Make Me Feel, Make Me Care

(aka: why your story is your strategy, and AI might just be your best co-writer) 

Let’s rewind to Black Friday, 2011. 

Patagonia runs a full-page ad in The New York Times telling people “Don’t Buy This Jacket.” 

The image? One of their bestselling fleeces. The message? A sharp rebuke of overconsumption and fast fashion, urging customers to think twice about buying what they don’t truly need. 

Bold? Yep. 
Odd? Definitely. 
Effective? Record-breaking!

They didn’t just launch a campaign. They launched a conversation that hit us in our values and rewired how we thought about brand loyalty. The jacket sold out. But the loyalty? That stuck around for years. 

They cracked the code: ethics + narrative + strategy + a twist of audacity. 
We felt surprised, aligned, a little uncomfortable. 

And just like that, marketing became a movement. 

Strategy Without Story is Dry Toast 

When strategy loses its soul, it becomes beige. 
And when story floats around without direction? It’s just noise. 

But when your strategic message is built from the inside out - rooted in purpose, backed by pattern recognition, and refined through lived experience, you stop guessing what to say and start saying what matters. 

At Virtually Myself®, we don’t separate soul from system.  
We build marketing ecosystems around the emotional truth of your brand, because humans don’t follow content, they follow resonance. 

Great messaging isn’t about slogans. It’s about signals. 

Emotional cues that say: 
“This is what we believe. This is who we are. This is why it matters.” 

Let AI Sharpen the Edges 

(You don’t need it to write like you. You need it to think with you.)  

If your thinking is the blueprint, you could think of AI as the scaffolding – giving stronger structure to your ideas, and lifting them to where you can’t reach alone, which ultimately helps you scale without compromising clarity or care. 

It’s brilliant when used to mirror back your metaphors, test your frameworks, and polish your positioning. 

But here’s the catch: the tools don’t create clarity, humans do. 

Otherwise, your message drifts into the abyss of messaging dysphoria….the silent epidemic behind so much of today’s overdone, underfelt marketing. 
 
That’s why at VM, we start with identity. Your IP. Your stories. Your strategy. Only then do we invite AI to the table. 

Because when the AI knows what matters to you, it becomes a force multiplier, not a noise generator. 

Your Anchor Line Is More Than a Tagline 

(It’s the centre of gravity for your entire message.) 

Nike’s Just Do It. 
Apple’s Think Different. 
Virtually Myself’s Your voice. Amplified. 

These aren’t catchphrases. They’re internal alignment tools. 
Every asset, every article, every algorithmic decision can orbit around them. 

We call these Messaging Anchors, and they only work when they’re forged in the fire of lived experience, market wisdom, and internal truth. 

They don’t just communicate what you do. 
They embody why it matters and how you do it differently. 

The best anchors compress clarity into something portable. Something shareable. Something you can build an ecosystem around. 

Your Story Is Your Strategy 

People don’t buy frameworks. They buy felt truth. 

And your story…the way you’ve lived what you teach, the moments you almost gave up, the metaphors that have shaped your worldview, is the bridge between what you know and why anyone should care. 

It’s not strategy or story. 
It’s strategy through story. 
And when you layer the right tech on top of that? You don’t just reach people, you move them. 

Final Word (Okay, Truth Bomb) 

If your message isn’t deeply human, strategically clear, and tech-supported to scale,  maybe it’s not ready to be said at all. 

But if it is? 
Let it land. 
Let it linger. 
Let it lead.