This Old Marketing - News Podcast Weekly with Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose

AI is getting more powerful, publishers want their communities back, and marketers are apparently becoming engineers.
In this episode of This Old Marketing, Joe and Robert start with OpenAI and the growing concerns around increasingly capable AI systems.  Is it marketing...or theater...or real concerns? The boys lean toward marketing.
Then, OpenWeb launches Reddit-style forums that publishers can build directly into their own sites. For years, publishers watched conversations move from their comment sections to platforms like Reddit and Facebook. With search traffic under pressure, could community once again become one of the most important assets publishers own?
Marketing Winners and Rants & Raves
Joe's Marketing Winner: Meta and Muse
Joe gives Meta the win for understanding that AI adoption isn't only a technology problem. It's an emotional one. By associating its AI with a cute, friendly character, Meta is making the technology feel less intimidating and more approachable.
Is it brilliant positioning, or the AI equivalent of putting a cartoon character on a cereal box?
Robert's Marketing Winner: Visit Sweden
Robert gives the win to Visit Sweden and its "Introvert Travel Agency," a campaign built specifically around travelers who would rather avoid crowds, forced social interaction and the traditional tourist experience.
Joe's Commentary: Anthropic, Religion and the Marketing of AI Acceptance
Joe looks at The New York Times report on Anthropic's private meetings with theologians, philosophers and religious thinkers about Claude, morality and the possibility of AI consciousness.
Robert's Rant: The Marketing Engineer
The Wall Street Journal looks at the rise of the "marketing engineer," a title for marketers combining AI, automation and traditional marketing judgment.
Links
OpenAI / Astra safety
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/28/technology/openai-astra-safety.html
OpenWeb launches forums for publishers
https://www.axios.com/2026/09/30/openweb-forums-publishers-reddit
Joe's Marketing Winner: Meta Muse
https://www.theverge.com/column/999999/optimizer-meta-muse-ai-cute
Joe's Commentary: Anthropic, Claude and Religion
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/us/anthropic-claude-morals-ai.html
Robert's Marketing Winner: Visit Sweden's Introvert Travel Agency
https://adage.com/creativity/work/aa-visit-sweden-introvert-travel-agency/
Robert's Rant: Marketers Are Rebranding as Engineers to Survive the AI Era
https://www.wsj.com/cmo-today/marketers-are-rebranding-as-engineers-to-survive-the-ai-era-2938574b
-------
This week's sponsor:
Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out. Point is, you miss a lot. Unless you use HubSpot.

Their AEO and customer platform gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights trapped in emails, call logs, and transcripts.  All that unstructured data that makes all the difference. Because when you know more, you grow more.
Visit https://www.hubspot.com/ to hear how HubSpot can help you grow better.
-------
Get all the show notes: https://www.thisoldmarketing.com/
Get Joe's new book, Burn the Playbook, at http://www.joepulizzi.com/books/burn-the-playbook/
Subscribe to Joe's Newsletter at https://www.thetilt.com/join-tilt-newsletter
Get Robert Rose's new book, Valuable Friction, at https://robertrose.net/valuable-friction/ 
Subscribe to Robert's Newsletter at https://seventhbearlens.substack.com/
-------
This Old Marketing is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network: https://www.hubspot.com/podcastnetwork

Content marketing is changing, and Joe and Robert believe the traditional model may finally be reaching the end of the road.
In this special episode of This Old Marketing, the guys look ahead to the state of content marketing in 2027 and present two different, but complementary, models for what comes next.
Joe goes deep on the Trust Portfolio, a strategy for organizations to build a diversified collection of trusted human voices instead of relying almost entirely on the corporate brand. He walks through how companies can identify the audiences where trust matters most, find the right people to serve them and build human-led content franchises designed to create ongoing audience relationships.
Robert introduces The Plural Brand, his framework for a world where AI makes every company capable of producing polished, professional and increasingly similar content. Instead of trying to manufacture one perfectly consistent brand voice, Robert argues that organizations need distinctiveness, multiple credible human voices and the ability to earn trust one audience at a time.
Two frameworks. Two perspectives. One big question: What does content marketing become when creating more content is no longer the answer?
Resources from the episode
Joe Pulizzi: How to Build a Trust Portfolio
Includes the full article, the free Trust Portfolio Field Guide and the companion Trust Portfolio Worksheet.
https://www.thetilt.com/marketing/how-to-build-a-trust-portfolio
Robert Rose: The Plural Brand
Includes Robert's free Plural Brand eBook.
https://www.seventhbear.com/the-plural-brand/
-------
This week's sponsor:
Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out. Point is, you miss a lot. Unless you use HubSpot.

Their AEO and customer platform gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights trapped in emails, call logs, and transcripts.  All that unstructured data that makes all the difference. Because when you know more, you grow more.
Visit https://www.hubspot.com/ to hear how HubSpot can help you grow better.
-------
Get all the show notes: https://www.thisoldmarketing.com/
Get Joe's new book, Burn the Playbook, at http://www.joepulizzi.com/books/burn-the-playbook/
Subscribe to Joe's Newsletter at https://www.thetilt.com/join-tilt-newsletter
Get Robert Rose's new book, Valuable Friction, at https://robertrose.net/valuable-friction/ 
Subscribe to Robert's Newsletter at https://seventhbearlens.substack.com/
-------
This Old Marketing is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network: https://www.hubspot.com/podcastnetwork

Joe and Robert kick off the show with a question that's getting harder to ignore: when the CEOs building the world's most powerful AI systems start saying development may need to slow down, how concerned should everyone else be? New warnings from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman bring the AI safety debate back to the forefront.
Then the guys dig into some troubling new content marketing research from Andy Crestodina and Orbit Media. Of 1,042 marketers surveyed, just 14% say their blogs deliver strong results. AI may be making content faster and easier to produce, but the strategies most closely associated with strong performance, including original research, expert collaboration and human editing, are actually being used less often.
Meanwhile, Perplexity is going big on creators, working with hundreds of influencers and running campaigns involving more than 100 creators and multi-million-dollar budgets. Is this further proof that as AI makes content creation cheaper, trusted human voices become even more valuable?
Joe's marketing winner is Meta and its work showing how Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses can help blind and low-vision users gain more independence. Robert's marketing loser is Nike, which is being removed from the S&P 100 after 18 years as the company struggles with a dramatic decline in market value.
Robert raves about HBO's new DC series Lanterns, while Joe recommends Harlan Coben's new book, Plot Twist: Life, Craft, and the Messy First Draft, part memoir and part practical look at the realities of the writing process.
Episode Links:
AI CEOs revive debate over risks to humanity Andy Crestodina's content marketing research Perplexity is betting big on creators Meta AI glasses for blind veterans Nike's S&P 100 removal and Dow concerns Lanterns on HBO Harlan Coben's Plot Twist
Subscribe and Follow: Follow Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose on LinkedIn for insights, hot takes, and weekly updates from the world of content and marketing. 
-------
This week's sponsor:
Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out. Point is, you miss a lot.

Unless you use HubSpot.

Their AEO and customer platform gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights trapped in emails, call logs, and transcripts.  All that unstructured data that makes all the difference. Because when you know more, you grow more.
Visit https://www.hubspot.com/ to hear how HubSpot can help you grow better.
-------
Get all the show notes: https://www.thisoldmarketing.com/
Get Joe's new book, Burn the Playbook, at http://www.joepulizzi.com/books/burn-the-playbook/
Subscribe to Joe's Newsletter at https://www.joepulizzi.com/signup/.
Get Robert Rose's new book, Valuable Friction, at https://robertrose.net/valuable-friction/ 
Subscribe to Robert's Newsletter at https://seventhbearlens.substack.com/
-------
This Old Marketing is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network: https://www.hubspot.com/podcastnetwork

Joe and Robert kick off the show with a look at the coming explosion of video creators and what happens when AI makes video creation essentially unlimited.
Then they dig into OpenAI's new Astra model, the debate over whether we've reached AGI, and the uncomfortable timing of Anthropic insiders warning that increasingly powerful AI could pose an existential risk.
Finally, it's prediction time. Joe and Robert make their 2026 NFL picks and pit their football knowledge against OpenAI and Claude. Who wins the Super Bowl? Who completely embarrasses themselves? We'll find out.
Articles from the show:
Billion New Video Creators Coming Soon
OpenAI GPT-6 Astra Review: Shockingly Good
Anthropic Insiders Warn AI Could Kill All Humans
Subscribe and Follow: Follow Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose on LinkedIn for insights, hot takes, and weekly updates from the world of content and marketing. 
-------
This week's sponsor:
Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out. Point is, you miss a lot.

Unless you use HubSpot.

Their AEO and customer platform gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights trapped in emails, call logs, and transcripts.  All that unstructured data that makes all the difference. Because when you know more, you grow more.
Visit https://www.hubspot.com/ to hear how HubSpot can help you grow better.
-------
Get all the show notes: https://www.thisoldmarketing.com/
Get Joe's new book, Burn the Playbook, at http://www.joepulizzi.com/books/burn-the-playbook/
Subscribe to Joe's Newsletter at https://www.joepulizzi.com/signup/.
Get Robert Rose's new book, Valuable Friction, at https://robertrose.net/valuable-friction/ 
Subscribe to Robert's Newsletter at https://seventhbearlens.substack.com/
-------
This Old Marketing is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network: https://www.hubspot.com/podcastnetwork

This week, Joe and Robert look at Big Tech power, unexpected brand comebacks and the growing tension between AI efficiency and human trust.
Meta agreed to an enormous teen-safety settlement, including new limits around young users. But the most interesting part may be that billions of dollars are tied to competitors adopting similar protections. Is Meta turning a regulatory loss into a competitive advantage?
Google was found to have illegally monopolized key parts of the digital ad market, yet a federal judge declined to force the company to sell its ad exchange business. If the monopoly remains intact, what exactly did the antitrust case accomplish?
MapQuest suddenly became the No. 1 app in the U.S. after refusing to follow Google and Apple in renaming Lake Ontario. Is the lesson that brands should take more stands, or simply know the few things worth taking a stand on?
Joe's rant looks at New York City public schools placing a one-year moratorium on generative AI through eighth grade. The concern is understandable, but banning AI is easier than doing the harder work of creating guardrails and teaching students how to use it responsibly.
Joe's marketing loser is the growing use of AI-generated food images in restaurant menus and promotions, sometimes depicting food that looks nothing like the real product. AI should help market the product, not invent it.
Robert's marketing loser takes aim at the marketing industry's need to turn everything, including Dolly Parton's legacy, into a list of brand lessons.
And Robert's commentary looks at Jason Isbell and other musicians suing AI music company Suno over technology that allegedly imitates their voices and musical identities, potentially opening another major front in the battle between generative AI and human creators.
Articles from the show: Meta teen-safety settlement · Google ad-tech ruling · MapQuest comeback · NYC schools AI ban · AI food slop · Dolly Parton brand lessons · Jason Isbell vs. Suno, The New York Times
Subscribe and Follow: Follow Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose on LinkedIn for insights, hot takes, and weekly updates from the world of content and marketing. 
-------
This week's sponsor:
Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out. Point is, you miss a lot.

Unless you use HubSpot.

Their AEO and customer platform gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights trapped in emails, call logs, and transcripts.  All that unstructured data that makes all the difference. Because when you know more, you grow more.
Visit https://www.hubspot.com/ to hear how HubSpot can help you grow better.
-------
Get all the show notes: https://www.thisoldmarketing.com/
Get Joe's new book, Burn the Playbook, at http://www.joepulizzi.com/books/burn-the-playbook/
Subscribe to Joe's Newsletter at https://www.joepulizzi.com/signup/.
Get Robert Rose's new book, Valuable Friction, at https://robertrose.net/valuable-friction/ 
Subscribe to Robert's Newsletter at https://seventhbearlens.substack.com/
-------
This Old Marketing is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network: https://www.hubspot.com/podcastnetwork