the sPRint: Did We Finally Get A Win For Human Writing In A World of AI Slop?
August 13, 2026 | We talk about Claude’s watermark chaos, Jif’ing things, and a cultural shift around how we exist online. Plus, what’s the best form of messaging—problem solving or personal benefits?
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The Warmup
Fun Fact 📖 We are opening up the history books on PR. In 1923, Edward Bernays coined the term “public relations.” Funny enough, he was also the nephew of Sigmund Freud. The teachings from his uncle would go on to help him shape public opinion. Get more PR facts here.
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Fast Twitch
Claude Adds a Watermark
This week, Anthropic confirmed that its flagship AI platform, Claude, will now include a watermark in text generated by the tool. This is bad news for people who rely on this tool to generate content—but it’s a welcome relief to writers who prize their craft and believe that generative AI should not be doing the creative heavy lifting.
The decision to watermark text is a result of the newly enacted Transparency Code as part of the EU AI Act, which requires companies to identify the AI-generated content they are publishing. In their reporting, TechCrunch noted that this isn’t the first AI company scrambling to add watermarks to the output of its tools in an attempt to dodge public scrutiny and regulatory action.
“Last week, AI music platform Suno said it will mark tracks created on its platform after a spate of legal challenges. Last month, newsletter service Substack teamed up with Pangram to flag AI-generated content,” writes Ivan Mehta. “The company’s CEO, Chris Best, called out Claudefishing, a term used for people using AI to generate content.”
While there is still a long way to go in terms of AI slop and its many associated issues, this is an interesting step forward. Remember how the EU’s GDPR (kind of) forced American companies to comply with their privacy regulations, even if they didn’t necessarily have to? Maybe we’ll see a similar trend here—Americans get to enjoy the benefits of AI transparency even without any regulations of our own.
For many of us in the communications trade (a field which many of us enter because we love to write), there might be louder feelings of ‘I-told-ya-so’ or simple, quiet relief—and rightfully so. PR and communications are so often overlooked and undervalued as growth levers for businesses, but if you’re going to do them, you’ve got to do them right.
I could jump for joy when a client tells us how much they value our craft and that brand visibility, credibility, and authority—the fruits of PR and communications labor—are central to their growth plan. It’s validating to know that our stubborn belief in the value of human-generated content may just be the way the tide is turning.
The High
“Every Jif’ing Thing” Campaign
Jif, the beloved peanut butter brand, took our ears to the opera and opened our eyes to new and yummy possibilities with their new brand campaign. The “Every Jif’ing Thing” campaign features a reimagining of “O Fortuna,” designed to get delightfully caught in our heads, and uses curious visuals to show us all the new (or maybe just forgotten?) ways to use their peanut butter spread.
Chris Kelly elaborates on what is behind the creative and how Jif plans to use their net sales for marketing in this Marketing Dive piece.
Slow Twitch
That Nagging Feeling is a Message for Marketers
Do you ever feel a pit in your stomach when you think about how much time you’ve spent watching TikToks or Reels? How many times have you deleted Reddit off of your phone? Do you ever get the feeling that social media in general is just—off?
Add that to a cacophony of news about social media bans for minors, addictive algorithms, and questionable ethics from the mega-tech companies that own these pieces of the internet, and you have a very interesting story. One that came to life in a new Substack piece from Priyanka Desai, where she theorizes that the Millennial mid-life crisis will be distributed like a barbell—on one end, the ultra-visible, fitness and longevity obsessed, self-optimized crowd, and on the other, the quiet, introverted, and self-contained, resigned to doing some fake shopping on a dopamine farm or relying exclusively on group chats for information.
In the middle is the cultural and economic milieu that we’ve become accustomed to (and perhaps put off by) in the past decade: Paid social ads, endless scrolling, online shopping, excess in food, drink, travel—every minute of every day being sold, sold, sold to.
Desai’s piece nails this growing rift between these two ‘types’ of millennials, but what I found most interesting from a marketing point-of-view is that the vehicles brands have heavily relied on since the pandemic are no longer working so seamlessly and, in this case, being actively rejected. For crying out loud, you can download one of a multitude of apps to help you quit using your phone so much.
Now, I’m not suggesting here that paid social or digital marketing is dead or anything like that (because those types of sweeping provocations are almost always wrong), but if you think about the many factors making the internet increasingly unbearable—and, by default, making it harder to connect with your audience online—it’s time for a pivot.
Last week, we wrote about how the influencer landscape is changing—it’s no longer enough to flaunt your wealth or unbox a new brand collab. You need to be educating, entertaining, or providing some other sort of intangible value to build an online community (and no, we are not going to validate the rage-baiters who were mentioned in that article by suggesting that that is a feasible or sustainable strategy).
So, here again we see the tide turning on a bigger level. Brand equity is going to get harder to earn, audiences harder to win over, and loyalty harder to keep. But, brands that invest in those things—credibility, value, education, (human!) creativity, loyalty—may just come out on top.
The Home Stretch
Make Messaging Personal
Messaging holds so much power. One action, product, or service can appeal to different audiences solely based on the messaging around it. Take, for example, this UGA Today article written by Savannah Peat. The article observes the messaging used to encourage volunteering to clean up trash along the coastlines, as research from the University of Georgia shows that people are more likely to help keep the environment clean if it benefits them personally.
So, how was messaging used to entice volunteers? First, for the fit crowd, it emphasized the personal benefits of getting outside, increasing step count, stretching, and bending. The benefits outlined were physical and mental health gained while protecting marine life and maintaining clean beaches. It turns out people were more enticed by positive messaging than anything negative or problem-focused.
Second, for the crowds that are not as active, the lean into positive messaging was still enough to get them out there. They looked at volunteering as a social opportunity to meet new people. Not only that, but a clean environment reduces stress, and making progress towards that goal is satisfying within itself. What this teaches us is that humans respond better to positive and personally beneficial messaging over simple problem-solving.
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