The World’s Best Frenemy – AI and Marketing
Article Date | 02 May 2024
By Mr James William Coppen, Lecturer in Digital Marketing, FSB Croydon
Are you feeling scared? Fear is a natural reaction when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI). Regarded as a menace by some and a boon by others, AI stands at the forefront of innovation across every sector, from education to art. With AI making its way into every industry, it’s time to look at how AI might make its way into marketing.
ChatGPT, 2024
Prompt: Can you give me a philosophical quote about the power of large language models in the style of the Greek philosopher Diogenes?
“In the bustling agora of the digital age, where ideas flow as swiftly as the currents of the river, one cannot help but ponder the emergence of colossal language models.”
Marketing has not been exempted from the discussion. ChatGPT has even offered a premium service to perform copywriting (ChatGPT, n.d.). This opens important questions such as: Why pay for a team of copywriters? Why worry about sick days? Why worry about minimum wage?
Honesty and AI
The sci-fi writers of the past thought about the world we would live in, where technology replaced labour and ushered us into a beautiful post-work utopia. When really, what we’ve seen is that creatives become a field in danger. A world where a Prompt Engineer is a valid thing to put on a LinkedIn Profile.
It’s already the belief of some of the industry to think that we should carry on afoot, and simply play ‘dumb’ to the consumer. Hide the weak and elevate the strength by not disclosing the fact that it’s a tool that we are using (Holland, 2023). After all, isn’t hiding the flaws and shouting the benefits from the rooftops all we’ve ever done as marketers?
Chat GPT, 2024
Prompt: Should marketers be honest about using ChatGPT? One sentence answer.
“Yes, marketers should be transparent about their use of ChatGPT to maintain trust with their audience.”
Is this the end of Marketing as we know it?
It’s a hard question to think about, emerging technologies have always started at the top of business and trickled down. The death of marketing comes with every change. The Cluetrain Manifesto (Levine et al, 1999) said that the Internet would be the death of conventional marketing.
The difference comes from the fact that once, everything was a tool that had to be conquered. The industrial printing press didn’t kill the printing industry. It made things easier. This is an opinion that some people in the industry currently have. Marketing Week (2023) has published editorials highlighting the subtle balance between using man and machine. That the human creative touch will always shine when it comes to the field of Marketing.
Will Marketers be able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their AI compatriots? Looking forward into a brave new world of the art of persuasion, selling together as both trusted friends and esteemed allies. Maybe go look at a field. Ask the horses how good a car invention was for their job prospects.
So, do I need to be worried now?
This is tomorrow’s issue. It’s next week’s problem. It’s the bailiwick of those in a far different period than me. The future is now. Tom Roach (2024) in an opinion piece, already spoke on many of the ways the wriggling, dubiously plagiaristic tendrils of large language models and image generation programs are inserting themselves into marketing right here, and right now.
It takes a team of highly trained professionals, and skilled masters of the craft to segment audiences. To brief you on strategy. To make a lookbook, or to manage your audience data. Now the kind of hot-blooded talent you used to find in a Sachi and Sachi office is in your pocket. The suave Don Drapers has been replaced with a blank screen that can tell you how to sell best to B1 customers and the ideal type of ice cream to make your Bombe Alaska with:
Chat GPT, 2024
Prompt: What sort of ice cream should go in a Bombe Alaska, also, what are the current buying habits of rich suburbanites, one sentence answer.
“Traditional flavors like vanilla or strawberry work well in a Bombe Alaska, while rich suburbanites tend to favor online shopping for luxury goods and experiences.”
Is it all doom and gloom though? Does the entire sector have to truly worry about the developments in large language models threatening marketing jobs?
Chat GPT, 2024
Prompt: Do you think ChatGPT and other large language models will threaten the jobs of marketers? One sentence answer.
“Large language models like ChatGPT may augment marketing tasks, but human creativity and strategic thinking will remain crucial, likely transforming rather than replacing marketer roles.”
Does AI actually work?
ChatGPT doesn’t seem to think so, and in an editorial for Meltwater, Lance Concannon (2024) mirrored such sentiments. Homogeneity comes with the territory of large language models like ChatGPT. Some of the fear of large language models comes from a lack of understanding of how they work. The quickest way to find out how they work is to ask directly from the source.
ChatGPT, 2024
Prompt: How do large language models actually work, one sentence answer.
“Large language models like GPT use deep learning techniques, particularly transformers, to process and generate human-like text based on vast amounts of pre-existing data.”
The issue with large language models comes from the very core of how they work. The process generates human-like content, based on pre-existing data. Like a massive remix machine, everything produced is a chimaera of thousands and thousands of pre-existing ideas and material.
One of the biggest controversies involving AI and processing models comes from the Artistic community. Where the belief that AI Art is a plagiaristic process is commonplace. The soulless squeezing of different variations of existing material leaves little room for what the human element can provide, innovation.
Getting Creative
What can we say about AI and creativity? When you begin to understand how large language models work, you can begin to see the real issue at hand. The creative process is one where we are so often informed by what we’ve seen before. What inspires us and what do we think we could do better?
Brian Uzzi (2023) at Kellogg School seems to think that this is a problem. With the mass generation of creative content, it sets a higher bar for effort on the part of all creatives, regardless of industry. However, this isn’t the only opinion people have on the matter.
The Data Crunch
Writing for Forbes, James Schiefer (2022), CEO of SCS spoke about how this issue might not be exactly as clear cut as we think. AI’s ability to parse through truly astonishing amounts of data makes it a potentially ideal creative partner for marketers. All of our decisions are first and foremost influenced by customer needs. Their wants, their needs, and dozens of more different factors.
With social media metrics, big data, and the variety of tools that marketers and marketing firms have at their disposal, we no longer have a lack of data. The key choke point for any successful campaign is how to process it all, and how to turn that into a meaningful road map on how to be successful.
So, what does it really mean?
Marketing has always been and continues to be, powered by innovation. If anything, the biggest threat posed by AI to Marketing is not replacement, but an issue of dependency. For the small business owner, operating out of their living room.
Maybe ChatGPT can handle that tagline, it can write that copy for your website. For the seasoned professional, the aspiring copywriter, or the brand manager, we cannot fall back on a novel tool, built on things that we’ve left behind, on old ideas and tired cliches.
ChatGPT, 2024
Prompt: Can you give me a philosophical quote about the power of large language models in the style of the Greek philosopher Diogenes?
“So let us, like Diogenes, continue to search for truth amidst the noise of the digital agora, guided not by the size of our models, but by the sincerity of our quest. For in the end, it is not the power of our tools that defines us, but the integrity of our pursuit of wisdom.”
Will AI replace all of us as fine marketers? Not anytime soon. Maybe it represents something of a useful tool, but there still isn’t anything in the industry that doesn’t benefit from the human element.
References:
ChatGPT. (n.d.). ChatGPT – Copywriter GPT. [online] Available at: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-Ji2QOyMml-copywriter-gpt [Accessed 28 Feb. 2024].
Concannon, L. (2023). Will ChatGPT take my Marketing Job? [online] Meltwater. Available at: https://www.meltwater.com/en/blog/will-chatgpt-take-my-marketing-job [Accessed 28 Feb. 2024].
Holland, A. (2023). ‘The first rule of using AI for content? Don’t tell anyone you’re using AI for content’. [online] Marketing Week. Available at: https://www.marketingweek.com/andrew-holland-ai-content-rules/ [Accessed 28 Feb. 2024].
Levine, R., Locke, C., Searls, D. and Weinberger., D. (1999). The Cluetrain Manifesto. [online] www.cluetrain.com. Available at: https://www.cluetrain.com/ [Accessed 28 Feb. 2024].
Marketing Week. (2023). Will AI help or hinder marketing creativity? [online] Available at: https://www.marketingweek.com/ais-double-edged-sword-will-it-help-or-hinder-marketing-creativity/ [Accessed 28 Feb. 2024].
Roach, T. (2024). Generative AI isn’t marketing’s future, it’s part of its present. [online] Marketing Week. Available at: https://www.marketingweek.com/generative-ai-isnt-marketings-future-its-already-part-of-its-present/ [Accessed 28 Feb. 2024].
Schiefer, J. (2022). Council Post: The Future Of Creativity In Advertising Is AI (For Real This Time). [online] Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2022/05/16/the-future-of-creativity-in-advertising-is-ai-for-real-this-time/?sh=5437f88423f7 [Accessed 1 May 2024].
Uzzi, B. (2023). Will AI Kill Human Creativity? [online] Kellogg Insight. Available at: https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/will-ai-kill-human-creativity.