Does Generative AI herald the end of an era or the start of a new chapter in marketing?
Despite concerns about job losses and potential changes in the marketing industry, generative AI is a great asset for the marketing team, rather than a threat. Generative presents unparalleled opportunities to accelerate creativity, improve productivity, and us move to the next curve. We must embrace it as a friend and not an adversary.
When we think about technology’s evolving landscape, generative artificial intelligence (AI) is a topic that has rapidly gained attention, especially since the introduction of ChatGPT by OpenAI in November 2022. This buzzword has transformed from a niche topic to one of the most popular online discussions. The rise in interest, from a Google Trends score of 5 in December 2022 to a striking 100 in June 2023 (refer to the graphic on the right), clearly highlights its growing relevance.
But for marketers, it raises an important question: Is generative AI the end of traditional marketing or the beginning of a more innovative phase?
Despite concerns about job losses and potential changes in the marketing industry, I believe generative AI is a great asset for the marketing team, rather than a threat. Generative AI presents unparalleled opportunities to accelerate creativity, improve productivity, and helps us move to the next curve. We must embrace it as a friend and not an adversary.
If we reflect on the ‘Jobs to be Done’ (JTBD) framework, it focuses on solving customer (internal or external) problems and helping them achieve specific goals. These jobs consist of a series of tasks, some of which are highly creative, such as brand identity design (including verbal design) and storytelling, while others are more repetitive, like market research, mock and proto designs, writing captions, and user guides. Generative AI is a game-changer because it can take over the routine low value-add tasks, allowing us to free up time for more creative aspects of our jobs. Today, it’s actually possible to develop proto 3D logos with custom specifications within seconds using Bing chat leveraging GPT 4.
However, this also places a responsibility on all of us. We’re now tasked with not only meeting the baseline that technology has set but also exceeding it. It’s an exciting opportunity for us as marketers to use human ingenuity in combination with efficient technology to create engaging marketing campaigns, promote our products/services, and strengthen our brand. In my view, this marks the beginning of a new period in marketing, where excellence is expected as good becomes great, and mediocrity fades into the background.
Historical examples show how technological disruptions that initially seemed to threaten jobs eventually led to improved outcomes and increased productivity. Consider the evolution of market research, for instance. A decade ago, it was very time-consuming to create a custom research baseline report with no AI-based solutions and web scraping tools to assist. With generative AI now, we can produce basic research reports in hours instead of months, freeing up resources to focus on analysis and strategic planning.
Similarly, the rise of social media and WhatsApp changed the marketing
landscape a decade ago, leading some to predict the death of traditional marketing. Today, traditional marketing is still here, now more sophisticated and working in harmony with digital strategies to deliver enhanced omnichannel customer experiences. We saw a similar transformation when Adobe Photoshop was introduced years ago. It empowered designers to transform their ideas into stunning visuals, opening up a world of possibilities that did not exist earlier and demand for designers actually increased considering the endless possibilities. Today, with the addition of generative AI fill beta, Adobe Photoshop provides even more possibilities, enabling marketers to iterate, experiment, and produce innovative campaigns that resonate with their audience like never before and do that in 50% less time.
In summary, Generative AI is not the end of marketing but rather the beginning of a new chapter where we leverage the best of human creativity and AI capabilities. As marketers, it’s essential that we adapt to these changes and learn to work with them. Let generative AI be a tool that sparks our creativity, enables personalized marketing, and simplifies campaign management. Let’s begin by identifying and delegating lowvalue, repetitive tasks to AI tools, and focusing on developing our creative and storytelling skills for ourselves and our team/s. Let’s harness the power of generative AI to create more effective marketing campaigns, build stronger relationships with our audience, and achieve outstanding business results. The new Gen AI era has more opportunities for innovation and success than ever before. Let’s embrace it with heart and mind!
Original Source: https://www.tatatechnologies.com/media-center/does-generative-ai-herald-the-end-of-an-era-or-the-start-of-a-new-chapter-in-marketing-et-brand-equity/
About the Author
Santosh Singh, EVP & Global Head — Marketing & Business Excellence, Tata Technologies
