Are you smart enough to truly see the potential of AI in marketing?

AI in Marketing?is currently in the Innovator Stage of The Product Diffusion Process

The integration of Artificial Intelligence in marketing remains in the earliest stage of the product diffusion process: the innovator phase. This stage is characterised by a small group of forward-thinking individuals and companies willing to take risks and explore uncharted territories.

At Push we have seen this pattern play out before. History has a habit of repeating itself. When Ricky Solanki and I started our marketing consulting work in 2005, we talked to some big brands about how they should invest in campaigns in ‘digital’, particularly Google. These included a Big 4 bank and several major high street chains.

All of them procrastinated and took years (not months) to make their first moves into digital. It cost some people their jobs sadly. Ricky and I changed tactics and put all our energy into challenger brands. In particular, we realised we needed to talk to a particular personality type; Innovators.

Marketing's AI innovators share key traits that set them apart from the mainstream. They possess strong conceptual thinking skills, allowing them to envision potential applications of AI that others might overlook. These early adopters also tend to have an entrepreneurial mindset, embracing the uncertainty and potential rewards of being first movers in a rapidly evolving landscape.

The stark contrast between innovators and later adopters in the AI marketing revolution goes beyond mere risk tolerance. It extends into the field of cognitive abilities, particularly in conceptual thinking. Innovators in this space demonstrate a remarkable capacity for abstract reasoning, pattern recognition, and creative problem-solving – skills that are crucial for understanding and leveraging AI's potential in marketing.

These more cognitive types can visualise complex systems and their interactions, allowing them to foresee how AI could transform various aspects of marketing. They possess the mental agility to adapt quickly to new paradigms and the intellectual curiosity to continuously learn and evolve with the technology.

In contrast, late adopters often exhibit weaker thinking skills, particularly when it comes to grasping abstract concepts and envisioning future scenarios. This cognitive gap manifests in several ways:

1. Limited Foresight

Late adopters struggle to anticipate how AI will impact their industry, often dismissing its potential until it's too late.

2. Resistance to Complexity

The intricacies of AI systems can be overwhelming for those with less developed conceptual thinking skills, leading to avoidance rather than engagement.

3. Narrow Perspective

While innovators see the broader implications of AI across various marketing functions, late adopters tend to focus on isolated, immediate applications.

4. Lack of Creativity

Innovators use their superior cognitive abilities to imagine novel AI applications, while late adopters often struggle to think beyond conventional uses.

This cognitive disparity creates a widening gap in the marketing industry, potentially leading to a new form of digital Darwinism where only the most intellectually agile survive and thrive.?

These innovators understand that AI can dramatically enhance marketing efforts by:

1. Improving data analysis and insights

2. Enabling hyper-personalisation at scale

3. Optimising ad spend and targeting

4. Automating repetitive tasks

5. Predicting consumer behaviour and trends

The Future Divide

As AI in marketing progresses through the diffusion process, we can expect to see a gradual shift in adoption. However, the cognitive and entrepreneurial gaps between innovators and late adopters may lead to a more pronounced divide in the industry.

Early adopters – those who follow the innovators – will likely be larger companies with more resources to invest in AI technologies. These organisations will be attracted by the competitive advantage that AI can provide but may still be more cautious than the true innovators.

The early majority will follow once AI solutions become more standardised and accessible. This group will benefit from the lessons learned by innovators and early adopters, implementing AI with less risk and more established best practices.

However, late adopters may find themselves increasingly marginalised as the industry evolves. Their cognitive limitations and lack of entrepreneurial spirit could relegate them to lower-value, commoditised aspects of marketing, while innovators and early adopters dominate the high-value, AI-driven segments of the industry.?

For now, the AI revolution in marketing remains firmly in the innovator stage. Those willing to leap will reap significant rewards (just as early adopters of digital marketing did) as AI becomes more prevalent. As the technology matures and success stories accumulate, we can expect to see a broader adoption of AI in marketing, transforming the landscape and setting new standards for the industry.?

The question remains: will late adopters be able to bridge the cognitive gap, or will they be left behind in this new era of marketing intelligence? Marketeers will not lose their jobs to AI, they will lose them to another set of marketeers who embraced AI early.