Unlimited's Simon Collister said Goldilocks wouldn't have worried about the AI being too hot or too cold. When it comes to getting the most out of technology in your marketing, the key is finding the sweet spot.
Much has been written about AI, including its impact on the future of the marketing industry, the ethics of generative AI scraping, and technologies that learn from the internet's open content. Not to mention the mix of hilarious and disturbing hallucinations we're seeing. The list could go on.
But a more in-depth look at where AI, especially generational AI, stands when derived from the higher-level opinion of “isn't it great, isn't it good, isn't it bad, isn't it ugly?” , how will it play out in reality?
My experience at Unlimited has shown me that the everyday reality of AI in marketing is very much gravitated towards using AI to: 'Do less to achieve more. ”
And this is good news for several reasons, including human capabilities, commercial, and strategic, and is worth considering in detail.
Unleash human talent with AI for best results
One of the areas where we are deploying Gen AI is to help our clients quickly analyze customer survey data. The theory is that AI can provide much faster and potentially more accurate (or at least more objective) results.
We've been working with clients to test this theory using Luca, an AI-powered insights platform. The results were an overwhelming success.
Given the importance (and value) of the project deliverables, we started in full due diligence mode. We thoroughly examined actual results and compared them to human analyst deliverables over a three-month period to assess quality and accuracy. The algorithm was fine-tuned and updated, and the analysis was re-run.
It was a lot of detailed work, but it was worth it. The client and lead analyst were very impressed with the quality of the output and suggested that this could free up several days of analysis time. Importantly, this frees up analysts to redeploy to higher value work. This proves that AI will augment humans, not replace them.
And that's an important point.
AI should add to the value of your work, not subtract from it
Gen AI is not only good news for clients, but also for troubled CEOs, chief revenue officers, and those wondering if clients will start demanding “AI” as the technology becomes more widely adopted. It also bodes well for worried executives. discount. 'Rather than perceiving the use of AI as a time-saving technology that reduces billability and recoverability, clients see added value and even say they are willing to pay a fee or premium for the service. .
But it's not just the data-processing aspects of marketing that AI is transforming day-to-day operations. Our creative teams are also leveraging the opportunities presented by Gen AI.
For example, the LUCA platform allows planners to identify the target audience for a campaign and perform analysis in minutes using a sample of that user's social content. This analysis deploys AI to generate psychographic profiles. This is essentially an AI-powered audience persona that informs creative development.
Take AI to the next level in serving your clients
However, the advantage of AI is that different algorithms can be “stitched together” to create added value. So, for example, you could also connect it to another generation of her AI engine that takes the attributes and qualities of your audience persona and compares that persona to a behavioral science “cheat sheet.” This automated process quickly develops a basic creative brief to ensure that audiences with specific psychological “fingerprints” are most influenced by dialing up or down certain creative elements. , what you're hooked on can be effectively revealed in minutes.
Again, such a process is not meant to replace creative strategists, but to help them get to their first proposal or concept faster. Speeding up time to output and getting more valuable human input is the mainstream today, not replacing human experts completely.
But a cynic reading this might argue: “Oh, yes, but what happens when you connect an AI-generated creative brief to an AI artwork tool like Dall-e or Midjourney? That’s when creators will start to feel the heat of AI.”
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Great “10-year starting pitcher” but AI doesn’t necessarily pitch the final pitch.
But we tried it and used the results for pitch development. Again, the practical response from our experience so far is that while useful as a “starter for 10,” generational AI artwork rarely makes it to the final pitch. there is no.
This is a very convenient way to start the creative development process, but it is always refined and built upon by humans. It's close, but there's still no replacement.
And that is the reality of practical adoption of AI in marketing in early 2024. As with many things in life, as humans we tend to push discussions and interpretations of new phenomena to extremes. Identifying the worst-case or best-case scenario often makes something easier to understand. As Goldilocks discovered, reality tends to find a sweet spot somewhere in the middle.