Scarcity marketing & fear tactics in AI, and how to hold our center

According to a recent study, scarcity marketing experienced its biggest boom between 2020 and 2022. Catalyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the rapid acceleration of the e-commerce landscape, it became the norm. While the psychological framework of leveraging a "fear of missing out" (FOMO) has always existed, this specific window transformed scarcity from a localized luxury tactic into a normalized, baseline strategy for everyday consumer brands.

It seems to me that this desensitized us to the fear-based tactics used widely in online business and digital marketing. While fear and survival have always been motivating factors for us humans, it's on us to decide if that's what we want to be motivated by... If that's the world we want to create and contribute to.

AI has become a factory for fear-tactics.

Is it powerful? Yes. Does it unlock potential? It can. Will it instantly make you a millionaire or solve all your problems in business? No, and why would we want it to?

It's not the consumer or the business owner's fault that we're all addicted to fear-tactics. They've made the fear sound so real, so loud, so all-consuming.

We've all given into them at one time or another, and we've likely deployed them in our own marketing, however innocently.

But I think the beauty of challenge and adventure within business has been lost with these tactics (for the business owner), and with the popular rhetoric on AI.

When we step into business ownership, we take a risk. We embark upon the unknown. It's scary and we never know what may lie around the river bend. But that's the adventure. That's where growth happens and stories are made.

If we use AI as a tool on our journey, we can absolutely reach new heights.

If we use AI to attempt to fully insulate ourselves from the experience of business ownership, the risks & rewards, the bumps & bruises, then what was it all for anyway? Money? I'd argue that was never the most rewarding part of being a business owner, nor what I'll be proud of on my death bed when I think of the personal growth attained from the risks I was brave enough to take.

Business is hard work, and often, our mindset and emotional well-being is the toughest skill of all. But when we build THAT muscle? We feel pride and fulfillment that no amount of money, or AI-efficiency, can buy.

Use AI to scale your dreams and give you more time, but remember you don't have to automatically subscribe to fear-tactics. You do have control over your mind and how you run your business. It's okay to slow down. To pause. To not know. To feel lost and overwhelmed by the world right now. We're all in this together and we don't know what the future holds.

Through it all, it's okay to be human. 😊

Need an understanding, thoughtful human to build a sustainable AI plan for your business? Let’s discuss in an AI Readiness Audit.