Has AI Killed the Marketer?

The first five scrolls on any given day on LinkedIn include posts about AI.?ChatGPT,?DALL-E, and?Jasper?are not names of the new GenZ Kardashians, but AI tools touted to change the way we work. No one can deny the buzz AI has created-both for companies and individuals. With use cases popping up more frequently, the possibilities seem limitless.?

Unfortunately, momentous changes usually birth fear. Coupled with a global fiscal crisis, layoffs, and inflation, and you have the perfect recipe for large-scale paranoia. Many of my marketing peers have a dark cloud of doubt looming on whether they are going to be made redundant. But before we resign to said fate, it is important for marketers (and executives) to step back and understand the tech, identify unique opportunities AI engenders, and find ways to leverage it to reach the next frontier of marketing.?

Generative AI is the red wine in my Bolognese sauce

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have become staples in our diet. From chatbots to virtual assistants, the pace at which assisted technology has augmented experiences is phenomenal. According to?Botco.ai, 73% of all marketers say their companies use Generative AI to perform marketing functions. Of the minority that?don’t?already use it, 77% plan to use them in the next 2 years.?

Generative AI, defined in the simplest terms as a branch of machine learning that uses algorithms to create?new content?(including audio, video, text, etc), cranks up the heat on the use cases of AI.?

Regardless of industry or sector, any good marketer would tell you that tenets of “GREAT”?marketing include- WOW Customer Experiences, Personalization at Scale, and Productivity. Much like my Nan’s famous Bolognese, a secret ingredient is the key differentiator between average and chef’s kiss. For her that was dry, red wine. For marketers, its Generative AI.?Let’s?explore each of these in a little more detail.??

Customer Experiences (CX)

For many consumers, the first point of contact with a brand can?likely be?their last. It brings to fore the need for brands to turn up their A-game across all brand-owned touchpoints. This includes content marketing, social media, websites, peer-review forums, and even native advertisements. Additionally, rapid digitization has made omni-channel marketing table stakes. People consume multiple pieces of information at multiple intervals through multiple channels, forcing companies ensure WOW yet consistent experiences both online and offline.?

Generative AI is the lifejacket marketers need to build and nurture CX. Content tools like ChatGPT and Copy.AI are great resources to build compelling written narratives at scale. DALL-E, Mid-journey and Flourish are great visual storytelling tools, creating striking imagery for different platforms. The list is endless.

Personalization

Are you as triggered as I am by the barrage of promotional emails in your inbox? 9 out of 10 times, this forces me to unsubscribe and even remove the brand from my future consideration set. On the other hand, I am more likely to buy from a company that has done their homework and personalized their messaging to awaken a latent want/need.?

I have personally used ChatGPT to draft mailers to potential partners and seen early success. Translation tools like DeepL can quickly and with?relatively high?accuracy translate text in over 100 languages. Retailers like IKEA are early adopters of GenAI with regards to tailored product recommendations, increasing time spent on site, items added to cart and net revenue per customer.

Productivity

My 30-minute social posts now get done in 5. I no longer take MOMs because I have the transcript feature on Microsoft Teams. MS Designer is going to make interactive ppts at the speed of light. DragGan, aka ‘photoshop for dummies,’ and more recently Adobe firefly allows you to make professional quality edits to images with just drag controls, within minutes

Marketing has and will continue to be a human-to-human interface

While there is no denying the revolution AI (especially GenAI) has begun, I would be wary to jump on the doomsday bandwagon that predicts the nearing end of marketers. Marketing at its core has been about understanding customer wants and needs. What separates humans from other animals is our emotional and often irrational behaviours. While technology has made quantum leaps in understanding and predicting patterns, it hasn’t (yet) been able to keep up with everchanging customer demands. This calls for a level of nuance only human interjection can solve for.?

However, adopting new-age technology is not only smart, its pivotal. According to?Market.us,?The Global?Generative AI in Marketing Market?size was valued to be worth?USD 1.9 Billion in 2022. From 2023 to 2032, it is estimated to reach?USD 22.1 Billion?growing at a CAGR of?28.6%. What this tells us is that as technology gets more sophisticated, the integration between the physical and digital worlds will be?faster, smarter, cheaper, and deeper.?Infrastructure such as Open-Source AI is already democratizing access and opportunity, further igniting the?‘AI for All’?fire.?

For marketers, this means upskilling, and upskilling fast! 2022?research?revealed that 63% of surveyed marketers admitted that ‘lack of education’ was the main barrier to adoption of AI in their marketing plans. Surprisingly, other barriers included ‘lack of interest in the topic’ and lack of ‘understanding and urgency at an executive level.’?Coursera’s 2022 Skills Report?revealed that 75% of workers surveyed felt unprepared for jobs in a digital-first economy. The study further stated that the most popular upskilling courses were technology and data science domains. Marketers, need to ensure technological proficiencies in both existing and emerging tech to keep up with an evolving landscape. Skills like GPT-prompting, AI journey mapping, digital CX, AI piloting, and marketing automation will become imperative for the new-age marketer.?

Mailmodo has compiled a list of courses that serve as a great starter pack. Click?here.?

The burden of skilling does not solely reside with just the employees. Formal?executive?buy-in needs to be in place to augment upskilling. While most decision makers can intuitively agree upon the existing skill gap,?research?suggests that only as low as 11% of companies have some kind of formal AI Learning & Development program in place. Companies need to move beyond lip-service and have dedicated and budgeted systems in place, which can surely be underwritten as their investment towards sustained competitive advantage.?

So, has AI killed the marketer?

The short answer is NO. A word frequently being thrown around is?co-pilot, a poignant analogy to describe the collaborative, but commensurate in value equation marketers have with AI, which really helps visualize the marketing-AI symbiosis. Much like the industrial and internet revolutions before, the AI revolution will empower people with sharper and smarter tools to augment productivity, creativity, and innovation. Marketers need to start worrying?less?about being made obsolete by AI and worrying?more?about how their peers are already becoming early AI adopters.??

And just like wine in the Bolognese sauce, companies will need to add AI into their marketing recipes to stay ahead of the curve.?

Authored by Adnan Furniturewalla, Senior Manager-Brand Strategy & Alliances, Zinnov Management Consulting.