AI in Marketing: Beyond the Hype - How Leading Brands are Using it Today

AI's potential in marketing is undeniable. It promises disruption, innovation, and powerful results. But how does it actually work in practice?

Let's move beyond theoretical possibilities and dive into real-world applications. Here are some examples of global brands leveraging generative AI to create successful marketing campaigns:

• Under Armour: Leveraged the power of AI to create The Ultimate Team Talk , an inspirational speech for the start of the European football season, harnessing the best possible language, sentence structure, cadence and energy.
• Coca-Cola: Coca-Cola launched a campaign called “Create Real Magic ” that uses generative AI to allow people to create their own art with Coca-Cola assets. Over 130,000 pieces of art were created and shared on social media.
• Nike: Nike launched a campaign called “By You ” that uses generative AI to allow customers to design their own shoes. Over 100 million pairs of shoes were customized using the “By You” platform.
• Gucci: Gucci launched a campaign called “Gucci Garden ” that uses generative AI to allow people to explore a virtual garden filled with Gucci products. Over 1 million people visited the Gucci Garden.
• Samsung: Samsung launched a campaign called “Samsung 837X ” that uses generative AI to allow people to create their own virtual reality experiences. Over 500,000 people created VR experiences using the Samsung 837X platform.

You might be thinking, "These are just isolated examples capitalizing on the AI buzz." That's a fair point. So, let's move beyond specific campaigns and explore how marketers are actually integrating AI into their everyday practices.

Here's a framework I found particularly insightful: the 5Ps of Marketing Artificial Intelligence , developed by the Marketing AI Institute.

Marketing AI Institute’s 5Ps of Marketing AI framework can help you understand how:

? Planning: AI can help you build intelligent strategies.

? Production: AI can generate intelligent content.

? Personalization: It can power intelligent consumer experiences.

? Promotion: It can help you manage intelligent cross-channel promotions.

? Performance: And it can turn data into intelligence.

Across the 5Ps, AI ?we can also capture significant benefits like better optimization through lowering CAC and promoting revenue growth and smarter predictions that drive tangible business value. In fact, today, the world’s most successful brands are using AI to achieve a range of business outcomes that lead directly to the results that executives care most about, including:

? Accelerate revenue growth.

? Create personalized consumer experiences at scale.

? Drive costs down.

? Generate greater return on investment (ROI).

? Get more actionable insights from marketing data.

? Predict consumer needs and behaviors with greater accuracy.

? Reduce time spent on repetitive, data-driven tasks.

? Shorten the sales cycle.

?? Unlock greater value from marketing technologies.

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The CMO Quarterly 2024 report highlights the need for Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) to address disruption in their 2024 marketing strategies. This disruption is likely driven by the transformative power of emerging technologies like generative AI (GenAI), which is fundamentally reshaping the very purpose of marketing.

To delve deeper into real-world applications, the Marketing AI Institute team conducted a targeted survey. They spoke directly with 14 high-level marketing executives, including CMOs, marketing VPs, and those on the CMO career track. This survey provides valuable? "inside scoop" on how leading marketing minds are approaching AI today.

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How Are CMOs Using AI Today?

All CMO's in the study is using AI today or rolling out pilots in the next several months. Unsurprisingly, ChatGPT was a popular AI tool being used by these leaders. But they also report using a range of other AI tools, including:

? 6sense

6sense positions itself as the only Account-Based Marketing (ABM) platform powered by Revenue AI?

• Identifying Ideal Accounts
• Understanding Buying Stages
• Personalization and Prioritization
• Recommending Next Steps:?The platform might analyze data and suggest the most relevant actions for your sales and marketing teams to take with each target account.

? Adobe’s native AI features

Adobe Firefly is a relatively new tool from Adobe that utilizes generative AI (artificial intelligence) to empower creative professionals.

? Beautiful.ai

Is a presentation software designed to help users create visually appealing and professional presentations quickly and easily.

? BrandMuscle.ai

Channel Partner Marketing Platform by BrandMuscle is a tool designed to streamline and strengthen the marketing efforts of large companies (Fortune 1000) working with local affiliates or partners.

? Canva’s native AI features

Magic Design? by Canva is a free online tool that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to help you generate custom visual content in seconds.

? Content at Scale

Content at Scale is an AI writing assistant specifically designed for marketers. It focuses on helping them create high-volume SEO content quickly and efficiently.

? DALL-E

DALL-E 2, created by OpenAI, is a powerful tool that uses artificial intelligence (AI) for a creative purpose: generating images from textual descriptions.

? Engage AI

Engage AI is a tool that utilizes generative AI (artificial intelligence) to specifically focus on improving your engagement on LinkedIn. Engage AI is designed to be a productivity tool for LinkedIn users who want to increase their engagement and interactions on the platform through AI-powered comment generation.

? Grammarly

Grammarly acts as your AI writing assistant, helping you improve your written communication across various platforms.

? Jasper

Jasper is an AI writing assistant specifically designed to help enterprise marketing teams be more productive and create high-quality content.

? Intellimize

Intellimize is a platform designed to help businesses improve their website's conversion rate through website optimization and personalization. Here's a breakdown of its functionalities:

• Website Optimization: Intellimize offers a suite of tools to optimize your website for better conversions.
• Personalization: Intellimize goes beyond basic optimization by personalizing the website experience for each visitor. This can involve: Dynamic Content Personalization:?Tailoring website content (text, images, offers) to individual visitors based on their behavior and preferences. Personalization for Every Visitor:?This can be done for both known visitors (identified users) and anonymous visitors.

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? Midjourney

Here's a breakdown of what Midjourney does:

• Generates Images from Text:?You provide a written description of what you want the image to look like, and Midjourney uses its AI to create a corresponding image.
• Focuses on Artistic Exploration:?While it can be used for practical purposes, Midjourney seems to be geared more towards creative exploration and artistic expression.
• Independent Research Lab:?The developers are focused on pushing the boundaries of AI-generated art and expanding human imagination.

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? Topaz AI

Topaz Labs develops software that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the quality of images and videos. Their software caters to photographers and videographers, particularly professionals, by offering features like:

• Upscaling image resolution:?Enlarging images without sacrificing quality, allowing for tighter cropping or bigger prints.
• Improving image detail:?AI can analyze the content of a photo and "remember" real details from similar images, filling in missing pixels and adding sharpness.
• Noise reduction:?Removing unwanted grain from photos taken in low light conditions.

?These executives use these tools and others across a diverse range of use cases. Many of their initial use cases, though not all, are generative. These include:

• Creating internal communications and reports.
• Creating buyer personas.
• Drafting sales and marketing emails.
• Gap analysis.
• Generating social media posts.
• Generating visual creative assets.
• Personalizing the customer journey.
• Predicting which accounts are in-market.
• Research assistance.
• Summarizing content.
• Writing and editing content

And this whole movement of applying AI in the marketing area is focused on two major points:        

Reducing costs. CMOs are using AI to increase efficiency and boost team productivity across common marketing tasks.

Increasing revenue. CMOs report that AI usage has led to higher conversion rates and revenue uplift.

But the question remains: Are you leveraging AI in your marketing strategy?

Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!

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