Rise Of AI Marketing Tools A Potential Honey Trap For Kiwi SMEs

An award-winning New Zealand marketing agency is warning that the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) tools like copy.ai and the new ChatGPT, while useful, could quickly turn into money or time traps for unsuspecting business owners looking for a silver bullet.

This year’s winner of the Westpac Auckland Business Awards 2022 (South & East) Excellence in Marketing, CEO and founder of the Auckland marketing agency Marketing Minds, Anne Casey, said people are always looking for a shortcut to business and marketing success, but that could be a costly and time-consuming mistake.

A few weeks ago, OpenAI released its improved ChatGPT chatbot that communicates in plain English with users. Although the early stage of the system has been around for some time, this newer model can now create software, generate high-quality images, and even write a toast to the bride.

While previous generations of ChatGPT could do these tasks technically, the outputs did not rival the skills of a human.The new model now generates text that is often so readable and insightful that some in the marketing world are wondering if there’s much hope left for human creativity.

However, Casey said the best way to think of ChatGPT—and other systems such as copy.ai, Tiny Wow, Quilbot or Otta—is as a tool to augment human intelligence when it comes to marketing and advertising not as a replacement for humans.

“The world of marketing is certainly becoming more complex, but the benefit of AI tools allows people to do so more with their time. It removes the repetitiveness of marketing which is a good thing for SMEs. It means they can cover more platforms with their message and allocate their resources more efficiently,” Casey said.

As any writer knows, the hardest part of writing is getting past the blank page. ChatGPT and other systems can offer writing prompts and even supply the skeleton of a blog or essay that then only requires human writers to tweak, adjust or restructure.

“These AI systems also generate amazing art as well. All the system needs are a few photos uploaded and it can create unique artwork. Fashion magazine Vogue recently completed its whole digital drawing portfolio by typing in keywords.

“Similar to the writing prompts, the AI can stitch images together so creative teams have a starting point to develop their own ideas. It’s the marketing equivalent of giving an excavator to a ditch digger instead of a spade,” Casey said.

Although these tools can “make a marketer out of anybody,” Casey said, they also put the emphasis on advertising strategy and highlight the importance of getting the task done correctly.

“AI puts the focus where it should be—back on strategy and planning. No matter how good the machine is, there is always a lot of strategy to do and if you don’t understand how to execute an idea, then the best AI in the world will be largely useless.

“AI systems can write excellent copy, but they don’t think like a person because machines have zero empathy. While those who sprint to use such systems will certainly get an advantage, that advantage isn’t absolute. Humans are still important,” Casey said.

Casey offered a few tips for small and medium companies that may be thinking about deploying AI creative systems to help with workflow.

1. Strategy first

Having thousands of pages of excellent copy or hundreds of amazing photos, both generated by AI systems, without a clear strategy for that content is a bit like having $1 million but nothing to spend it on, Casey said.

“It’s important to get your strategy right. Find the points of difference your company offers. Figure out a roadmap to guide the business in achieving its overall goals. Without making a strategy for messaging and knowing into which channels to place those messages, it will be tough to reach customers,” Casey said.

2. Pick what works

With so many options for AI tools available, it’s easy to feel like a kid in the candy store, grabbing all the shiny objects in the belief that they might be useful one day. But as with any business decision, resources are not infinite, Casey said.

“It is so tempting to subscribe to new tools and run down the rabbit hole of buying great new gear. Yet keep in mind that each new piece of kit will come with a learning period as well. That’s all time spent away from generating revenue. So, be conservative in choosing only the tools that will be directly relevant to the company’s success,” Casey said.

3. Humans in the loop

Wages often constitute about 70% of a company’s revenue, so it can be tempting to find technologies that lower headcount and save money. Yet Casey suggested that line of reasoning would be a mistake when it comes to creative parts of doing business like marketing.

“Make sure these tools don’t replace the human factor. No machine can perform better than the human heart and instincts. On top of that, only humans can judge good from bad or whether a piece of writing or picture is on the mark or not,” Casey said.

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