is content strategy a scam?

From Reach to Relationship: Ditching the Outdated Content Playbook

In a 2024 Deloitte study, 68% of consumers reported skipping branded content because it “doesn’t feel made for them.”¹ Meanwhile, only 16% of Gen Z said they believe brands actually understand them.² And when asked what makes them engage, the overwhelming response wasn’t “more content” — it was “content that feels real.”

The modern consumer is fatigued. They've seen the swipe-ups, the “disruptive” TikToks, the branded Spotify playlists. They're not asking for more. They're asking for meaning.

This is the problem with most content strategy as it’s practiced today: it's still optimized for attention, while the culture — and the consumer — has moved on.

attention ≠ impact

The advertising industry has long operated on the assumption that attention is the goal. But in 2025, attention is cheap. Retention is what matters.

We don’t live in an attention economy anymore. We live in a retention economy.

Think of your own behavior: How many brands do you follow but ignore? How many newsletters do you archive without opening? In a world where every brand can post daily, the real currency is whether people remember you. Whether they come back. Whether you actually changed something for them.

A Harvard Business Review study found that emotionally connected customers are more than twice as valuable as highly satisfied customers.³ Emotional connection isn’t built through consistency — it’s built through resonance. And resonance requires choice, clarity, and stakes. Not output.

Somewhere along the way, “content strategy” stopped being a discipline of insight and started becoming a distribution calendar.

Let’s be honest: in most traditional agencies, content strategy =

• Make a persona

• Build a funnel

• Chop up messaging into pillars (I HATE PILLARS!!!!!!!)

• Schedule weekly posts

• Monitor engagement and neutral community management

This approach worked in the early 2010s when reach was organic and novelty was enough. But today’s platforms are hostile to anything slow, nuanced, or unfamiliar.

A 2023 MIT Sloan article noted that “algorithmic visibility increasingly favors mimicry over originality.”⁴ Brands aren’t strategizing — they’re reverse-engineering trends in a loop of sameness.

Meanwhile, the end consumer has moved on.

real strategy is about what you don’t say

In my opinion, true strategy is subtractive. It’s about knowing what to ignore. What not to post. Who not to please.

But today, content “strategy” is mostly risk-averse. It’s built for templates, not people. It’s designed to hit quotas, not hearts.

In most teams, the question isn’t “What’s the smartest or most resonant thing we can say right now?” It’s “What can we post this week to stay visible?”

As Marshall McLuhan warned: “We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.” Replace “tools” with “calendars” or “brand kits” and you’ll understand the current state of strategy.

metrics have become morality

Click-through rate became currency. Comments became justification. “Did it perform?” became more important than “Did it mean anything?”

But many of the most impactful ideas — the ones that actually shift perception — don’t perform immediately. They take time. They challenge comfort. They need space to land.

As UCLA professor Sarah Roberts noted in her work on algorithmic moderation, “Most online platforms are structurally incapable of encouraging reflection.”⁵ That’s not a bug. That’s the business model.

A 2021 Mozilla Foundation study showed that even when users actively tried to change their YouTube algorithm by avoiding certain topics, the algorithm continued to recommend similar content 43% of the time.⁶

So why do we keep strategizing for these platforms, instead of in spite of them?

the real problem: most brands have nothing to say

Let’s be honest. That’s why your strategy feels hollow.

You’re not underperforming because you didn’t post at the right time. You’re underperforming because your brand is scared to say something real.

You don’t need a better tool. You need a better point of view.

In the retention economy, you don’t win by posting more — you win by making it count.

The brands that cut through now are the ones that:

• Know who they’re talking to (and who they’re not),

• Say one clear thing instead of 10 safe things,

• Sound like people, not slides.

So instead of asking:

• How many pieces of content do we need to schedule this quarter?

Ask:

• What do we actually believe — and have we said it loud enough?

• Is this something our audience would screenshot, send to a friend, or reference later?

• Does this post risk anything — or could it have come from anyone?

Then do this:

• Say one thing. Clearly.

• Post when it matters, not because it’s Tuesday.

• Build trust, not traffic.

You don’t need a funnel. You need a spine.

Make fewer things. Say smarter things. Stand on something.

Because in 2025, the algorithm might get you seen — but only clarity will make people stay.

references

1. Deloitte Digital Media Trends Report, 2024.

2. McKinsey & Company. (2023). The Future of Gen Z: Identity, Spending, and Influence.

3. Zorfas, A., & Leemon, D. (2016). An Emotional Connection Matters More than Customer Satisfaction. Harvard Business Review.

4. MIT Sloan Management Review. (2023). The Algorithms Are Killing Originality.

5. Roberts, S. T. (2019). Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media. Yale University Press.

6. Mozilla Foundation. (2021). YouTube Regrets Report: How the Algorithm Recommends Harmful Content.