and more about writing dialog. Thinking about the conversation not only that you’re having with your audience, but also that you’re having internally when you’re writing.

01;00;42;24 – 01;01;03;16
Unknown
From a messaging point of view. I like to think about it. If we look at the social sphere and think of a platform like Reddit, what I’ve started to do mentally is when I write any piece of copy, I filter it through. What would this sound like if it were a response on a platform like Reddit? Right. Because what we’re doing is answering questions all the time with our copy.

01;01;03;22 – 01;01;34;29
Unknown
We’re answering questions of our clients. We’re answering questions of our audience. And if I look at what I’ve written and I look at it within the avenue or the atmosphere or the platform of Reddit, for instance, would that response get absolutely torn apart as seeming robotic, or seeming too polished, or seeming too generated? If it is, then I go back through and think of ways to make it sound more conversational, more natural, and that sometimes that means breaking some grammatical rules, breaking some some tricks of the trade, if you will.

01;01;35;05 – 01;01;58;19
Unknown
But by doing that, the copy in and of itself becomes more conversational, more realistic, and people feel like they’re, you know, more engaged with it. Why do people need to feel more engaged with it versus, you know, what I would call the more traditional ad copy, ad copy to this point of view, we have to look at it from everyone’s approaching ad copy more cynically than ever before.

01;01;58;21 – 01;02;21;12
Unknown
They’ve never looked at marketing with this detail of an AI because they have certain preconceptions. They have certain misconceptions as well, about what a lot of marketing company is like. And and a lot of that really isn’t a misconception because unfortunately, a lot of the marketing copy that they come across is not great. It tends to sound too polished, too regulated, whatever the case may be.

01;02;21;18 – 01;02;41;06
Unknown
So instead, what I like to think about it is can we draft copy that informs while it entertains? Right. Kind of this edutainment, if you will. I’ll coin that term. How do we do that on a more regular basis? And that’s why we should care about it. Because if an audience actually wants to read or wants to interact with their ad copy, that’s better for our clients.

01;02;41;06 – 01;03;07;29
Unknown
It’s more persuasive. It really influences them to take more action on the part of the other consumer who’s doing a good job with this right now. Besides, you? Well, we always think of Wendy’s tried and true people actually go to Wendy’s social platforms because they like what they write. They not just write in their own platform. I’ve seen them from time to time, kind of dive bomb other social posts, the comments section of other avenues.

01;03;07;29 – 01;03;27;20
Unknown
So they’re great at it and people actually go to read it. One of the notes that I had down is really no one’s clamoring to read your ad copy, right? We need to really get out of ourselves as copywriters across the board and think about what does the audience need. If we can structure writing in such a way that we build to that, we’re all the better for it.

01;03;27;20 – 01;03;47;11
Unknown
If we could have people that actually want to interact with our ad copy, want to interact with what the client is saying, not only because we’re going to answer some question for them, but also because we’re going to make it entertaining at the same time, we’re all the better. One quote that I came across this week that I think is great is that big meaning exists in seemingly small narratives.

01;03;47;13 – 01;04;13;15
Unknown
Think about the work that we do, regardless of the client, regardless of the industry. It’s all of these little mini moments that are happening all the time. These little small questions. Those are potentially part of much bigger answers, bigger narratives that are going on in people’s lives. The better we can answer those questions and entertain while we’re doing it, we create something that, yes, it’s storytelling and that’s become a very popular term, but really it’s more about scene setting, right?

01;04;13;15 – 01;04;31;17
Unknown
How do I open that conversation with a person in a way that’s compelling, in a way that they actually want to interact and engage with, so that somebody who is responsible for writing for a brand is listening to this podcast and having an moment, as you say, that, how would you suggest they start to make that shift?

01;04;31;20 – 01;04;56;11
Unknown
One way is very functional, which is I’ve said this before, I think I said this during my first appearance on this podcast, which was think about your marketing copy, look at it and think about how many adjectives are in there, right? How many words are using to prop up your products or your services or whatnot. Try to strip those away for the most part, and lean much more on verbs, action, words, that entertainment aspect of it, right?

01;04;56;11 – 01;05;18;10
Unknown
How are we moving things along? How are we making things interaction interactive and action packed for our audience? That’s the first thing I would do. Second is just feel the copy more when you’re writing it right. That sounds high brained, high minded, but it’s really not. It’s thinking about how you would write a letter to a loved one or or chatting with someone that you know a friend.

01;05;18;17 – 01;05;36;02
Unknown
Think about filtering it through that. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for a polished, there isn’t a room for formality or professionalism, but people have a certain idea of what marketing is going to be already. We need to try to counteract that as much as possible, and that means writing in a way that is much more human.

01;05;36;04 – 01;05;55;26
Unknown
You know, a lot of brands, have a more serious tone to them, right? I mean, we do a lot of voice work when it comes to brands, and you’ll have some that have an irreverent tone. Ours, for example, extremely irreverent tone, to our voice, our brand voice versus, let’s say, a health care institution that’s going to be a lot heavier.

01;05;55;26 – 01;06;20;21
Unknown
And, has to consistently try not to use very, technical jargon. If you are a brand that has a more serious voice, how do you incorporate this aspect into that without trying too hard or working against a brand that you’ve worked hard to establish? You can stay serious and do so without even becoming irreverent as the cure.

01;06;20;21 – 01;06;38;20
Unknown
All right, that doesn’t need to be the answer. But what I would say is ground those serious ideas in something that’s much more human and human way of saying it. We’ve tended to think of writing any human way as being, you know, very short, very irreverent, very humorous. That isn’t always the case. It doesn’t need to be.

01;06;38;22 – 01;06;55;11
Unknown
I’ve thought about this is a quote from years and years ago about the writer. David Foster Wallace said, you know, how does a marketing writer write when Burger King is telling you, you got to break the rules, right? I mean, we already had major brands being irreverent, and it kind of backfired. Frankly. I think there’s maybe a little too much irreverence.

01;06;55;19 – 01;07;15;08
Unknown
It works for certain brands, right? Works for an agency like us because we’re true to it. It’s emblematic of our culture. But for a serious brand, there’s going to be a friction point. So to use irreverence wouldn’t make sense anyway. So think about being serious. You can keep the same tone, but you can have other ways of communicating it.

01;07;15;08 – 01;07;35;27
Unknown
Right. So that means maybe pulling back once again on those adjectives, using more verbs to make that action go forward. Those are actual functional things you can do with your writing. And also thinking about the way you’re varying your sentences, the actual copy itself, and then even if it is serious feeling right, are you feeling the copy in the messaging that you’re writing?

01;07;35;27 – 01;08;15;18
Unknown
Is your and is your audience going to, you know, sphere, like health care or manufacturing? That’s a very serious industry, but also tons of emotion, tons of feeling there. How well are you tapping into that? From a messaging perspective? Empathy comes to mind. And it’s a word that maybe gets overused sometimes in marketing, but, I think the way you said it, how are you feeling the words and how is your audience feeling that, especially using that, using the example of health care, the opportunity to weave authentic empathy and not, you know, empathy just for the sake of it, is is important.

01;08;15;21 – 01;08;40;25
Unknown
But I don’t think that this comes natural to everybody. So, you know, how do you see people, moving into it incrementally to get better at it? I would counteract to it a bit that it comes more naturally to people than they think, because what happens is there’s something about when people get locked into that. I’m writing ad copy, or I’m writing messaging for a website that their brain locks into something completely different then their brain locks in.

01;08;40;25 – 01;09;05;17
Unknown
When they’re talking to their friends or when they’re having a text exchange. I would argue that the quickest way to kind of remove yourself out of that, that structure and that structure of writing for work is actually thinking about how can you bring in more of those elements of when you’re writing casually? There’s nothing wrong with that, frankly, if we’re going to to your point, Jen, for going to insight or tap into more of that empathy, it needs to come from that place.

01;09;05;20 – 01;09;25;02
Unknown
If I if I’m having a conversation with a friend or a person, I respect and they’re responding in a really cold, sterile way, what does that tell me? As someone who’s connecting with them, we’re frankly, we’re losing something in the mix there when we do that. So I would argue that really what we’re doing is not so much tapping into something that we have no experience with.

01;09;25;04 – 01;09;48;03
Unknown
It’s trying to bring in a little more of that personal style, that personal point of view, into business writing, into ad copy, into messaging that, you know, we might see as industry specific, but really, we should bring in more of how we talk on the day to day chat. You and I talked about this article, about how many times the word storytelling appeared in earnings calls in fourth quarter, last year.

01;09;48;03 – 01;10;16;18
Unknown
And, and we talked about, you know, it’s about time, right? It’s it’s not like as marketers, we haven’t been banging this drum for a long time. You know how, as you think about this, how do you see marketers being able to capitalize on the fact that the C-suite is finally paying attention to this, but without maybe necessarily using the same buzzwords about storytelling and and how do they how do they make them see the value in this and what it can do for their brand?

01;10;16;20 – 01;10;38;26
Unknown
The issue with storytelling, other than to your point, the fact that it’s become so ubiquitous, it’s all over the place, is that it’s also so broad. What is that? What is storytelling? People have varying degrees of understanding of what storytelling could be. Yes, it could be your conventional XYZ story, right? Start middle end, right. That kind of hero’s journey, whatever it might be.

01;10;38;26 – 01;11;06;15
Unknown
But also storytelling really is just trying to reflect something, some meaning out of an actual personal experience. Right. So I would say one to take advantage of this increased interest in storytelling is to just bring more people into the fold. How do we use people to tell the stories of products services, benefits more often? The other thing is that I would try to get more specific about storytelling and maybe even replace it, or think differently about it.

01;11;06;15 – 01;11;41;20
Unknown
And this isn’t just for semantics. I really think this is a better way to think about the approach to storytelling, which is really seen setting, right? Every good movie, look, piece of entertainment puts you somewhere you feel it. There’s an atmosphere to it that is an element of storytelling. That is probably the most powerful aspect of it. If we lead with scene setting, you know, I think about if we’re talking about manufacturing and we’re talking about a specific product, how do you put someone in the day to day life experience of the consumer, of the person using that product?

01;11;41;20 – 01;12;06;12
Unknown
How do you tell the story of the benefit of it through an everyday experience? Hospital. We think of patients. We think of people interacting in the health care system. How do you ground that in scene setting? We have a client of ours that’s a nonprofit that would have been very easy to fall into. The the old routine of talking about, of using some of the, the buzz terms of the buzz words or some of the jargon that’s there.

01;12;06;12 – 01;12;27;14
Unknown
But instead, what we did is we created a letter to the editor, a guest column that instead set the scene of what they do and the realities faced by by their patients, by their staff. When you’re doing it that way, you have a tendency to draw people in. From the very beginning. You read a lot of marketing copy and I’m done after five or 10s, I’m out.

01;12;27;16 – 01;12;48;04
Unknown
Scene setting is creating that. You know, that opening scene, that opening paragraph that gets people in, that’s the entertainment. Then we can inform and educate. And that goes back to the idea of edutainment. How do we combine those two things? That’s less storytelling in the broad way we think about it. It’s much more about atmospherics and setting the scene for your consumers.

01;12;48;07 – 01;13;06;15
Unknown
I would say, and I’ve said this for years, that there are really two types of magic in marketing. One is obfuscation, right? So that’s the hiding the rabbit in the hat or oh, I split some one into, but I really didn’t because it’s sleight of hand. And then the other magic in marketing is true ingenuity. So that’s the creative trust.

01;13;06;17 – 01;13;28;02
Unknown
The difference between those two is the human aspect and the level of trust and transparency you have with your audience. Magic, marketing, creative ingenuity. Is there. You can’t necessarily always teach that. You can have some frameworks in mind that makes it easier, but the biggest thing is having that risk, taking that risk. Because really the biggest risk is being forgettable in today’s climate.

01;13;28;04 – 01;13;48;13
Unknown
And so if we can tap into more of that magic of marketing, that is an appreciation, isn’t hiding, but is transparent, human and real. That’s that’s the positive. That’s the sweet spot for messaging and really overall creativity in marketing in 2026. So Chad, I absolutely love that. So if we’re summarizing all of this, you’re telling people to cut more people in half throughout the marketing.

01;13;48;13 – 01;14;09;10
Unknown
No, really. Copy needs to be conversational. You need to enjoy reading it. You have to get people to start reading it in order to tell them those messages that that edutainment. I love it, Chad, thank you so much for joining us on today’s episode. And everyone be on the lookout for more conversational copy as we get into 2026.

01;14;09;13 – 01;14;25;22
Unknown
Thank you for actually allowing me to be on a third time. That’s insane. It’s not like Saturday Night Live where you get a coat after, you know, episode. It’s just so, you know, so thank you Chad. Thanks.

01;14;25;25 – 01;14;49;15
Unknown
So, Jen, we just got a lot of different trends covering really the whole gambit of of marketing. Like Gambit. Yes. Is that. Damn it, damn it. You know, I was thinking of the Queen’s Gambit. Oh, Netflix. Checkers. Chess trends. Predictions. Gambit. Gambit. Gamma. But this is my favorite thing when you’ve been saying a word wrong for, like, decades.

01;14;49;15 – 01;15;11;28
Unknown
And I get to personally correct you on it, like gleam or gleaming insight. No. Still sounds right. It’s just the shine. The shine of it gambit gamut gamut. We ran the gamut on predictions. And were there were there any? I mean, they all stood out, but what was the one that comes to comes to the top for you?

01;15;12;00 – 01;15;35;24
Unknown
Being somebody who places a huge value and, takes a lot of joy in creative. And I am an AI optimist. I consider myself a fairly early adopter, like there are so many uses for it, but I really liked both Becca and Chad’s takes on it. I really, really, really like authentic imperfection as a different form of AI.

01;15;35;26 – 01;15;58;10
Unknown
I thought that was great. And I think leaning into that authentic imperfection and, which is sometimes difficult for designers, to do because they want to make it absolutely perfect. But I, I like that piece of it. And then, one of my favorite things, that, that Chad talked about was moving beyond storytelling and moving into scene setting.

01;15;58;10 – 01;16;23;07
Unknown
And I’ve seen him do that. And Cassie, one of our other writers on on the team, really set the scene for our, our clients marketing and storytelling aspects of it. I, I really like that shift in thinking there that instead of trying to, like, cram a whole story into something, you’re just setting one scene. So that one stuck with me.

01;16;23;09 – 01;16;44;13
Unknown
As did the idea of the biggest risk is being forgettable. Yeah. You know, we we see that sometimes when a company will first come to us, they want to they they approach us because they want something different, but then they will want to lean into something that feels safe and feels like their competitors. But really, you know, we’ve talked about this before.

01;16;44;13 – 01;17;11;16
Unknown
You’re doing category work when you do that and when you do category work, you only benefit the category leader. If you’re the category leader, great. But, you know, most of the time they’re not. So, I think that differentiation piece of it, in a world that is, building stories based on AI and often, when you when you rely on AI as your only source for that, AI is built on what’s already been done.

01;17;11;18 – 01;17;35;05
Unknown
It’s not built on what’s possible. So, you know, it takes a, it takes human imagination to think about what is possible. So that is those were my two big takeaways. Is, is that human led creativity still plays a huge role. And AI is is a tool in the toolbox. I love that speaks to my creative heart.

01;17;35;07 – 01;17;53;21
Unknown
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And if I were to pick mine, I would definitely go to I’m going to go to the digital side of things. And I think I alluded to this at the beginning. I think that there’s going to be a higher cost to AI platforms, but Ali has a different take on it and I loved it.

01;17;53;28 – 01;18;17;05
Unknown
Ali thinks that we’re going to bring in some advertising into these AI platforms, and I think that that is spot on. I would love the opportunity as a user who knows who knows how I feel about it. But I do think that that was a very strong prediction, and I think it’s going to be a trend once one platform does it, the rest are going to follow because they they probably are all working on it at the same time.

01;18;17;07 – 01;18;40;12
Unknown
Just an opportunity to further monetize the platforms. I do have one last prediction. Ooh. And that bonus prediction, that is that the next episode, which is episode 20, will be a video podcast. Ooh, ooh. I would love that. I would love that. So this might be the last time you can only hear us. You may be able to see and hear us at the same time.

01;18;40;19 – 01;19;04;16
Unknown
Right? And if we’re wrong, maybe it’ll be episode 21. But we’re putting it out there in the hopes that we’re we’re accountable for that. But also this is episode 19, and this month, January is our 19th anniversary. Oh my gosh, Golden episode. Golden episode 19 years ago. Did you ever think that you would be talking about AI and having these discussions on a podcast?

01;19;04;22 – 01;19;23;08
Unknown
There are so many things that I never predicted we would be doing. And, you know, over the years, I tell people all the time if, if you would have told me when we were first getting off the ground, that we would make as many videos about company culture as we do. And that that comes down to storytelling, right?

01;19;23;10 – 01;19;44;10
Unknown
I would have thought why that’s not marketing. That has become a huge part of what we do. Doing a audio recording, I would have said, like what? On the radio? You know, like analog, like, are we going to be on an Am station or what? I mean, this is such a different world than it was back then.

01;19;44;12 – 01;20;10;02
Unknown
And, you know, we kind of came of age in the digital age. So we adapted very quickly or we started, in my opinion, ahead of many more traditional agencies that are legacy agencies that had been along. But here we are, 19 years later. And, you know, we are adapting as we go. And I think that adaptability is is why we’re celebrating 19 years.

01;20;10;04 – 01;20;32;28
Unknown
Well, why, we’ll celebrate 20 years. Why we will celebrate 50 years some day. I mean, I’ll be dead, but, you know, somebody will be celebrating 50 years of de novo, 50 years of de novo. Here’s to that. Here’s to 50 years of de novo. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Think Fresh. And remember, the conversation does not have to end here.

01;20;33;01 – 01;20;56;27
Unknown
If you liked what you heard today, be sure to follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. Review our show on wherever you listen to your podcast on, or share all your marketing trials and triumphs by shooting us an email at info at Thing to Know Vogue.com with the subject line dear de novo so we don’t miss it. And while you wait eagerly for our next episode, you can get your fix by checking out our blog, Fresh Thinking at that, think de novo.com.

01;20;57;04 – 01;21;13;02
Unknown
Stay tuned for more engaging conversations, laughs, and of course, marketing brilliance and me making fun of Ryan in the next episodes to come. Here’s to fresh thinking, sparking creativity, and never being boring by friends. Are we swearing on this or now?