As the debate about AI’s impact on marketing, advertising and creativity continues to divide opinion, Steve Connelly says it should be embraced as an important asset but it will never replace emotion when it comes to strategy.
The real thing.
It was Coca Cola’s mantra for decades. Now Coke uses AI to create ads with fake people, fake settings and zero concept or creativity.
Some people love the shiny and vapid. Some are aghast. The real thing no longer is.
Think different.
The two words that exploded Apple to mega brand status. Now Apple promotes AI that makes it possible for you to not think at all.
Some people laugh at how Apple AI turns meatheads in person into intellectual giants on paper. Some are mortified.
Apple’s new mantra should be “Here’s to the lazy ones.” Just sayin.
I do sense a brewing anti-AI sentiment out there. Fear that a Terminator future is around the corner and humans will be obsolete. Reduced to house-plant status.
The very human creativity that birthed AI is now on the endangered list, being pushed to extinction by AI.
Those of us in the creative business are somewhere between nervous and downright pissed off. I totally get that. But I am not in the camp to toss the baby out. AI is an awesome tool, advantage and client-benefitting resource if we focus on the totality of what it can do. Many of us in the business already see that. But generally speaking they are not creatives.
Here’s the thing, AI can be used to amplify human creativity, not replace it.
AI can help us spot patterns in large datasets and organise information, fast. AI allows us to target more effectively. Hell, we’ve been using platform algorithms for years. AI can help to improve strategy, identify motivations, and react to customer mindset in real-time. Information creatives can use.
Yet there is increasing focus on how AI is putting humans out of business. Marketers are getting called out – and rightly so. Ads have been pulled, brands have been put on the defensive, debates are percolating on how far AI should go. A backlash is coming.
What’s getting lost is that AI also requires the innate talent of humans to override, to push back, to translate, to integrate illogic and emotion. The real power is the combination of AI + human intuition and experience.
Too much reliance on AI means we not only lose valuable learnings to a ‘black box,’ but we lose the emotional connections that are critical to move people from prospects into loyal customers for brands.
I want to be clear: AI is a powerful tool. I think it can make lives better. I know it can make marketing better.
For Expedia Cruises, we used AI to analyze consumer comments across social media, Google and traveler forums like Reddit, revealing emotional contrasts between cruise and resort travelers. Those insights were used to craft messaging that drove $48 million in sales in just a few days, primarily from first-time buyers in a 2023 campaign.
AI and human thought teamed up to do that.
While some of you see production euros and talent payments fly out the window, have some faith that (for the moment anyways) once the novelty of AI-generated fades a bit, human creativity will be what clients need to make their brands noticed. AI-generated ads are shiny and pretty, but vapid. I can still understand and appeal to human illogic and emotion better than AI. At least for now.
So, while the world rises up against brands who propose using AI to write fan letters to our Olympic heroes, and brands that suggest talking to Gemini is better than human connectivity, remember AI is an asset, not a replacement. AI is logical. But strategy and creative needs emotion to move people.
