From Creation to Curation

Big data, machine learning, AI, and analytics continue to reshape marketing departments' operations. They offer us a unique ability to craft better messaging, understand our audience and target our tactics more efficiently. They have – and will continue to – revolutionize how we communicate with our customers and consumers.?

Once these technologies become sufficiently advanced, will they eliminate the need for humans in our marketing departments? Perhaps. However, I caution any marketing leader to keep their human marketers around – at least for the next few decades. Why? Biased data sets and algorithms, for one thing, lack of nuance and emotional intelligence for another.?

As the world economy slows and tech giants like Alphabet and Meta restructure and streamline their operations, it may be very tempting to look to things like AI to augment or even replace the people analyzing the mountains of data marketing departments have access to and the creatives who use those insights to craft campaigns. After all, if you ask chat GPT the right questions, it can certainly generate some impressive results.?

What need do we have for humans then? Creativity was one thing we always said computers could never take from us. “Sure, they can dig through data faster than any human, but they can’t be?creative” we would say. Now, seemingly, they can.?

If computers can now create, what role do humans have in this equation beyond plugging in the parameters we want the computer to work with? If it’s no longer a human’s job to?create,?perhaps we need to adapt and curate instead. Anyone can be an artist, but not everyone can get their work into a gallery. That’s where emotional intelligence comes into play - something I’ve been thinking about recently.?

AI and machine learning rely on being fed huge amounts of data to make sense of. Quite beyond ‘garbage in, garbage out’, which we all already understand, there are more insidious things that can taint this data and produce biased results.?

Humans are flawed. We bring our own set of biases and prejudices with us everywhere we go. While most of us strive to overcome them in everyday life, one area they can also rear their head is in algorithms we design for machine learning – reproducing unconscious bias that affects the results it produces. This is in addition to incomplete or prejudicial data sets that can feed real-world inequities or perceptions to ‘perfect machine models’ – causing them to reproduce them in their outputs.?

Should we then give up on machine learning, big data, and AI? Certainly not. However, it’s essential that we have people in place to consciously monitor outputs, evaluate them and tailor them to the needs of consumers.?

Beyond reproducing unconscious bias or structural inequalities in marketing outputs, without emotional intelligence, machines may develop campaigns that come off as creepy or weird to consumers. We have all heard the stories of people having secrets revealed by their Netflix recommendations or how supermarket chains can tell when a woman is pregnant - and target them with personalized vouchers - simply by changes in shopping habits.?

With humans in charge of tempering outputs, we can ensure our brands are protected from bad PR caused by machines and smooth any rough edges machines might generate.?

Marketing has always been a creative field, but it has also been an emotional one. Connecting with consumers on an emotional level is our secret weapon. We're here to understand people’s wants, needs, and desires and show them how we fill them. We’re not just selling products but helping people live fuller lives.?

Leveraging our emotional intelligence will become more critical as we adopt more tools like AI and ML. It’s how we will move beyond creation- something that seems we’re not as needed for as we once were – and move towards curation.?

Will we all be as cool as an art gallery owner? Perhaps not. We will play the same role they do, ensuring marketing remains a form of art – not just algorithmically derived insights from mountains of data.?