Authority over volume

Why saying less is the new competitive advantage

105 years ago, IVE started with a newspaper.

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And let’s face it, at the time a newspaper would have been the cutting edge of communication. The information network of its era. Every edition required judgement about what was worth saying, what mattered to the local community and what deserved space on the page.

Each week, Oscar Selig made publishing decisions amongst constraints – available space, time and effort shaped what ultimately made it to print. Publishing something meant it mattered.

Today, many of those constraints have disappeared. So when it comes to modern content, all bets are off. Content can be created instantly and at a mind-boggling scale. AI slop wasn’t the 2025 Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year for no reason
– mediocre content is rife. Feeds are full, algorithms are hungry and content calendars can feel relentless.

So it raises the question: what’s the role of content moving forward? And in a world with more content than ever and increasingly shorter attention spans, is anyone even listening?

More content isn’t creating more attention

In the social media era, marketing has operated on the assumption that more content equals deeper engagement. More posts, more videos, more blogs, more commentary, more ‘always on’ publishing. Somewhere along the way, content stopped being about connection and started becoming a volume game. Quantity became confused with relevance and activity was mistaken for effectiveness.

The reality is audiences are becoming more selective, not less.

Consumers are exposed to thousands of pieces of content every day, much of it saying remarkably similar things. LinkedIn alone can feel like an endless loop of recycled opinions, predictable thought leadership and algorithm-friendly hot takes. And audiences can tell.

The rise of AI-generated content is arguably making human judgement even more valuable. Because while AI can generate content instantly, it cannot replicate lived experience, original thinking or genuine perspective, particularly when every brand starts using the same tools trained on the same information. The result is a growing sea of sameness. It’s all becoming a little...blah.

Credible voices? Yes please

The brands cutting through are rarely the loudest. They are the ones saying something useful, informed or genuinely different. Audiences are gravitating toward voices that feel credible, distinctive – and dare we say...human? Expertise matters again, as does originality and a fresh perspective. An opinion, you say? Bring it on. Your brand might not be for everyone, and that’s ok.

“Somewhere along the way, brands have shifted to transmitting instead of engaging – holding a megaphone to an increasingly discerning audience – many of whom are now wearing noise cancelling headphones. The brands that cut through tomorrow will be the ones disciplined enough not to say everything today.” Emma Johnstone, CMO, IVE Group.

Authority today is about whether audiences believe a brand has something genuinely worthwhile to say. That requires confidence in what the brand stands for, where it can genuinely add value and importantly, where it doesn’t need to contribute.

That doesn’t mean every piece of content needs to become deeply academic or overloaded with data. But audiences are increasingly skilled at recognising surface-level commentary created simply to fill a content calendar. People are looking for signals of substance - we’re talking real experience, genuine expertise and an informed point of view.

How brands can get ahead

The brands getting cut through in a cluttered market are the ones creating intentional content. And that starts with a few simple questions:

Does this add something new to the conversation?

Does our brand have a right to a voice in this space?

Is this genuinely useful to our audience?

Does this sound like us?

Are we publishing this because it matters?

Consistency matters too. Not just consistency in publishing cadence, but consistency in voice, tone and perspective. Audiences build trust when brands sound recognisable over time rather than reinventing themselves every time a new trend appears in the algorithm.

Importantly, brands also need to become better editors. Curating, filtering and interpreting information is now just as valuable as creating it. The brands building long-term trust are usually the ones focusing on content that educates, informs, entertains or genuinely leaves audiences better off for having engaged with it.

Authority is earned, not automated

As AI continues to accelerate content production, the brands who will stand out will be the ones exercising the strongest judgement around where their brand voice truly belongs and why.

Because ultimately audiences are not rewarding brands for how much they publish. They are rewarding brands for whether their content feels worth paying attention to in the first place.

In many ways, perhaps the future of content looks a little more like the past. More considered, more intentional and more selective.

Maybe we all need to channel a little Oscar. Ask harder questions about what deserves to be published, what genuinely matters to an audience and whether a piece of content has truly earned its place in the world.

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