By Anne von Loebbecke / May 2023
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & THE FUTURE OF MARKETING
AI is everywhere - it is fascinating & polarising at the same time. Before digging deeper into AI & its effect on the marketing future, I would like to zoom out a bit & put AI into a bit of context. AI is already there for years, it already became a life companion most of us leverage & benefit from daily - just think about Amazon Alexa, Apple’s Siri, all the household technology around the IoT (internet of things) or the robotics that help us cleaning our apartment.
AI is considered to be part of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) that conceptualises rapid change to technology, industries & social pattern & processes in the 21st century due to increasing interconnectivity & smart automation. One part of the 4IR is the joining of technologies like AI, advanced robotics that blur the lines between the physical & digital worlds and also represents a shift from the digital age to a new era of embedded connectivity by the use of technology to build human experiences that change the way of how people experience & consume the world around them (i.e. metaverse). the 4IR posits that we have created & are entering an augmented social reality that couldn’t be more different to our just natural senses alone.
AI IS NOT SOMETHING NEW, IT ALREADY IS A DAILY LIFE COMPANION
At least since ChatGPT, AI made it from a more niche, data & optimisation topic to the talk of the industry & is driving everyone’s mind crazy. Depending on the person you ask in your organisation, the point of view on AI couldn’t be more different - all the way from “something we already use in some areas” to “is my job at risk” are just 2 exemplary reactions.
The chances that there are marketeers out there & not using AI in any shape of form is somewhat unlikely. Simply because there are so many tools with AI features that we are used to without even thinking about it - social & search engine advertising solutions, email marketing platforms, e-com solutions & all tools designed to assist with content creation, all those tools provide functionalities that tap into what identifies as AI in business today. It is software that helps us to get one particular job done, for example finding the best advertising placement to maximise efficiency or how to personalise emails to increase the interaction.
NEARLY 61% HAVE USED AI IN MARKETING
According to AI Marketing Benchmark Report 2023 done by Influencer Marketing Hub nearly 61% have used or are using AI across marketing operations, the ones that aren’t using AI today, claim the lack of understanding as the main reason for not using it. Within the ones who already worked & still working with AI, nearly 44% stated that they also implemented AI for marketing content production. This number isn’t surprising to me - speed to market increases exponentially & marketeers are constantly challenged to create even better, more personal, more engaging content & more polarising content on a day to day base. With the support of AI, marketeers can take personalisation to a new level, can increase the amount & speed of work for data-specific content formats as well as curate high-quality UGC that can be further leveraged in the marketing communications. We will take a closer look at the areas of AI in marketing in a sec.
With more than 50% using the power of AI in the job already, there are mixed feelings about the effect of AI on their jobs. Almost 36% are concerned that the constant extension of AI will jeopardise their jobs or even make them redundant, the same number has no such fears. There is even the sentiment that AI will enhance marketing efforts due to almost 50% of respondents, still they believe that humans will keep the responsibility of high-level strategy & decision making.
Most brands have a strong need for personalisation, better consumer experiences, better planning of outcomes, just some reasons you would use AI for. But at an operating level, I feel we are at the early stages of understanding & adopting AI within the marketing landscape.
So what are the most exciting opportunities when it comes to leveraging AI in marketing, and where are they already being tapped?
Personal Communication & Advertising
With the support of AI personal communication & advertising will become even more efficient. We will be able to engage & interact with consumers more individual across different channels & touch points based on data generated in the process that help us to better understand consumer behaviours & needs.
AI will help us to understand, where & how to best place our communication or adverts to generate the best possible engagement, interaction & impact with tools that work by combining the audience segmentation with predictive analytics. Just think about an DTC brand that interact with its consumer across 3-4 touch points, and keeps using the push notification channel in the app, while actually most consumers would prefer to receive individual email communication. Or look at e-com platforms such as Amazon, that provide you with individual offers based on your shopping & interest behaviour & and much upset would you be, if you would receive offers for something that you aren’t interested in?
With the more traditional formats such as TV & print, it is more difficult to attribute sales growth to advertising content or placements, those channels act more in favour for brand awareness & equity building.
AI-driven tools & platforms are most effective in the combination & as part of a coordinated holistic marketing strategy that puts the consumer at the core to deliver the best possible consumer experience for an individual.
“WE MIGHT REACH 90% OF ONLINE CONTENT GENERATED BY AI IN 2025”
Nina Schick, AI Though Leader
Content Creation
Nina’s statement is underpinned by the 2022 Capterra findings, in which 82% of marketeers say content generated by AI or ML software is just as good or even better than human generated content.
As outlined above, not surprising to me as we as marketeers are used to deliver content faster, create content that is extraordinary - is more personal, more engaging & more polarising than the day before while still being memorable in 20years from now.
Content is king, and will remain king, but how can we deliver premium, qualitative consumer right content at the speed consumers expect it? We need to be open to get support from tools, that can handle more workload in a shorter period of time, tools that through daily learning help us to push creative boundaries to the next level.
Every marketeer has been at the point, where you did not have any idea to market a product, innovation or service in a truly innovative & creative way that you have never seen before. So why not leveraging tools that provide you with ideas, concepts & even first possible content formats that create that moment of “Oh, wait, that’s maybe a little to crazy or are we sure, we can do this”. exactly this is the space where you start pushing boundaries, where you will be able to create something that consumers haven’t seen yet, and yes it will be polarising & potentially provocative, but that’s ok, as you want to stand out from the rest.
Already well-known brands such as Coca Cola, Afri Cola, Heineken or Douglas using AI to develop content, campaigns, websites or even products.
Even AI will help us to generate most of our content in the future, it is important that we as marketeers don’t let go content without reviewing & double checking - we have the social responsibility to not advertise inauthentic. unreal and even fake content that is misleading the consumers in their behaviour & action.
There might be more areas where marketing will use and is using AI as a daily companion, but for me personalisation & content are the most exciting ones at this moment in time.
SUMMARY
Even if, we might be scared, insecure or simply want to neglect the change that is rapidly happening, there are a lot of pro’s to keep leveraging & extending the use of AI within the marketing context. At the same time, the industry needs to carefully look at the challenges that also come along with it.
AI is & will be powerful enabler for marketing. it’s potential to help brands to better understand consumer needs & behaviours is an instrumental & crucial vehicle to better serve the consumer in personalized way & create brand-consumer relationships.
Nevertheless, we need to better define guiding principals & fine tune the way how we use AI in the creative process & content generation to avoid misleading, inauthentic & deep fake communication towards the consumer & society.
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