Empathy is generally described as the ability to perceive another person’s perspective, to understand, feel, and possibly share and respond to their experience.
-Wikipedia
The difference between success and failure in marketing is empathy. If you can speak to how people feel, they will engaged with your content. If you cannot pinpoint people’s feelings, they will scroll past whatever you are trying to say.
It doesn’t matter if your content is great. If you fail to empathize first, no one will pay attention. And I mean literally no one. Zero people. This shift started to happen around 2016, and it accelerated until 2023. That’s when people decided once and for all, they would stop paying attention if you fail to recognize them first.
From a practical perspective what happened is social media became the primary discovery channel for businesses and products. Instead of someone searching “How do I get fit” they are now scrolling social media, and if someone empathizes with them about their weight loss journey, they will watch, engage, and check out the creator’s profile.
The pursuit of solutions has shifted from active to passive. People are now passively open to lots of different things but actively doing very little. They want the algorithm to bring them answers that work for them as an individual.
In the past, with a search-based world, what mattered most was giving the best information. Today, in a social media-based world, what matters most is empathy.
To be honest, the information is all the same. If you want to get fit, eat less than you burn, be active, get plenty of sleep, and recover well. That’s what, 13 words of advice that covers the entirety of it. So how do you differentiate when the actual advice is only 13 words long? Empathy.
There are a thousand different iterations of how someone might feel who is trying to lose weight. Some people might feel like they have tried everything and it just doesn’t work. Some people might feel like there is too much going on in their lives to add on another new thing. Some people might feel like they’re just too tired.
In 2026 as a marketer, it is our job to understand which issue is facing our audiences. Speak to that issue over and over again to make it abundantly clear we understand. Otherwise our advice falls flat. No one cares anymore about the answer. AI can provide accurate instructions for pretty much everything. But what it cannot do is empathize.
Now a couple of stories about empathy. First one is from Michelle Shapiro, RD. Michelle has a quiz about weight losing weight. Guess what the title is? If I gave you 10 guesses, there is no way you would get it right. The title of the quiz is “Is it the Right Time to Lose Weight?” because for Michelle’s audience, they are not just thinking about losing weight, they are thinking about lifestyle change. And it’s not always the right time to disrupt your routine and introduce something new.
The second story is about a person whose email wasn’t working. The technician arrived to fix her email. Everything seemed fine. Computer was connected to the internet, email server was working. But then the woman explained that she forwarded all of her email to a friend. That friend would then print her email and hand the printed copies to her. The technician then checked the printer. Which was unplugged. So when this person said their “email wasn’t working” it meant “the printer is unplugged” and that is the best story to illustrate empathy.
People are not literal. People make decisions based on how they feel. If your marketing content only speaks to the practical, no one will pay attention. Empathy is how you break through the noise.