Editorial
Digital marketing’s dirty secret
The environmental (and brand) cost of lazy content
Guest author: Shelley Hirst, Director, Amigos Network
Anyone can publish now. AI tools churn out passable words in seconds, schedulers queue up endless posts and content calendars demand “something” on Tuesdays.
So people oblige!
But just because you can create content, doesn’t mean you should. A lot of what’s being put out is absolute tosh - low-effort, low-impact filler, created by overnight ‘experts’ who really should stick to their knitting.
Nobody’s reading it, nobody remembers it, it’s not building brand, and worse, it’s burning the environment too.
It sounds dramatic and I’m no eco-warrior. I moan every time I have to rinse a tin and remove its label before putting it in recycling, knowing they’re burning whole forests elsewhere. But discovering what the rising proliferation of content garbage is costing the environment, shocked even my cynical nature.
So I’ve been reading a lot about the cost of using AI for sales and marketing (lead gen is my area, content my specialism). Here are my findings thus far.
That post you just scheduled is costing the planet
We think digital is clean. We think it’s “greener” than print, but it’s not carbon neutral -not even close.
- Digital technologies already account for 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This is more than aviation and it’s growing fast (The Shift Project, 2019)
- Every 20-50 prompts to ChatGPT consumes around 500ml of water. It’s used to cool the servers powering your query. (UC Riverside, 2023)
- Training a single large AI model can emit over 626,000 pounds of CO₂ . This is the equivalent of five petrol cars running for their entire lifetime. (UMass Amherst, 2019)
Now imagine that happening millions of times a day, to generate content no one asked for and no one remembers. Digital waste is still waste; just because it’s invisible doesn’t mean it's harmless.
The brand cost is just as damaging
All that low-value content isn’t just hurting the planet either, it’s hurting your brand.
According to Havas Media’s Meaningful Brands Report, 75% of brands could disappear tomorrow and no one would care. This is because most content isn’t meaningful – it doesn’t get read because it’s not giving the reader anything to act on.
We ran some tests on content in our systems using pure play generated AI content versus originated content created by experienced copywriters. It was the same topic produced differently. Engagement rates on the originated were over 50% higher in all cases – OK, just a sample size test, and wouldn’t recommend you build your whole content strategy on it, but worth carrying out for yourself.
In the race to stay "present," many brands are becoming invisible because they’re drowning in sameness. They post recycled thoughts, zero-edge POVs, and SEO fodder that says nothing new.
It’s not a content strategy, it’s content pollution
I applaud events teams who think about sustainability, choosing reusable stand materials, digital brochures, carbon offset travel. That takes real effort that is backed by the business. But it’s time to apply that same thinking to the digital side of the house.
If you’re going to take up digital space, make it count. Say something original. Stir emotion. Offer something useful. Challenge a norm. Invite people into your world, don’t just add to theirs. Otherwise, you're not marketing. You're just spewing rubbish.
Use AI to cut time and costs if you must, but use it wisely. Your brand and the world can’t afford anything else.
▶️ Book a call with me to start bringing humanity back to the forefront of your sales strategies, where it belongs.