Wired to participate: Why marketing must evolve beyond broadcasting

Fast Company

17 hours ago

Ninety-nine percent of human history was spent in small hunter-gatherer tribes. Though we've built modern civilizations, our brains remain fundamentally tribal, hardwired for the specific social dynamics that kept our ancestors alive. This evolutionary legacy holds a powerful secret for modern marketers —one that challenges everything about how brands engage with people today.
We are not wired to watch. We are wired to participate.
From prehistoric rituals to TikTok trends, humans have always needed to take part. We seek not just to observe culture, but to leave fingerprints on it. And in our era of infinite content and AI -generated everything, participation has become the proof that something is real.
Marketing has undergone several transformative shifts in how it views the people it aims to reach:
In the industrial era, people were consumers. In the broadcast era, they became audiences. In the digital era, they evolved into users. Today? They're co-creators.
For Gen Z and Gen Alpha, participation isn't just preferred—it's expected. They don't follow celebrities; they duet with them. They don't just wear brands; they remix them. They don't want backstage passes; they want a seat on the creative team.
To them, brands that only broadcast don't just feel dated—they feel exclusionary.
PARTICIPATION AS A BIOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE
Participation isn't a marketing trend; it's hardwired into our neurochemistry and psychology. It satisfies core human needs that governed our tribal ancestors' survival:
Autonomy: 'I choose this.'
Competence: 'I'm good at this.'
Belonging: 'I'm part of this.'
Recognition: 'Someone saw me.'
Identity: 'This is who I am.'
Meaning: 'This matters.'
Our reward systems light up when we contribute. Dopamine fuels our desire to act. Oxytocin strengthens bonds during shared experiences. Mirror neurons trigger imitation when we see others participating. Flow states create immersion and self-actualization.
While Claude Hopkins pioneered scientific advertising in 1923, creating a model of persuasion that's still dominant today, this approach fundamentally misaligns with how humans operate. We've mastered the art of telling, but forgotten the power of inviting.
Most brands still plan campaigns in silos, broadcast stories to the masses, collect feedback without acting on it, and prioritize control over collaboration. Meanwhile, engagement decreases, trust erodes, and content is ignored.
But people don't want to be audiences anymore; they want to be actors in the story.
Creating a participatory brand requires more than occasional UGC contests or social prompts. It demands a systematic approach:
Invite: Create a meaningful role for people. Open a door. Extend a genuine invitation to shape, remix, or influence something that matters.
Equip: Make participation easy. Provide the tools, prompts, language, and assets people need to take action.
Showcase: Make participation visible. Celebrate contributors. Let the community see itself reflected in what you do.
Evolve: Let what people create inform what comes next. Participation should change your brand, not just feed it.
This isn't just a tactic—it's a growth model. The more people participate, the more invested they become. The more invested they are, the more likely they are to evangelize, contribute again, and defend the brand publicly.
FROM CAMPAIGNS TO CULTURAL PLATFORMS
If participation is the goal, the campaign model needs to evolve:
Campaigns are built to start and stop. Participation platforms are built to grow.
A participation platform gives people a role, offers shared value, and evolves based on community input. It's a sandbox, not a sermon. A stage, not a setlist.
Look at Nike Run Club: Runners don't just use an app; they join a movement that values consistency, effort, and progress. Or Liquid Death, which doesn't advertise like a beverage company but operates like a fan-powered cult. Stanley Cup tumblers transformed from utilitarian products into cultural phenomena through TikTok rituals, color drops, and collective culture-building.
WHY IT MATTERS NOW
We're entering an era of synthetic everything: AI-generated art, voice, video, and text. In this increasingly artificial landscape, participation becomes the proof of humanity. It's how we know something is real. It's how we know someone cares. It's how we feel something matters.
Participation is the antidote to apathy.
For brands, this is a tectonic shift. Those that embrace participation will build resilience, relevance, and long-term value. Those that don't will struggle to matter in a culture that demands involvement.
The brands of the future won't just make things for people. They'll make things with people. And the ones who embrace participation now—in the messy, early, authentic way—will earn something no algorithm can fake: trust, affection, belonging, meaning.