The title of this column probably takes us back to an old ’90s hit. Eros Ramazzotti, if I remember correctly. Cosas de la Vida (Can’t Stop Thinking of You): school afternoons, backpack on shoulder, radio on, and the heart searching for meaning in someone else’s voice. “Being human is what I want to be”, said that romantic Italian without suspecting that decades later, the phrase would stop sounding like a ballad and become a manifesto.
Because in this era where everything seems designed not to feel, where they give us metrics instead of hugs, KPIs instead of conversation, and chatbot responses instead of ears that listen… Repeating “being human is what I want to be” is no longer naive: it’s revolutionary.
They told us brands must “connect”, that we need to “have purpose”, that empathy sells, and that if emotion doesn’t convert, it’s useless. But no one taught us what’s essential: to move people, you need to have heart. And not one made of recycled cardboard (even if it’s great for greenwashing).
Today, brands dance to the rhythm of indicators as if they were technocratic boleros. A click here, a conversion there. But nobody measures the trembling in your gut when an idea touches the soul, moves you, or brings out a smile.
In the midst of this simulacrum of humanity, we lost our instinct. The smell of home-cooked food. The art of staying quiet to listen. The pleasure of the absurd. Campaigns are starting to look more like A.I. templates than campfires around which to tell stories that leave a mark, not brands.
Repeating “being human is what I want to be” is no longer naive: it’s revolutionary.
And look, it’s not that technology is the enemy. The world’s great companies already integrate artificial intelligence into their processes and that’s fine: it streamlines, organizes, enhances. Who doesn’t want something faster and more efficient? They’re fabulous tools capable of multiplying possibilities, but they remain just that: tools. The creative pulse still comes from what’s lived and felt.
What if we go back to writing the way we talk? What if brands stop sounding like branding manuals on steroids and dare to simply say: I don’t know, but I understand you? What if, instead of creating perfect avatars, we show our scars?
Because if everything becomes the same, if every difference is tested to death, we’ll end up with impeccable but empty brands. With branding that stops being art to become taxidermy.
This column doesn’t claim to have an answer. But it does have a suspicion: in an increasingly artificial world, what’s truly subversive is to become human again. With mistakes, emotion, doubts, and contradictions.
A.I. is not the end. Technology is not a threat. It’s a tailwind, but we still hold the rudder, even if it’s humanly difficult to keep it steady.
And in the end, as that old hit that accompanied us in the ’90s said, they’re things of life. Among algorithms and metrics, there’s a phrase worth repeating, slowly, like a return: Being human is what I want to be.
By Gianfranco (Pipo) Canale
Creative Director. Advertiser. Human being by decision.
