Marketing didn’t lose it soul. It Optimized it away.

By Marcos Hernandez – Agency Partner | Brand Steward | Catalyst for Disruption & Growth

After finally coming around to reading Filterworld, recommended by one of the sharpest strategists in the game, I had a clarifying realization: much of modern marketing has stopped trying to understand culture, especially online. It is trying to game it. Built to outsmart algorithms through optimization, predictability, and speed. It works in the short term.

We have become very good at gaming the system. We know how to chase trends, reverse engineer engagement, and manufacture relevance at scale. Algorithms reward this behavior. They surface patterns, amplify what already works, and encourage repetition. What they cannot do is understand meaning.

Culture is not a dataset. It is emotional, contextual, regional, contradictory, and deeply human.

When marketing is led primarily by algorithmic signals, everything starts to converge. The same formats. The same tones. The same safe expressions of identity. It performs, earns engagement, and quickly disappears. That is not cultural relevance. That is manufactured familiarity.

This is why human in the loop is not a buzzword. It is a necessity.

Humans bring judgment, empathy, and accountability into a system that has none. We know when something is statistically smart but culturally wrong. We understand nuance, history, humor, and lived experience, especially in multicultural work, where context is everything.

The role of humans is not to compete with AI on speed or scale. It is to protect meaning. To ask better questions before the outputs exist. To validate ideas against real human truth, not just performance metrics.

The brands that endure will not be the ones that perfectly gamed the system. They will be the ones that resisted shortcuts and stayed grounded in human truths. Truths that outlast platforms, formats, and feeds.

AI will evolve. Algorithms will change. Human values move slower. And that is exactly why they matter.