Unexpected Connections - Where ChatGPT Falls Short

Around the world, 5,500 cups of Nescafé are drank every second. A staggering statistic if you stop to think about it. But perhaps less eye-catching if it’s on slide 14 of an onboarding deck amongst a dozen other reasons to believe. But this stat became the inspiration for Courage’s first ever campaign, and subsequently became one of the brand’s most successful campaigns in a decade. It also kicked off an immensely rewarding relationship with the team at Nestlé which we are grateful for every day.?

This 5,500 cups a second statistic has been on my mind a lot lately. It’s interesting to me because it was there for everyone to find, but it wasn’t exactly sitting in plain sight. We had to dig for it, and then we had to identify its value, and then we had to shine a spotlight on it. And I’m not sure ChatGPT would have done that. Listen, I don’t want to be the old guy on the porch telling AI to get off my lawn. I use it quite a bit, and my team uses it even more. And one of the things that people rightfully praise AI for is its ability to synthesize large amounts of data. And here I’ll give the robotic devil his due, it’s great at that.?

But for a strategist, I don’t think outsourcing the synthesizing of data is always a good thing.?

I once had someone tell me the job of an account person is to be on top of everything, and the job of a strategist is to get to the bottom of a few things. I don’t know if that idiom entirely holds, but I like the notion of a strategist getting to the bottom of things. When I’m learning about a new brand or a new category or trend or audience, I actually find the laborious process of immersing myself in information really valuable. During the time it takes me to read a bunch or articles, in the background my brain typically starts to formulate opinions of my own on what’s working, what isn’t, and what I’d do differently. For me, reading time is also thinking time. And I’m not sure that happens as much if I jump straight to the Chat GPT generated ‘exec summary’.?

You also risk missing out on the weird, but sticky stuff that a computer - or even another strategist - might not find interesting. The 5,500 cups. Or the obscure stat that inspired our Cannes Lion winning Have AI Break for KitKat earlier this year. A big part of great strategy and great creativity lies in finding and making unexpected connections. At present, AI still isn’t great at that.?

Again, this post isn’t intended to disparage AI, but more so to encourage humans. AI is great at making shortcuts, but sometimes taking a shortcut shortchanges the work. For now, there is still a lot of value to be found in rolling up your sleeves, putting in the work, and diving into the data. You never know what you might find.?