Editor’s notice: That is the third article in a sequence exploring fashionable model technique. Learn parts 1 and 2 here, and subscribe to the each day or weekly e-newsletter so that you don’t miss a phrase.
Within the first two components of this sequence, I recognized B2B model technique as having hit a beige wall — that AI-generated competence has made “professionalism” a commodity.
I additionally launched an antidote: the plural model — a method to arrange our model identification for particular “rooms” fairly than broadcasting a monolithic message to a phantom market.
Now let’s discuss in regards to the message itself.
When you’ve entered a room or a group, what precisely must you say?
The gentrification of the hero’s journey
B2B storytellers have spent a decade forcing refined patrons right into a reductive hero costume, insisting they have been Luke Skywalker whereas the model performed the sage Yoda.
Entrepreneurs tried to “humanize” industrial options by posting photographs of workplace canine and foosball tables, as if that compelled whimsy would immediate gross sales.
B2B messages overused phrases like “disruptive” and “modern” till they dissolved into meaninglessness. Advertising groups constructed inflexible “content material pillars” that prioritized quantity over worth. Manufacturers stripped away the arduous knowledge to concentrate on beginning at their emotional “why” with out questioning if that matched their prospects’ “why.”
We did not simply inform tales; we industrialized them.
You understand this construction intimately, as a result of it’s the structure of each case research written since not less than 2010:
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The established order: The consumer was combating handbook spreadsheets.
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The inciting incident: They missed a important deadline.
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The mentor (your model): Your resolution appeared like a deus ex machina.
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The transformation: Workflows have been optimized.
In 2015, this was efficient. In 2026, it isn’t.
That extremely structured beige story will get summarized much more blandly in an AI’s reply.
The irony of the algorithm
I don’t suppose storytelling structures are unhealthy.
However AI has automated the very behavior I frightened about in storytelling workshops: prioritizing the skeleton over the meat, leading to mechanical, lifeless mediocrity.
For many years, storytelling masters corresponding to Christopher Vogler (The Author’s Journey) and Robert McKee (Story) preached that construction was a suggestion, not a formulation. McKee argued that construction is a software to show an concept, whereas Vogler warned that treating the Hero’s Journey as a inflexible guidelines would result in “mechanical” writing.
AI did not get that memo. As an alternative, it gentrified the hero’s journey. Each massive language mannequin is educated on this actual narrative structure.
Attempt it your self: Ask any main AI software to write down a case research, and it’ll nearly definitely default to this arc each single time. The result’s an web flooded with tales which are completely structured, completely logical, and completely boring.
When construction turns into ubiquitous, it turns into invisible. To pierce the beige wall in 2026, you don’t want extra model story construction.
You want a distinct type of stress.
The belief paradox
That want for stress results in a counterintuitive actuality that AI researchers name the trust paradox, or the verisimilitude paradox, during which AI turns into so good at simulating skilled confidence that our brains cease fact-checking.
Its syntax is so good that folks wrestle to inform whether or not the output is true or merely sounds true. And, most significantly, they may not care to research the distinction.
If AI can simulate competence, then competence is not a proxy for “human.”
And this results in a tough conclusion for these of us in content material and advertising:
In the end, now we have to surrender the obsession with whether or not a chunk of content material was written by AI or by an individual. It doesn’t matter anymore.
Due to the belief paradox, each human-written and AI-generated content material now face the identical diploma of skepticism.
If an individual writes completely polished, structurally sound, error-free model content material, one reader’s mind could flag it as artificial whereas one other identifies it as human.
Which means model content material will not be judged by the flexibility to be right. It’ll be judged on the flexibility to be distinct.
And the one method to show your content material didn’t come straight from a smoothing algorithm is to leave the rough edges in. You must introduce one thing AI can’t simulate: the bizarre, the surprising, or the dangerous mistake.
I name this method “the pratfall protocol.”
The pratfall protocol in a plural model
The pratfall protocol is an concept primarily based on the pratfall effect, a psychological phenomenon that displays a captivating quirk of human nature: When folks (or manufacturers) are perceived as competent, their likeability and trustworthiness improve once they make a mistake or exhibit a flaw.
The flaw humanizes the competence.
Within the AI and artificial competence period, this impact is amplified. “Polished” has change into synonymous with “pretend.” That’s why a company press launch that’s been committee-approved, legally scrubbed, and AI-polished slides proper off the mind.
It has no friction.
Let’s have a look at a situation that exhibits the distinction. Think about a classy B2B SaaS firm promoting an enterprise knowledge warehouse resolution.
The monolith messaging (competence) method: Throughout communities and platforms, from the web site to the gross sales deck, the message emphasizes perfection.
“Our AI-driven onboarding gives a frictionless, zero-downtime migration in beneath 24 hours. Easy integration in your total stack.”
The pratfall (plural model) method: In a technical lead room solely (e.g., a Substack for knowledge engineers or a Discord group for customers), flaws are acknowledged, not hidden.
“The primary week of this implementation can be hell. Connecting our software to legacy on-prem servers is messy. Issues normally break twice, and also you’ll in all probability hate us on Day 3.
However we’ll be within the trenches with you. For those who stick to us and get to Day 4, you’ll see knowledge you’ve by no means seen earlier than.”
Within the incorrect group, this message would possibly fail.
To the CFO, for instance, this sounds alarming. However to the info engineer (the precise consumer), this model’s story alerts radical competence.
Customers know migration is difficult. For those who fake in any other case, you appear like a liar. Whenever you admit it’s arduous, you change into the one vendor they belief.
The expensive sign protection: Why AI can’t pretend this
At this level, you would possibly say: “Wait a minute. If AI is getting smarter, received’t it simply study to pretend these flaws too? Gained’t it will definitely study to simulate the pratfall?”
That’s a legitimate concern. AI instruments may be prompted to “sound extra pure” by including “ums,” “ers,” and informal slang.
However there’s a distinction between a glitch and a scar.
To know why the pratfall protocol would possibly resist imitation, look to the costly signaling theory in biology.
For instance, male fiddler crabs have one massively enlarged claw, which they wave to draw females. This claw makes them slower and extra weak to predators, signaling that they’re robust sufficient to outlive regardless of the “handicap.”
Within the human realm, a university diploma from a prestigious college has historically labored as a expensive sign to employers. Though the identical information could also be attainable elsewhere, the time, cash, and energy required to acquire that particular credential sign intelligence, diligence, and endurance (although it could be losing value now).
In B2B, a pratfall is a “expensive sign.”
When a advisor admits, “I utterly misinterpret the info within the first week,” they’re paying a value. They’re risking their authority to construct your belief.
When a model admits, “Our implementation is painful,” they’re risking a sale to earn your belief.
AI can simulate the phrases of a mistake. Nevertheless it can not simulate the stakes.
An LLM has no popularity to lose. It has no ego to bruise. When it generates a “flaw,” it’s a cost-free efficiency. Folks simply sniff out the distinction between somebody risking popularity and somebody studying a script.
So, sure, AI will finally study to pretend typos and self-deprecation. However it can wrestle to feign vulnerability, as a result of vulnerability requires one thing to lose.
That’s the lesson for a plural model: Belief comes from the chance, not the flaw.
And in 2026, that “pores and skin within the recreation” would be the most beneficial content material asset you personal.
From success tales to battle tales – heighten the strain
How will you operationalize this in your plural model technique? One method is to cease writing “success tales” and begin writing “battle tales.”
Your model storytelling should abandon clean arcs of success in favor of the jagged edges of battle, surprising turns, and even weirdness. Storytellers want to maneuver past merely reporting success to creating stress.
Stress creates a hitch within the skilled matrix. It forces the mind to cease scanning and begin processing. It alerts that what follows is just not a generated script, however a actuality.
Think about the distinction in these two headlines:
The monolith model method: How firm X applied our software and received.
Response: Boring. No stress. The ending is spoiled by the headline. Readers know this can be a brochure.
The plural model method: Why firm X nearly fired us in Month 2.
Response: Excessive curiosity. Alerts that you just’ll inform the story of the messy actuality of implementation.
Bear in mind, these tension-filled plural tales received’t be “international” — they might exist solely in a couple of particular communities. That’s the plural model in motion.
Plural manufacturers have the core integrity to acknowledge, inside particular communities, that issues go incorrect, as a result of admitting the wrestle validates the eventual success.
The story nonetheless ends with victory (proving competence). However the narrative path takes the viewers by way of the bugs, the resistance, and the arguments that occur alongside the best way.
Because it seems, battle tales crammed with the pratfall protocol map effectively to the basic storytelling buildings. So, yeah, possibly we have been onto one thing 10 years in the past.
The renaissance of friction: Straightforward isn’t helpful anymore
All of this (the strain, battle, intentional error, and uncomfortable messaging) raises a query: How do you steadiness all of the messaging in a manner that positions your resolution as helpful?
B2B manufacturers have spent the higher a part of the final decade obsessive about making issues appear “frictionless,” “simple,” and “automated.”
However AI has solved “simple.” Solutions are actually prompt. Outreach is automated. Onboarding is guided by bots.
Tech corporations have engineered a world of infinite ease.
However in an financial system of infinite ease, worth shifts to issues that may be thought-about arduous.
Subsequent week, I’ll clarify why issues that take “effort” may be the brand new luxurious and the best way to use that concept to spherical out your plural model.
Within the meantime, keep in mind: It’s your story. Mess it up on occasion. And inform it effectively.
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