Yanni Pappas, Yanni @ Workshop | Creator | Gen Z Marketer | Writer | Social, brand, content, & culture | B2B SaaS | 5M+ views ✍🏼, recently posted something that made me stop scrolling: "I'm calling it right now. The biggest marketing shift in 2026 won't involve AI. It's something much simpler: things that are unmistakably real, honest, and human." That one line captures a feeling I see everywhere in marketing right now.

As Yanni explained, this shift shows up in scrappy, clever, deeply human ideas: newspaper announcements, grocery store apples, handwritten notes, advice columns, rocks in retail stores. It is both funny and profound. It is also, I think, one of the most important course corrections our industry has seen in years.

The Biggest Marketing Shift Won't Be AI

Yanni is not saying AI will disappear. AI tools are clearly here to stay. But the bold claim is that the biggest marketing shift of 2026 will be something else entirely: a move toward things that feel "unmistakably real, honest, and human."

That framing matters. Over the last few years, marketers have been sold an arms race:

More content, generated faster
More automation, in more channels
More personalization, fueled by more data

And yet, audiences feel more burned out, more skeptical, and more numb. Timelines are clogged with what Yanni calls, echoing the broader conversation, "AI slop" and rage-bait. The result is a strange paradox: infinite content, but almost no connection.

In that environment, something as simple as a physical newspaper announcement suddenly feels radical.

The Analog Renaissance: Why IRL Is Back

Yanni mentioned a string of examples from 2025 that all point in the same direction. Look at them together, and a pattern emerges.

A24: An Engagement Announcement in the Paper

A24 took out an "engagement announcement" in The Boston Globe to promote their upcoming film with Robert Pattinson and Zendaya, titled 'The Drama'. On the surface, it is a joke: using the language and format of a personal life milestone to promote a movie.

But it works because it hijacks a deeply human ritual in a trusted local medium. It feels like something your family might actually see over breakfast. It invites screenshots, shares, and group texts precisely because it does not look like a typical ad.

Hulu: Apples in the Grocery Store

Hulu used real apples in grocery stores to promote "Abbott Elementary", slapping show-branded stickers on the classic teacher-gift trope. Again, this is simple, almost childlike creative: apples, stickers, and a cultural reference everyone understands.

This kind of physical, low-tech execution travels online because it is so clearly not optimized for the feed. People notice it in the real world, take out their phones, and do the distribution work for you.

Rachel Karten: Handwriting on Napkins

Rachel Karten uses her own handwriting on simple objects like napkins to explain social media concepts on Substack and LinkedIn. In a world of polished Canva carousels and AI-generated diagrams, a photo of a napkin with slightly messy handwriting instantly signals, "A real person made this."

The content is still smart and strategic, but the format disarms you. It communicates vulnerability and approachability before you even read the words.

Workshop: "Ask Devin" and Real Advice

Workshop, where Yanni works, launched an old-school advice column site called "Ask Devin", featuring Devin Owens giving real, human answers to internal comms questions.

That format taps into the long tradition of advice columns that feel intimate and conversational. It is content, but it also feels like a service. You are not just reading a brand blog; you are listening in on real workplace dilemmas and honest guidance.

Ramp, Canva, Anthropologie: Physical Stunts With Soul

Other examples Yanni highlighted follow the same pattern:

Ramp livestreamed Kevin from "The Office" working inside a cubicle for six hours in the middle of NYC, complete with physical flyers to promote the stunt.
Canva staged a real billboard stunt, using humor to show when "make the logo bigger" goes a bit too far.
Anthropologie started "selling" rocks in stores after a TikTok prank went organically viral.

None of these ideas are technologically complex. They are memorable because they collide everyday physical spaces with unexpected, human, slightly absurd moments.

Call it the Analog Renaissance, call it guerrilla marketing, call it an OOH advertising comeback. As Yanni put it, this era is "many nuanced things at once"—but underneath all of them is a deep craving for IRL, tangible experiences and a way to feel human again.

The Rise of Intellectual Honesty and Slow Social

Yanni references Christina Le, who calls this shift a move toward "intellectual honesty." That phrase is important. It is not just about being real aesthetically; it is about being real philosophically.

Yanni contrasts this with what dominates many feeds today:

Less rage bait, less AI slop, less "your attention span is cooked and here's content to perpetuate that brainrot."

Intellectually honest marketing does a few things differently:

It respects the audience’s intelligence and time.
It does not pretend a flimsy insight is a "framework" just to go viral.
It admits nuance instead of reducing everything to hot takes.
It is comfortable going slower, knowing that depth compounds.

"Social going slow" is a powerful counter-idea to the algorithmic race. It suggests that the future of brand building might look less like spraying content into every channel and more like crafting a few honest, resonant, human moments that people choose to remember.

Why This Shift Matters for Brands in 2026

Yanni’s conclusion is stark and hopeful at the same time: the brands that win in 2026 will be the ones that understand that real attention is earned through real honesty.

This has practical implications:

Attention is no longer cheap. The feed is saturated. You cannot out-volume the internet. You can only stand out by being meaningfully different—and that often means being more human, not more optimized.
Trust is the new performance metric. Clicks, views, and impressions are fragile. Trust, built slowly through honest communication and tangible experiences, is what keeps people coming back.
Format is a signal. A newspaper announcement, a napkin, a rock with a price tag—these formats signal that a real person took a risk and did something specific, not generic.

How to Apply the Analog Renaissance in Your Own Marketing

If you are a marketer trying to operationalize what Yanni is pointing to, here are a few starting points:

1. Design for Screens and Sidewalks

Ask: What could this idea look like in a grocery aisle, a lobby, a waiting room, a bus stop—not just in a social post? The best analog ideas travel back into digital because people are delighted enough to document them.

2. Add a Human Signature

Borrow from Rachel Karten’s handwriting and "Ask Devin": whose actual voice, handwriting, face, or personality can you foreground? Instead of a faceless "brand voice", find the humans inside your company and let them leave visible fingerprints on the work.

3. Embrace Small, Specific Jokes

The apples for teachers, the "make the logo bigger" billboard, the Anthropologie rocks—these are all inside jokes about culture, design, or the internet. They work because they are specific. Pick a reference your audience truly shares and build around it.

4. Commit to Intellectual Honesty

Run your campaigns through this filter: Are we saying something we genuinely believe, in a way we would stand by if the metrics were hidden? Are we simplifying responsibly, or are we chasing rage, panic, or cheap emotion?

5. Slow Down the Content Factory

Instead of asking, "How do we post more?", start asking, "What is worth making physical? What is worth someone taking a photo of? What is worth putting in a newspaper, on a napkin, or in a store?" That constraint often leads to better, braver ideas.

A Hopeful Direction for Marketing

Yanni Pappas ends on a hopeful note: if real attention is earned through real honesty, then marketing’s future is not doomed to be a race to the bottom of the feed. It can be a race to the top of human creativity instead.

That vision resonates. The next few years will still be full of AI tools, automation, and performance dashboards. But the brands that quietly win will be the ones that remember a simple truth: people do not fall in love with "content"; they fall in love with stories, artifacts, and experiences that feel unmistakably real.