The Ellsberg Paradox: The Devil You Know May Still be a Devil

AI agents now investigate and provide guidance on the path to pet product purchase – and soon will routinely segue to help consumers close the transaction. This is happening separately and apart from any brand involvement. If a human-like bot presence is doing product analysis, recommending and the buying, where does pet brand marketing play most effectively? How should strategy change?

Of note, AI is sorting product solutions, not brand strengths.

Does the legacy purchase funnel even still exist? Not the way it’s been understood in the context of brands driving owning/driving the equation from awareness, consideration and on down to purchase. This transformative sea change demands new thinking, new approaches and a new playbook.

ENTERING A NEW ARENA

Welcome to the new pet marketing world filled with… “uncertainty.”

Faced with mounting evidence that the marketplace is indeed changing, what happens next is truly meaningful. But it requires stepping into a new arena with new roles, updated strategies and repurposed communications tools.

Thrust into this environment marketers likely think of themselves as analytical, logical, fact-seeking, disciplined deciders who make good decisions because they seek information, deploy their deep experience and weigh the facts. However, truth is humans aren’t analytical, fact-based decision-making machines. We are first emotional creatures who think, not thinking creatures who feel.

Emotion weighs heavily in decisions and informs our actions. That’s neuroscience talking backed up by rigorous testing. When it comes to marketing decisions and planning, we like to believe we are pragmatic, expert, creative thinkers who reach for innovative and creative solutions to complex business challenges like AI. However, our DNA can work at cross purposes.

A DISTORED REALITY?

Bulletin: When faced with uncertainty, we’ll default to choosing a more predictable path.

Here’s the conundrum that interferes with this paradoxical picture, your brain is designed to prefer clarity over uncertainty, even if it isn’t logical. We default to the tried and true over ambiguity. Unfortunately, this embedded human habit can distort the reality of what a brand is facing, where unconventional, new practices that fall outside the comfort zone are a requirement for long term success.

Occasionally we run blindly into the rinse and repeat aspects of how decisions get made, the paths we choose, that may ultimately not be the best in the midst of systemic change. What!!! Why on earth would any of us ever choose a direction that wasn’t optimal? Maybe because we won’t recognize it.

The condition is called the Ellsberg Paradox, and this unconscious pattern gets repeated in your brain every day. Simply stated we default to what we perceive to be the clear path of certainty over uncertainty. Strategies that exist outside of what we feel is reliable and predictable (been there and done that) can get marginalized or dropped entirely, even if this marketing medicine would be a smart play for the future of an AI influenced world. Here it is in a nutshell.

You’d rather live with an outcome that deep down you wonder is questionable, rather than risk an outcome you don’t know – even though it might actually be the best move.

Unfortunately, because human beings are naturally mimetic – that is, we like to copy each other – most of us will unwittingly accelerate this problem with every decision we make. Vanishingly few of us are attracted to doing something different from our peers.

RIDING THE AI SHIFT

Knowledge is priceless and once you understand the Ellsberg Paradox you can recognize it in real life.

Here’s the choice: lean into the uncertainty of changing gears knowing this AI shift is real. Or don’t go there and stay on the current tried and true trail.

I’m flagging this because of the conversations we’re having now about the emergence of agentic AI and what it means. The reason we shove ambiguity behind us due to a lingering thought that the odds might be against us of this working out. The brain thinks it’s providing a layer of protection. But truth is no brand is ‘safe’ as super intelligent machines start usurping the role of expert guide on product strengths and weaknesses. This calls for a different approach and a rewiring of priorities in outbound communication.

• Yes, AI agents can be fed a diet of information that helps assure your brand is on the recommended list.
• Yes, brands still matter as reputation and trust elevate in importance to owning mental real estate. That said intention is everything in how you earn credibility.
• Yes, we’ve just entered to golden era of PR where earned media works both directions – a trusted channel scanned by large language models to form their judgements – and also a credible channel of outreach to consumers who pay attention to the authority of third-party validation.

The alchemy of successful pet brand marketing is changing. You should change with it, even if a sense of uncertainty exists at the front door. Know the natural inclination is to stick with the familiar marketing recipe. Better to put your head down and push back against the reflexive tendencies we experience to run in the opposite direction away from ambiguity.

The good news: Direction on how best to address the agentic AI era is available. Watch this space.

Robert Wheatley is CEO of Chicago-based Emergent, a brand communications firm focused on state-of-the-art PR, retail marketing, Agentic Engine Optimization (AEO), content creation, social media and business strategy.