Over the past 100 years, new technologies have forced marketing to change. Those technologies included radio, television, the Internet, and pay-per-click advertising. In each case, marketing adapted and improved. AI presents a new challenge. Marketing and creative professionals gathered for our Creative Strategy in the Age of AI virtual event on September 22 to discuss the unique ways human imagination and AI can work together to strengthen brand strategies.
UWEBC’s Marketing Practice Director in Residence Jason Voiovich kicked off the event with an interview with Mark Schaefer from Schaefer Marketing Solutions. Along with Mark’s extensive business experience, his artistic background gives him a deep understanding of why marketing needs both human creativity and AI tools. Mark stated how art interprets the human experience with risk, vulnerability, and accountability, something AI cannot do. Humans and professionals have stakes that are risked when putting creative work out. This is distinctively human and is one example of where human creativity uniquely fits in the age of AI. Taking risks to express humanity in the way we connect with our customers promotes brand honesty and trustworthiness.
Mark explained the overarching idea that brands capable of telling their story most effectively through word-of-mouth marketing may prevail in this AI era. A McKinsey study found that two-thirds of customer decisions come from testimonies, influencers, and other word-of-mouth marketing channels rather than company advertising efforts. Being able to tell your brand story through customers is a powerful tool that overrides AI. Integrating this idea with AI, well-explained brands that tell their story, data, and outcomes in a way that AI can understand, recognize, and recommend will succeed. 85% of start-ups today share the number one marketing strategy of community. This statistic emphasizes the relevancy in today’s business landscape of building a strong, dedicated community to your product and brand.
The discussion also emphasized how transparency around AI use can strengthen customer trust. Mark pointed out that brands all have certain aspects that their customers know and love them for. These aspects that keep customers coming back already stand out without AI, but AI can be remarkably useful for connecting with customers in more efficient, meaningful ways. However, avoiding over-indexing with AI is essential because AI shouldn’t tarnish key aspects of brands that already proved to be working.
Mark explores one dynamic seen with AI: Cognitive offloading. Many customers are now offloading product decisions to AI. Building a customer base that knows your brand and feels a personal connection with it is key to avoiding being lost in this offloading process. Recognizing the core of your brand, then asking how AI can make your best features better is a great way to integrate AI. Likewise, adding AI as a support system to uplift your current strategies produces stronger outcomes. Human creativity is more important than ever and must remain the forefront of new business ideas. Then, AI can make idea implementation that much better by acting as a helper in the execution process.
The second half of the event featured guests Leah Harnack, Sr. Manager of Brand & Content at Komatsu; Kristen Lanza, Marketing Creative Director at Associated Bank; and Greg Mueller, Strategic Marketing Director at Twin Disc, who shared how their companies employ AI for a wide range of tasks.
Leah explained how Komatsu views AI as a creative collaborator, not a creative owner. AI is a great aid in brainstorming and theme exploration, but human input remains at the core of the creative selection process. Moreover, Leah has found that prompting AI how AI can be of best use in specific projects is a unique way to designate it to specific areas of need.
Kristen brought an important consideration of legality and rules around AI in workplaces. At Associated Bank, stricter AI policies create the need for thoughtfulness in AI integration and careful application to specific creative tasks.
Another consideration with AI use is that of established companies which Greg highlighted. Twin Disc is 108 years old, and these older companies must consider AI as an extension of existing and effective human strategies. Greg demonstrated how AI can be prompted to produce reference photos and data for what is desired as the outcome for a given project. Then, after humans do the work, AI works to sort out technical gaps and blind spots.
Ultimately, this conversation covered the need for strong brand stories, word-of-mouth marketing channels, and human creativity in marketing as AI becomes a mainstream tool. AI shouldn’t take over in places that need human judgment for your company, but it can strengthen your company’s best strategies. Embracing AI and utilizing it to facilitate building a larger and more dedicated community of customers while keeping human ideas at the forefront of branding will help companies prevail in the age of AI.
UWEBC members can view the full event recording and download presentation materials here.