Dan Holz is not afraid of generative AI taking over the creative field; at least not for brands who want to have authentic relationships with their customers. If you've been in the outdoor adventure sector for even a minute, you've seen Dan's visually stunning work with brands like REI, National Geographic, Yakima, Patagonia, Expedia, Adidas, and more. As the Co-Founder and Creative Producer of Fieldborn Creative, Dan's work is all about human-made visual content that tells a great story, and as feral PR consultant, I wanted to know Dan's thoughts on the evolution of the industry as well as what's missing when marketers and creatives hit the "generative AI button," in place of real creatives.

Running a business or a nonprofit can be stressful and often requires the kind of long hours and sleepless nights typically associated with house-training a new puppy. There are many hats to wear, and more moving parts than a Rube Goldberg device. So it's no wonder that many first-time entrepreneurs, and even seasoned ones, often miss the signs that their brand actually needs PR. And it's tricky to tell whether a brand is too early, too late, or just right for PR. Fortunately, I've written some ground rules to help you know when to start, based on my 25+ years brand promotion.

Face it; your brand’s reliance on generative AI graphics is making you look bad, and that’s not just me, a marketing executive of 25+ years, who thinks it. Your customers notice it too, and not in a good way.

Visually, AI is everywhere, as bog standard as the “follow us on Facebook” icon was in 2011. From your local food truck who wanted a quick eye-catching vinyl wrap with “almost” Disney-like characters, to every small business who just hired their teenage nephew to run their social media page, you can’t escape the slop! 

The late revolutionary's words ring true now, more than ever:

Finding a Good Marketer Nowadays.
I believe marketing should be something that most people can understand, and I work hard to help my clients understand what good marketing really is. I'm tired of tech bros in marketing spouting off acronyms at their customers like everyone in the room has an MBA. There's no 100% proven formula that every brand should follow. There's no "do these five things" guarantee to business success with your email marketing campaigns. Don't trust people who try and sell you their system, despite never having met you. Instead, look for those who genuinely care, who get results, love what they do, and who are dedicated to their craft. These will be people who have walked the marketing path with hundreds of brands and they know how to guide you to a future that works for you.

So now we come to the part of the timeline where AI is not only in the picture, it's screaming at the top of our feeds, it's literally "making" news. It's 30% of the videos promoted to us online (not an official statistic, but more of a speculative one). A lot of brands are wondering how to stand out from the slop, whether or not they should use AI to make their marketing materials, and what the future of customer engagement looks like now. So here is my honest opinion, and yes, it flies against the multi-billion dollar agenda Big Tech wants us all to believe.

Friends, this is a time when being human matters.
Being weird matters. Being authentic matters. The truth is, it has always mattered, but they gave us cell phones and social media feeds to doomscroll so that we would become more distracted, anxious, and easy to control.

​If you’ve been online for more than a minute, your feed is probably flooded with pro-AI articles and tips about getting the most out of this absolutely perfect, never-fails, product that can solve world hunger, vibe code the perfect social media platform, and do your job so you don’t have to. I know. AI is truly a wonder to behold at all times. Everyone should use it. Constantly. For everything.

But there is one thing that the one percent still doesn’t want you to know. They’re hiding it from you Neo. It’s this one secret that has kept them wealthy and in places of power for years.
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That’s right; I’m talking about potatoes. Yes, the humble potato. Everyone at the top knows that it is the ultimate secret to success. And it’s about time we started giving the humble potato the credit it deserves.

I was at SXSW the year that Yamtrader.com launched. The booth was a giant yam. People were invited to get a $50 gift card for trading in an actual, physical yam. It was weird and Yamtrader was something people talked about.
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I have rarely seen its level of absurdity matched in modern marketing, though many have tried. Behind the whole operation was Tri-Net, an HR, payroll company that provided services for startups. The company was trying to showcase what a bad startup was, but that’s beside the point.

​A Random Person’s LinkedIn Post: "Look what I made with generative AI!" 
Me: * Looks at content. Looks at profile. Rolls eyes. *

They're an AI influencer, helping companies go from idea to product in record time. They have no background in creating. I'm guessing these are the same people who didn't take art classes in school, didn't go to art shows, have never gone to a gallery or museum and been swept away emotionally by a work of art that spoke to them.
They don't have a relationship with art, so they don't know art when they see it.

The Problem:
When you refuse to acknowledge people's relationship with art, you're at risk for losing your relationship with empathy and the best of humanity.

​You’ve probably seen the 2025 TIME Magazine Person of the Year cover, elevating tech titans as the Architects of AI, on the humble I-beam.

As a marketer and PR professional who has studied propaganda, my heaviest takeaway is this:
TIME has been compromised, again. 

TIME is not reflecting or reporting on reality. It’s trying to create a new one And who does that benefit? How does that change how people in the future think about history?

The picture suggests:

• They’re just like us, just like the working class, minus a couple billionaires
• They’re architects, only, they’re all not exactly the ones responsible for building anything
• They’re elevated, even though some of them have had recent catastrophic financial failings
• They’re all equally featured, mostly, unless one is getting cropped out while another has ample room

“We’re just not ready for PR,” or, “We’re at a point where we don’t need PR,” are things I’ve heard potential clients say to me, and some of those clients were right. They didn’t need PR at that time. And, while not paying thousands a month for public relations can save you money, doing so at the wrong time can cost you in the loss of customers, failing brand loyalty, and possibly the downfall of your entire business or organization.

So how do you, the founder or manager of a startup, nonprofit, or emerging brand, actually know when you need PR? I’ve set up some questions to help you decide for yourself if your brand actually needs PR right now. 

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Hiring a PR firm is a big step for any new or growing brand. If you've reached this point, congratulations, you’ve gotten farther than a lot of other brands ever have. Here are seven common myths to avoid when considering hiring a PR firm.

1. The Best PR Firms Are Really Big
Choosing a big PR firm that works with big clients can be a bad choice for new and emerging brands for several reasons. Big PR firms are expensive for cost-conscious brands. Unless they have a “small brand” department big PR firms are mainly focused on their big, name-brand clients, because they look good, and they bring in most of the money. Most big PR firms don’t specialize in the nuances of startups. While they may have fancy reports and a fleet of underlings to meet with you regularly, big PR firms don’t usually understand the specific needs of budding entrepreneurship associated with startups. You’re better off looking for PR firms that specialize in, and have results for companies of a similar size and focus to yours.

​Santa’s Village in Scotts Valley California is the abandoned amusement park of my dreams. It closed the year I was born, but that didn’t stop my lifelong obsession with it, nor did it stop me from working for Santa’s Village today, but let’s not start with the end of the story just yet. By the time I first found out about the enchanting Bay Area Christmas theme park, it was only a memory, and someone else's memory at that.

    To put it in Dickensian terms; Santa’s Village was dead to begin with; ​as dead as an abandoned theme park could be.

It was one of three Santa’s Villages across the country; the first franchised amusement park. But the heydays of mid-century modern luxury dissolved into the gas crisis and economic despair of the 1970s. The Santa’s Village Corporation dissolved in the late 70s. The parks went their separate ways and eventually all closed. And you might assume this is where the story of Santa's Village stops, but you'd be wrong.

Santa’s Village, my favorite theme park in the entire world, closed the year I was born. This minor inconvenience however didn’t stop me from spending a good deal of my life obsessing over it, tracking down stories, and looking for signs of life, no matter how impossible. I’m not your normal theme park fan; I go deep into stories and personal histories collecting forgotten memories, pictures, and trinkets from independent parks, many of which no longer exist. Santa’s Village has always been at the center of my curiosity. Frontier Village of San Jose and The Lost World, have also been on my list of curiosities, but if I had to pick one to bring back, it will always be Santa’s Village.

​Now, on a recent Friday in May, after years of waiting, I am happy to report that I finally ventured into the park’s Welcome House and spent a weekend in the actual Santa’s Village. Not only did I visit, I now work for the park, offering my public relations and creative services, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

You’re busy running a startup. You don’t have a communications “team” of 50 people to help you prepare for conversations with the press. You personally don’t have time for an intensive 2 week course on media training. What you DO have is an interview or media opportunity in two days that you’re scared to death about.

Fear not. Here’s what you need to know to get started.

​1. Know The Show
Familiarize yourself with the show or venue you’re going to be on. Do your homework. If it’s a blog, read previous articles. If it’s a TV show, watch previous episodes. If it’s a podcast, or radio show, listen to a few episodes. If it’s available, read over the list of episode titles and guests over the last few months. Try and get a sense of why the show exists and what it’s about.