Notes from the Enshitterverse

Most of my writing these past few years has been for Holidaymaker (strategy, client comms, community pieces). I love what we are building, but I've decided to step out from behind the curtain for a moment.

Much of the reason I’ve picked this up again is because I know I’m not the only person feeling this huge global shift, and with that a sense of chaos (TBF it’s felt that way for a while hasn’t it?!). Whether in politics, economics, marketing and (of course) tech. 

As marketers (and often in life generally) we always talk about that horrid phrase, I won’t say that term here, but it's that nagging sense that everyone else has figured it out but you.

In reality, few of us do.

We’re all trying things, and navigating our way through this mess - so why not share and learn more?

I really want to share and see more successes, tests and utter fails, I truly believe it’s a major part of our role as marketeers. Often we are driving the business forward, the ones at the heart of everything. 

So in this spirit, enjoy some gold from my Midjourney successes…

Joking aside…

It's tricky at the moment. The old marketing playbooks don’t really work anymore. You used to be able to create some content, back it up with keywords, add some PPC to convert, throw in sales and retention and call it a strategy. 

For many years this formula worked. However...

The world has changed - J.R.R Tolkien

Less and less of us are typing keywords into Google anymore. We’re going straight to TikTok, Reddit, and now more and more to AI search. Where the searches sound more and more like conversations…

“Find me a Dorset holiday park for two adults, a one-year-old baby and a three-year-old, plus a small dog. Need a two-bed lodge with hot tub and kitchen (must have microwave), and lots for the kids to do. MUST have a restaurant and pool. Make sure there’s a cot.”

How many of us no longer type to search - or to dictate a blog for that matter?

We are finding newer, more conversational ways to combat how shockingly crap many systems and platforms have become. 

But it continues! When I was pulling the latest stats for some Holidaymaker content last week, I came across a figure that shocked me: 

More than half of search traffic isn’t even human. 

Cory Doctorow put it brilliantly in a talk I watched recently (thanks again Dave McRobbie), he uses the word enshittification - accurate and brilliant - to describe what we’ve all noticed. Platforms like Google and Meta are getting worse. 

Cory explains in his talk how at the beginning they start off useful for users, then that shifts towards advertisers, then shareholders, until the value for the user is stripped out completely “and all you’re left with is a pile of shit”.

And, if half the clicks you’re paying for aren’t even people, you're basically throwing money away.

So what can we do?

For me, it’s not about tearing everything up and rewriting it overnight (although that is super tempting for me). We need to get sharper on what matters and be honest about what doesn’t.

Much more focus on brand and integrity, less on content flooding and social media lip service…

IMHO, AI tools should not be creating 100% of your social content, or any content for that matter. Train it to know your voice, brand, vibe first - this takes time!

Then you can really use AI to clear the noise so we can concentrate on the parts that really need us - humans with thoughts and feelings - to shape, analyse and filter.

That came through strongly in the AI-Powered CMO Playbook session I joined from Section last week. It was led by Greg Shove (their CEO), with Kieran Flanagan VP of Marketing at HubSpot as guest speaker.

They talked about the shifts already happening: how answer engines (like Gemini and ChatGPT) are reshaping SEO, how team roles are changing, and what the next few years might look like for business owners and us as marketers.

The bluntest point came from Kieran: 

refusing to learn AI now is like refusing to open your laptop.

That’s the reality. Ignoring or denying it will keep us stood still, whilst the rest of the world is already moving on.

And the thing I took from that wasn’t “go faster, do more.” If anything, it was the opposite. The more AI content and systems that flood the world, the more we need to hold on to the parts that only people can do well. Brand, tone, judgement, the decisions that actually mean something.

The human touch matters more than ever

Which made me think of Jessica Williams’ piece in Little Black Book. She wrote about the lack of women in B2B leadership and pointed out that this isn’t about setting and meeting targets or token gestures. We should be building leadership teams that look like the people they serve and the beautifully varied society/world we live in. 

That matters in hospitality too. Our industry is about people in every sense - guests, staff, local communities. If your teams don’t reflect that variety, how can you expect to create experiences that work for your guests?

At Holidaymaker we’ve been putting more energy into accessibility, neurodiversity, and equality, not just in our workplace culture (it is already a huge part of us), but within the platform and our community too.

Why? Because it makes for better workplaces that all of us want to be a part of, and culture on the inside shows up on the outside. If your staff feel seen and supported, they create the kind of environment guests want to come back to.

And that’s why I’m writing here again. To share what I’m seeing, what I’m testing, and what I’m learning. None of us have it all figured out. But putting ideas out in the open feels like a better place to start.

Allana x