6 Marketing Lessons That Actually Matter
Tech keeps evolving, but writing, storytelling, and psychology are still at the heart of marketing. Kipp Bodnar and Kieran Flanagan pulled six core principles that make campaigns more believable, easier to understand, and better aimed at the right audience. You’ll see how the six principles show up in paid social, email, and landing pages today, then score a real campaign to find what to fix first in 2027.
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As a marketer, it’s easy to feel like you’re chasing tactics that will expire before the end of the quarter, with new tools, platform changes, and best practices rolling out weekly.
But maybe the more things change, the more they stay the same. Kipp Bodnar and Kieran Flanagan, hosts of Marketing Against the Grain, think it’s time to go back to the classics.
They outlined six lessons from six classic books that are still relevant as you plan for 2027. Let’s dive into what each core principal looks like today and how to evaluate it against your own campaigns.
6 Marketing Lessons That Matter More In The AI Slop Era
The principle: In Direct Mail Copy That Sells, Herschel Gordon Lewis argues that strong copy depends less on how much truth you include and more on whether the reader believes it. He calls this “verisimilitude”, which means the appearance of truth. His example is a clothing label described by listing the famous brands it isn’t, which is honest but gives shoppers no reason to buy.
Why it still works: Readers decide what to trust based on what feels credible to them, whether or not it’s accurate. Kieran’s first reaction on the episode was “So lying,” and Kipp’s answer was that this is framing: choosing the true things your reader will recognize as true and saying them from the reader’s point of view.
Modern application: Paid social ads on Meta and LinkedIn, email subject lines, and landing page headlines, anywhere your reader decides quickly whether to keep reading. A specific, believable claim like “Set up in an afternoon, no developer needed” tends to land harder than “industry leading platform,” even when both are true.
Ask yourself: Is the most important thing I’m saying something my reader would actually believe?
The principle: In W.I.B. Beveridge’s The Art of Scientific Investigation, originality often comes from linking ideas that nobody had connected before. Kieran’s takeaway is that original ideas come from different inputs, so reading what everyone else reads leads to the same conclusions everyone else reaches.
Why it still works: Competitors who study the same sources, follow the same accounts, and use the same tools end up with similar ideas. Kieran points to Liquid Death as a brand shaped by ideas from other industries and internet trends. He has even started leaning away from AI for ideation and research, since he finds everyone’s results converge.
Modern application: Campaign brainstorms, editorial calendars, and creative briefs. Kipp’s version is simple: think about what inspired you most in the last week, whether a song, a movie, or anything else, and ask how it could apply to a problem you’re working on.
Ask yourself: Where did my last three campaign ideas come from, and would a competitor have found the same sources?
The principle: In Reality in Advertising, Rosser Reeves warns about commercials that are dazzling as art but poor at selling. Kieran’s reading is that growing an audience is easy, while growing the right audience is hard, and that they’re different skills.
Why it still works: Attention only matters if it comes from people who might buy, and engagement from the wrong people can look like success while selling nothing. Kieran admires Reeves’ M&M’s line because it sells the benefit to the customer and not the product, and Kipp ties the principle to resonance, a core idea in their book Loop.
Modern application: Social platforms like LinkedIn, X, and YouTube, plus newsletter growth reporting. Look beyond followers, likes, and views to signups, replies from target customers, and pipeline.
Ask yourself: If my reach doubled tomorrow, would more of the right people be listening?
The principle: In Tribes, Seth Godin writes that traditional marketing pushes a standard product to a standard audience, and that average has come to mean mediocre. Kipp’s lesson is that the real enemy isn’t bad work, it’s the unremarkable middle that nobody cares about.
Why it still works: People who care deeply about you only exist when you’re deeply for them, which means being comfortable with not being for everyone. Kipp points out that most marketers resist this, since it means intentionally leaving some people out.
Modern application: Positioning statements, homepage messaging, audience targeting in paid campaigns, and ideal customer profile definitions. Write for the group you want most, and state who you aren’t for.
Ask yourself: Who is this for, and who would I be fine losing?
The principle: In How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie makes the case that people care about what they want, not about what you’re selling. Kieran’s takeaway is that no one cares about your product, only how their life improves because of it.
Why it still works: Readers respond when they can picture themselves as the person they want to be. Kieran’s advice is to talk about what people want and show them how to get it, bringing their day to day to life so they can imagine the change.
Modern application: Landing pages, product pages, case studies, and email nurture sequences. Open with the customer’s workday after the problem is solved, then explain how the product gets them there.
Ask yourself: Does my message show my reader what their workday looks like after the problem is solved, or does it only describe my product?
The principle: Obvious Adams, a short business fable first published in 1916, includes a test for whether an idea is obvious. The test asks whether people react with “why didn’t I think of that?” as soon as they hear it.
Why it still works: Obvious ideas explain themselves. Kipp reads the lesson as saying that when an idea needs hours of argument, either the angle isn’t obvious or you haven’t thought it through enough to simplify it. He calls it positioning and product marketing in a nutshell, and Kieran adds that he looks for the same simplicity when hiring.
Modern application: Product marketing, sales decks, homepage headlines, and one-line positioning statements. Try explaining your product to someone outside your team in a single sentence, and treat any need for a long walkthrough as a signal to simplify.
Ask yourself: Does my idea land without a lengthy explanation?