Andrew Scott, CEO of Insight Data, explains why so-called ‘digital fatigue’ might be driving a return to more direct, human-centred marketing.

If you’re old enough to remember the term ‘bank manager’, you might recall those formal interviews at your local branch, sitting in your best office wear while the severe manager opposite you evaluated your suitability for a loan.

That was certainly my experience, and it seems that those days will be having something of a reboot with the news that Barclays are planning to reopen high street branches and reinstate more visible, human-facing roles.

The banking giant seems to have decided that it’s good when humans talk to other humans about important things like their money. Barclays isn’t replacing its digital presence in favour of humans – it is hoped that digital and ‘analogue’ (for want of a better term) will happily co-exist side-by-side.

Wishful thinking? Maybe not. Recently, the US-based marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk has stuck out his neck to describe what he sees as a “back to the real world” movement, where people consciously rebalance their lives away from constant digital engagement.

A recent Ofcom survey showed that just 49% of adults in the UK actively post on social media, down from 61% the previous year. There is less participation, as people leave the shouting to others and go for quieter means of media consumption. Added to this, people are increasingly wary of what they post, aware that online content can resurface or be misinterpreted later.

So, are we entering a period when digital is being re-evaluated and if so, what does that mean for marketing? Here at Insight Data, we’re highly attuned to shifts in consumer behaviour and there’s no doubt that firms are finding decreased engagement digitally, with returns diminishing as a result.

For businesses in sectors such as fenestration, glazing and construction, this shift raises an important question: if digital engagement is becoming more passive, how do you consistently reach the people who make decisions?

My opinion is that this may be the point where direct marketing begins to reassert its value. Done properly, direct mail and structured telemarketing are strong performers. The difference between its predecessors and today’s version of direct marketing is that it is built on clean, reliable data of the kind that Insight Data supplies.

We see this reflected in campaign performance. Businesses that invest in accurate targeting consistently outperform those relying on broad digital exposure alone. There is also a practical reality emerging around AI and content saturation. As more organisations use automation to generate messages at scale, the volume of communication increases, but the clarity often decreases. In that environment, being specific and well-targeted becomes even more important.

Critics might argue that a pushback against digital is little more than a temporary attack of nostalgia similar to that for vinyl albums over the usual music streaming services. A reasonable view, except for that fact that in 2025, vinyl sales hit a 20-year high, with nearly seven million records sold!

So perhaps Barclays putting people back into branches is, in its own way, a reminder of something simple: trust is still built through interaction, not just exposure, and marketing is moving in the same direction.

Digital cannot be uninvented and we will never move away from it, yet there is evidently a steer towards a more deliberate mix of digital efficiency and human-centred contact. The organisations that recognise this early, and invest in the data needed to support it, will be better placed to cut through in an increasingly crowded environment.

That is why direct marketing remains so relevant. And why the quality of your data is now one of the most important factors in determining whether your message is simply sent, or actually received – and acted upon.