This Halloween, the veil between worlds is thin and the spirits are speaking out. But in a world increasingly haunted by AI-generated content and the blurring of what is real vs. unreal, even the most seasoned ghost is struggling to be believed.
“I rattled chains, flickered lights and whispered through the vents,” lamented one anonymous apparition from a Victorian boarding house in Joliet. “But the kids just said I was a Snapchat filter. I used to be terrifying. Now I’m just trending.”
The spectral community’s frustration is palpable. Once feared and revered, ghosts now find themselves competing with algorithmically generated phantoms. Ghosts now live in fear themselves, of faces that never lived, voices that never spoke and stories stitched together by machines. The result? A crisis of credibility in the afterlife.
Joshua Lowcock, President of Rise, a Quad agency, weighed in with empathy.
“At Rise, we understand the importance of being real and being recognized,” said Lowcock. “Marketers face the same challenge every day. In a landscape flooded with bad data, sub-par content and bot traffic, the question isn’t just ‘What’s real?,’ it’s ‘What’s connecting?’ and ‘What outcome did it drive?’”
Lowcock continued: “Ghosts want to be seen and expect results. So do brands. But activations have to be grounded in something resilient and authentic, otherwise it is just noise. That’s why at Rise, we focus on helping our clients find real people, making real connections, delivering real outcomes. And while we empathize deeply with our ghostly friends, our services are strictly limited to marketers and brands in the realm of existence.”
The message is clear: Whether you’re a marketer or a ghost, being real matters. But being believed? That takes more than just rattling chains or buying spots and dots; it takes an agency that has trust and transparency at its core. In fact, transparency is something you should expect from your agency every day, not just from ghostly Halloween apparitions.
So, this Halloween, remember that if reaching real people, real connections and real outcomes matters as much to you as it does for the Halloween spirits, Rise can help. Don’t be caught out like the ghosts, lost to a world of deepfakes and disappointed that people are not watching and engaging with you.
From all of us at Rise, Happy Halloween. 👻
Spooked by the lack of transparency in media? Rise can help.
