Dunbar’s work suggests that connection does not scale automatically; it costs attention. Our industry measures reach. The troop measured touch. A million impressions cannot replace what combing gave the troop: small, consistent, intimate moments of recognition and bonding.
Our sensitivity to faces explains why a creator with a face often beats a brand with a logo, and why the faces in our work can matter more than their production value.
The capuchin study shows how comparison and outrage are among the easiest engagement mechanisms to engineer. But that also makes them the costliest, driving numbers while eroding the relationship. And they do it by activating resentment—not the right foundation for building a brand anyone loves.
Vulnerability turns out to be the playbook for the marketing work I am most proud of. The campaigns that actually move people, the ones that build community rather than impressions, all have a version of consolation, of naked vulnerability within them. And through that leap, they access a deeper form of human connection.
The marketing industry has an important role to play. Our work reaches billions of humans every day, across sight, sound, and motion. The brands that win the next decade will be the ones that understand their audience on the deepest level, knowing not only to whom they speak, but how those audiences evolved to be human in the first place.
Written with contributions from Dr. Cynthia Kaplan, director of trauma training and consultation at McLean Hospital, assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, and, most importantly, his mom.
