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Welcome to Issue 183 of Total Annarchy, a fortnightly newsletter by me, Ann Handley, with a focus on writing, marketing, living your best life. Was this email forwarded to you? You can subscribe here.

Sunday, March 16, 2025

"Hello... My name is David."

That's the start of a confirmation email that landed in my inbox. It was warm and welcoming.

Not surprising, really: I pester all your Newsletters to focus less on the news- and more on the -letter.

I pester all of you to lean into a non-neutral writing voice. We're writing to customers, not announcing the municipal transit schedule.

But what is surprising is that the confirmation email came from the New York Times. "David" is David Leonhardt, who at that point had just launched NYT's daily news briefing.

And what is surprising is that he wasn't the "editor." Instead, David was the "writer, host, and anchor."

A host to lend credibility and build trust. A host to keep the conversation flowing and top off everyone's glass. (You good? Need anything?) A host to put a human face on a faceless brand.

That email landed in my inbox exactly 5 years ago, at the start of Covid chaos and lockdowns.

Last week, NYT announced that David would be moving from the newsletter to its Opinion page. The Times hasn't yet named its new morning host. It's coming, we're told. Time for a new face.

* * *

Let's think about this for a second:

• The NY Times—which then already had 7.5 million online subscribers (it's now 11.4 million)—had David "anchor" a newsletter, like a broadcast show.
• A company that built its business on the notion that the NYT brand is more important than any individual journalist suddenly anoints a "host."

Five years ago, I thought... gene-yus.

Five years ago, I expected the idea of a writer-host-anchor to spread like Covid; I thought it would mutate and we'd see new variants by now. Brands everywhere would anoint Davids!

But that's not what happened.

I'm sharing this story with you today because it's urgent: The shift NYT made 5 years ago has everything to do with marketing and writing in 2025.

* * *

The fit is hitting the shan everywhere.

Things feel upended, uncertain, unclear.

What's more: Marketing and writing feels upended. Powerful tech has never been more powerful. Gen AI is ubiquitous. (Any day now, I expect General Mills to offer AI-powered breakfast cereal.) 

Never have we been more connected. Yet every day we get more AI bots commenting on bot-written posts. Every day we get more aggressive robo-invites from people we literally just met on LinkedIn, sliding into our DMs: Hi new connection! Me sell you stuff now! Click on my Calendly!

Never have we been more connected. Yet actual connection is increasingly scarce.

* * *

So what do you do? You get yourself a David. You anoint an anchor/host. Pretty much everywhere... but let's start with the easier stuff: on social media and email.

That feels awkward for big institutions that might be accustomed to keeping their communications comfortably colorless and neutral—more brand, less character.

It's also terrifying for smaller companies: What if our David-host builds his personal brand and not our brand-brand?

That's why we're STILL seeing too much "Dear valued customer" nonsense from companies.

We're STILL seeing companies focus on growing their boring* LinkedIn company pages instead of growing the thought leadership of their execs and CEOs and empowering internal David-hosts.

*Except you, Lumon Industries! Praise Kier!

* * *

Generative AI burps out alllll the content we could possibly need. Our differentiator is only this: our taste, perspectives, experiences, and the ability to tell true stories with a bit of inspired joy.

AI is useful. But it's important to know how best to work with the machines so they serve you.

The beauty of the NYT's approach is the balance it strikes between colorless and character. Between brand and David.

It's personable without being personal.

(Should I bold that last line? Yeah, I think I will.)

Back to you: Look at your own email newsletter. Your content buckets. While you're elbow-deep, rooting around, look at all your communications...
 

• Does your email have a recognizable, warm voice?
   
• Does your homepage speak to the needs of your customers? Is it about them... not you? 
  
  PRO TIP: Count the instances of you vs. we in your text. We should be as hard to find as rolls of toilet paper in 2020.
   
• Is your social media focused on your founder? CEO? Or an internal personality comfortable on camera?

"I want examples!" you always demand.

Fine, fine. Here are three.

1. This email newsletter from Mat at HelpScout:

Small injustices can hold disproportionate emotional weight. The parking ticket, when the sign was incredibly confusing. The bird rioting outside your window on your long awaited sleep-in day.

2. This blog post from Erez of ZSA Technology Labs:

One of my big goals in life is to provide stability for others, to create something our team and customers can count on in a world that often feels tumultuous and unstable. I don't usually discuss future plans because I'm not a fan of the tech industry's tendency for hype and premature announcements. I'm making an exception here because I did mention on a podcast episode that we have exciting plans for 2025, and apparently some people actually listened to that episode.

3. This direct response email from JJ at Aussie Pies:

Listen up, bludgers—March 14th is Pi Day, but I don't want you buying a pie that day, I want you shoving one in your gob!

(H/T to everyone's favorite Aussie, Neen James)

Why are these three so great, though?
 

Because you can sense the human being behind the text. Because it feels like someone's out there, waving hello in this sterile sprawl of screens.   

It's less brand. More David. 

And 5 years later, there's no denying we still need him.

🚨 HOW ARE BRANDS ACTUALLY USING AI? [SPONSORED]

There's a lot of hype around AI. So how are top-performing brands actually using AI to deliver stellar customer experience? 

Turn-down service? Meal-prepping for us?

Not yet. Right now, the top performing brands are using AI mostly to experiment and to elevate customer interactions in these three ways, according to Braze:

1. AI-powered predictive analytics, such as to identify customers likely to churn
2. AI-generated images for messaging campaigns
3. To automatically QA content for brand consistency

Those are the self-identifying top performers—the ones who say they are killing it at Customer Experience. Braze talked to 2,300 marketing execs so we don't have to.

Here are more specifics on both the top performance (and the laggards!) in Braze's latest report. Get instantly smarter by smashing this link:

>>> Global Customer Engagement Review (CER) report <<<

DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS

How heartbreak taught me everything.

Thanks for reading this far.

Thanks for your kindness and generosity.

🫡 See you March 30!

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