Ostrich Marketing in the Land of AI
I recently finished reading They Ask, You Answer by Marcus Sheridan, and the concept of ostrich marketing was one that hit home straight away. Sheridan defines it as the opposite of the book’s core philosophy, choosing to hide from tough questions instead of answering them with honesty and transparency.
As a Senior Marketing Manager, this resonated with me immediately. For nearly 10yrs I've been working with sales and marketing teams across different brands and sectors. Like many of you reading this, I’ve seen how easy it is to dodge uncomfortable topics - pricing, competitors, limitations of a product. But that avoidance only creates mistrust and pushes potential customers away. In a world that values authenticity, ostrich marketing is a dangerous game which can silently erode trust.
AI Raises the Stakes
Fast forward to today, and we’re navigating an era where AI is reshaping marketing at speed. Customers expect quick, personalised, and honest answers. And businesses that fail to meet those expectations risk falling behind.
A recent Marketing Week study found that 75.6% of marketers see AI as a significant skills gap in their organisations, outpacing data analytics and martech.
Meanwhile, Entrepreneur makes it clear: AI-driven marketing is no longer optional it’s a necessity. Personalisation, real-time data analysis, and efficient decision-making are now baseline expectations.
Yet, alarmingly, 61% of marketers remain unconvinced that AI can drive revenue, often blaming inadequate training.
Meanwhile, agencies like Axies Digital warn that ostrich marketing hasn’t gone away, it’s just taking new forms. Ignoring AI altogether, or hoping it won’t matter, is today’s version of burying our heads in the sand.
What Leading Voices Are Saying
Entrepreneur warns that AI won’t replace marketers, but lazy marketers will be revealed. AI is an amplifier, not an autopilot. Without precise prompts, strategy, and oversight, results will be average or worse.
In eCommerce, AI-powered personalisation is quickly becoming a non-negotiable for success, especially as relevance becomes the driver of conversion and SEO benefits.
Marketing Week highlights how B2B marketers are using AI to shorten long buying cycles by delivering targeted content at the right time, easing alignment between sales and marketing.
The Ethics Question
But there’s a deeper issue here: ethics. AI isn’t just another tool. It carries risks that ostrich-like avoidance can amplify.
Bias: AI models are only as good as the data they’re trained on. If businesses avoid acknowledging bias, they risk creating campaigns that unintentionally exclude or misrepresent audiences.
Transparency: Customers deserve to know when they’re engaging with AI versus a human. Pretending otherwise risks eroding trust.
Accountability: When mistakes happen (and they will) brands can’t point fingers at “the algorithm.” Ethical marketing means taking ownership of both the technology and its outcomes.
If marketers hide from these ethical realities, we’re not just practicing ostrich marketing, we’re undermining the very trust we claim to build.
From Ostrich to Educator
So how do we flip the script?
Lean into tough questions. Apply They Ask, You Answer to AI: be open about how you use it, where its limits are, and how human oversight plays a role.
Close the skills gap. Investing in AI training isn’t just about efficiency, it’s about ensuring you can use the tools responsibly and effectively.
Make ethics part of your strategy. Bake transparency, inclusivity, and accountability into every AI-enabled campaign.
Let AI answer, but humans resonate. Use AI to surface insights quickly, but keep humans at the heart of storytelling and trust-building.
Reading They Ask, You Answer reinforced something fundamental: transparency is vital. Now, in an AI-powered world, honesty and openness must extend through our tools, not just our words. Ostrich marketing is outdated, but marketers focused in on humans and tech have the chance to build trust and lead with authenticity.
