Brands that rely on demographic data and artificial intelligence to understand their customers are guessing, according to an essay by Erik Herrström, founder and creative director of the design studio STUDIO HERRSTRÖM. In a piece published by Fast Company, Herrström argues that companies gain little real insight when they treat age groups and statistical profiles as if they were communities, and he urges marketers to start talking with the people they hope to reach.
Herrström's central point is that demographic groups are not communities. People who share an age bracket may have almost nothing else in common, and a profile built from numbers does not explain why someone chooses one space over another or what makes them feel they belong. Instead, he argues, brands should ask why people gather around particular ideas and places, and what keeps them returning.
To illustrate the alternative, the essay points to Pep Salazar, cofounder and director of OFFF, a creativity festival based in Barcelona. Over more than 25 years, OFFF has built an international community of digital creatives. Salazar, as described in the essay, prioritizes how people feel and what they talk about over attendance figures and engagement metrics. He says he learns about his audience by deliberately introducing challenging ideas and watching how attendees respond.
That approach sits uneasily with the expectations of sponsors, who still ask for attendance numbers, engagement reports and evidence of reach. Herrström does not dismiss those measures, but his argument is that they describe what happened without explaining why it happened. Brands that want to understand people, he writes, should attend events and join conversations to learn, not only to sell.
Salazar also warns about the effect of generative AI on communication. In his view, the technology makes corporate language interchangeable and bland, which can widen the distance between a brand and the audience it is trying to reach. Herrström builds on that concern by urging companies to invite their audiences into strategy discussions before decisions are final, rather than testing finished messages on them afterward.
The essay has clear limits. It does not provide survey results, campaign outcomes or specific figures showing that conversation-based strategy performs better than data-driven approaches. It also leaves open how well the method works beyond small creative communities such as OFFF, whose culture of dialogue was built over decades. For brands considering the shift, the argument is a call to change how they listen, rather than a proven formula for results.