the sPRint: Is the Era of Lifestyle Influencers Over?
August 6, 2026 | We talk about a new era for influencers as engagement is constantly changing, the role of nostalgia in marketing and advertising, product visualization and AI, and Cracker Barrel’s inevitable new CEO.
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The Warmup
Fun Facts 🌭Oscar Mayer’s Weinermobile is celebrating its 90th birthday! Anyone else also turning 90 throughout July and August are eligible for a visit from the staple motor vehicle. New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago residents have the opportunity to have their own Weinermobile Cake available through the Milk Bar dessert chain. Check it out.
New on the pod 🎙️CEO and Founder of MarTech3D, Mark Worger, joins us on the Good Marketing with Stephanie podcast to talk about his business journey, product visualization, partnering AI with human creativity, and more! Listen on.
Fast Twitch
Follower Count Isn’t The Only Thing That Counts Anymore
Creators who once made a living and built an audience from polished lifestyle content are now finding that they need to pivot as brands become more selective about the influencers they work with, and audiences are not as easy to engage as they once were. Success is less about growing a follower count and more about creating meaningful connections with the right audience.
A recent New York Magazine / Vulture article focuses on these changing dynamics and highlights how lifestyle influencers are in an especially tricky place. Audiences want to get more connection, education, or value out of the influencers they engage with versus—it’s not longer enough to flaunt your wealth or unbox a new designer handbag. The shift is so potent that some are even calling this the “Influencer Recession.”
Read the full story by Rebecca Jennings here.
The High
The Good Old Days are Here Again
Nostalgia has been proven in psychology to help us build self-esteem, find meaning, encourage authenticity, and make us happy. Some brands are leveraging nostalgia as a selling point now more than ever. What makes it good for business and building brands? Think of a throwback campaign or familiar packaging from when you were a kid—people simply can’t get enough when a brand makes them feel connected to an earlier time.
The keyword here is ‘vintage.’ An article from Harvard Business School tells us how major brands are using nostalgia and words like ‘vintage’ to attract massive waves of shoppers.
This goes to show the power of words when telling your brand’s story and highlighting products or services. Language that evokes a positive image, memory, or emotion helps build trust which is absolutely necessary in building sustainable relationships with stakeholders, customers and the public.
Check out Avery Forman’s article here.
Slow Twitch
MarTech3D on Product Visualization and AI
When poor or missing product images can scare off up to 25% of potential purchases, it's time to get serious about visuals. And for PR pros, founder and CEO of MarTech3D Mark Worger says that product visualization can be a great asset in telling a brand story or supporting a product-forward media pitch.
In the most recent episode of Good Marketing with Stephanie, Mark says that visuals are “the difference between asking your customer to read a novel versus watching a film. We all love books, but a novel is a big ask.” With good product visualization, it's like presenting a “film” that your buyers can learn a lot from.
Host Stephanie Pryor and Mark also get down to brass tacks on the balance between AI-driven automation and the preservation of human creativity. “We will find a way to go beyond the race to mediocrity that AI can do when it comes to generative content,” Mark explains. You will always need humans in the mix with AI because accuracy, creativity, and soul cannot be generated.
How does Mark know? Well, you can’t just use any generic AI tool and expect it to produce visuals that hit the mark. MarTech3D’s AI usage allows customers to upload engineering/CAD files (which are otherwise unusable for marketing), and the platform's automation and AI convert the files into photorealistic 3D models, product images, animations, exploded/callout views, and AR views. This cuts production time down by 90% and allows the other 10% for human checks for accuracy.
Listen to Mark’s insight on the latest episode of Good Marketing with Stephanie, available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
The Home Stretch
Cracker Barrel’s New CEO
After three years leading the restaurant chain, Julie Felss Masino is stepping down as CEO effective August 10th and will be succeeded by David Deno, former CEO of Bloomin’ Brands. This leadership change comes just a year after Cracker Barrel took the iconic “Uncle Hershel” and his rocking chair out of the comfort food chain’s logo, which prompted immediate backlash from customers.
The logo redesign disregarded the relationship stakeholders had with the brand and Cracker Barrel felt the hit. A PRWeek article by John H. Palmer weighed in on the impact: “the logo change and subsequent media backlash caused sales to plunge up to 7% in the fiscal quarter ending on January 30, 2026, resulting in a valuation decline of $100 million.”
Some “old ways” are better left unchanged. In Cracker Barrel’s case, their well-established, nostalgic brand identity was something that customers held dear and was clearly a major selling point for visiting the restaurants. Taking nostalgia away and modernizing the stores created something entirely different—something that no one asked for.
Rebuilding trust after the brand debacle will be a long road for David Deno and the company. Even after the reversal back to the original logo, the restaurant chain has not fully recovered. This has been a long-winded crisis and time will tell if Cracker Barrel and its brand reputation can bounce back under new leadership.
Read more from John H. Palmer here.
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