Can AI take over your advertising research job?

The recent public launch of ChatGPT from Open AI has driven headlines for its impressive ability to write content with sophistication, and even humor, on complex topics ranging from software coding to Shakesperian drama. The seemingly magical ways the technology has created textual content that would often pass as written by a knowledgeable human is headline news for every industry sector. Will students be able to ask an AI to write their term papers on The Great Gatsby? Will Product Managers have their BRDs written by the computer? Might lawyers get soaring oratory from AI to use in closing arguments? The implications of the technology are vast. So what does this mean for folks in the ad measurement industry? Is AI coming for ad researchers' jobs too? I had to find out.

I started by entering a basic query into ChatGPT about the most significant issue in ad measurement today, the depreciation of cookies. Giving the system the directions “Explain how advertisers can measure brand lift without cookies,” I received a remarkably concise response:

Brand lift is a measure of the effectiveness of an advertising campaign in terms of how it affects a brand's metrics, such as brand awareness, purchase intent, and favorability. Advertisers can measure brand lift without cookies by using a variety of methods, including surveys, focus groups, and controlled experiments.

The computer quickly understood the concept of brand lift, even going so far as to list the most common metrics associated with this type of measurement. So fellow researchers and their marketing teams, the good news is that all the insights reports and product collateral we are putting out there are definitely clear enough to understand the goals of brand lift, to AI at least.

Where things got interesting is that despite prolific reporting and publicity around all of the varying techniques advertising insights professionals are using to try to continue measurement with the loss of cookies, AI was not able to understand the solutions. By citing “surveys, focus groups, and controlled experiments,” the system understood that gathering information about brands from people was important. This is a great first step in doing brand lift. However, without the technical tools to capture ad exposure without cookies and mobile IDs, reaching out to consumers to get their thoughts isn't going to work.

ChatGPT’s AI has already written piano sonatas, fixed buggy code, and summarized Dostoevsky but doing the technical magic of ad measurement is still beyond its capabilities. Ad researchers, you are still ahead of the machine.

Oh, and how does ChatGPT think Shakespeare would describe brand lift?

Brand lift might be described as the perceived increase in value or recognition of a particular brand, as if it were rising up from obscurity and into the minds and hearts of consumers. This rise in perception may be brought about through various means, such as effective marketing campaigns or the offering of high-quality products and services. As the brand's reputation grows and spreads, it may garner more admiration and loyalty from its audience, elevating it to new heights of success and renown.

While AI isn't coming for your ad research job yet, it does dispense some pretty good advice.