For Marketing and Advertising
20 Practical Ideas for Marketing and Advertising to Stay Cognitively Sovereign
Your media buying metrics improve while brand recall drops. AI generates competent creative that no one remembers.
These are suggestions. Take what fits, leave the rest.
Protect Creative Strategy
Write the strategic brief before opening Claudebeginner
Document your brand position, target tension, and desired feeling first.
Reject the first five AI creative directionsintermediate
Force your team to generate variants until AI's averages disappear.
Assign one person to defend brand distinctivenessbeginner
One account lead must actively reject work that feels competent but forgettable.
Require craft justification for every creative choiceintermediate
Why this colour, this word, this audience angle? Write it down.
Test AI output against your brand guidelines rigorouslybeginner
Does the generated work actually match your tone, visual system, personality?
Keep a vault of historical campaign insightsbeginner
What worked for this client before. Share it before prompting.
Insist on human ideation before AI optimisationintermediate
Creative strategy comes first. Use AI to refine, not generate direction.
Run creative work through human strategists firstbeginner
No AI output goes to client review without strategy sign-off.
Document why a creative idea matters to the audienceintermediate
What human insight is this work built on? State it explicitly.
Limit AI to execution, not audience understandingintermediate
Your strategist decides what the audience cares about. Then use tools.
Reclaim Media and Audience Judgment
Separate efficiency goals from brand building goalsbeginner
Performance Max optimises for clicks. Set separate budgets for brand memory.
Audit which audiences your AI is ignoringintermediate
Google's algorithm finds easy converts. Document the audiences it deprioritises.
Track brand lift alongside conversion metrics weeklyintermediate
If conversions rise but unaided awareness falls, something is wrong.
Require human review of automated audience segmentsbeginner
Before Performance Max expands your audience, a strategist must validate it.
Build media plans with the account lead presentintermediate
Never let the algorithm choose channels alone. Make intentional trade-offs.
Question why AI chose this specific audience segmentintermediate
What does this segment buy? Why would they buy from you?
Reserve budget for testing underperforming brand positionsadvanced
AI optimises away from risky messages. Test them anyway intentionally.
Document the media strategy before turning on automationbeginner
What channels, what message, what outcome? Write it, then measure.
Monthly: Compare AI recommendations to your media judgmentintermediate
Where does it want to spend more? Where do you disagree?
Train your team on why audiences respond to specificityundefined
Vague messaging optimises well. Memorable messaging requires human choice.
Five things worth remembering
- The prompt engineer cannot replace the strategist who knows what your brand means.
- Competent is not memorable. Measure both separately or lose distinctiveness.
- AI finds the easy audience. Budget separately for the audience you want.
- Your craft knowledge about why audiences buy is still worth more than optimization.
- Efficiency that erodes brand memory is a loss, not a win.
The Book — Out Now
Cognitive Sovereignty: How To Think For Yourself When AI Thinks For You
Read the first chapter free.
✓ You're on the list — read Chapter 1 now
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.