AI lessons from Aliens

Is there hope for our lowly meat brains as artificial intelligence takes over the marketing industry?

I've been talking with many marketers about ai. We've all seen the headlines about it coming for our jobs and livelihoods. Everyone from copywriters to media buyers is debating what the future holds for them as we welcome in our new algorithmic overlords.

As we all grapple with these existential issues, I'm reminded of a conversation I had with my pal Pete on the way home from a Bigfoot convention. After we exhausted our discussion of the giant, hairy hominid, Pete changed the subject.

Mark (left) at the Ohio Bigfoot Convention

"What's your theory on UFOs?" Pete asked. I told him that I really hadn't given it much thought, but I liked to believe they were out there.

Pete had a theory, and he told me that it's the only one that truly makes sense. I'll paraphrase it here. As humankind progresses over the millennia, our species will intermingle our genes, eventually resulting in us becoming a uniform beige species with fewer distinguishing features. As we're mating out less dominant genes, we'll also continue to advance technologically. Eventually, we'll figure out time travel, but it'll be expensive. Only our richest progenies will be able to afford trips to now and they'll want souvenirs. Why not bring back some DNA to inject exotic eye and hair colors from the distant past into your family tree as the ultimate display of wealth? Turns out, that's what the probing is really about!

So, what does Pete's alien theory have to do with artificial intelligence?

There are numerous companies competing in the ai marketing arms race. Meta's Mark Zuckerberg has been telling us his ai will soon do it all. "Over the long-term, advertisers will basically just be able to tell us a business objective and a budget and we're going to go do the rest for them."

Soon, you'll just need to give ai a picture of your product and your money, and they'll advertise it. Sounds great, right?

Before you blast that budget down a wormhole, consider the following.

1. Platforms like Facebook and Google will be gracious enough to tell you how the ads they created with their proprietary ai performed on their proprietary platforms and will likely report back that you need to spend more money for increased effectiveness on their proprietary system. 

2. They're offering this service to your competitors as well.

   
   

We're rapidly approaching an era in which EVERYONE is planning media, copywriting and producing videos with ai. Every brand will be roided out! Every campaign will be optimized to the teeth, delivering the best audiences at maximum efficiency until your competitor spends more. When all marketing becomes reliant on bots, will we be awash in a sea of sameness? How will you stand out to customers without simply increasing your spend?  

That's when Pete's time-traveling-UFO theory becomes apt. You'll need some humanity to inject some differentiation into your marketing stream. Since our minds' programming is less rigid than ai, we add a little chaos to the mix. Which helps the brands we build stand out and connect with people.

It's important to remember that ai was built by humans (GASP!) Which means it's bound to have errors and blind spots. It's not infallible.

Now, this isn't a rallying cry to rise up against the machines....yet. ai has proven to be a useful tool already but remember that it works for you not vice versa. Humans have been the marketing experts far longer than ai. We must remain vigilant and be leery of its suggestions. Punch holes in its solutions. Use that big, meaty brain!

At the Cannes festival, Tor Myhren, vice president of marketing communications at Apple, said, "The good news is ai is not going to kill advertising. The bad news is ai is not going to save advertising. We've got to save ourselves by believing in what's always made this industry special: human creativity."

There's still room for humans in marketing. For how long, time(travel) will tell.