Guest Blog – AI in Marketing #3: Express yourself! How to use the power of personality to shine against generative AI
Admit it. You read “Express Yourself” and started signing Madonna, didn’t you?
I certainly did.
I dread to think how many of you have no idea what I’m talking about (1989 was a long time ago).
There may even be some of you – actual grown-ups – saying “Mad-who??”, which is truly terrifying.
One thing I doubt any of you are thinking is “here’s another AI-authored blog”. And that’s exactly the point. It doesn’t take much in the way of sparks of creativity, or levity, to show personality.
I’ll come back to that in a sec. First, a quick reset.
This is the third in a series of blogs exploring how AI is transforming marketing. They’re standalone, so you don’t need to have read the other two before reading this one, but I’d be charmed if you did.
In each article, we pick an AI capability, look at the pros and cons, and crucially think about how it frees up marketers to undertake more strategic tasks.
We fundamentally believe that AI is here to help marketers, not to replace them. We all want to do better and more fulfilling jobs, and AI helps.
What’s the capability?
This one is the mothership of AI. We’re putting the G in GPT.
For those who don’t know, GPT stands for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer”. Catchy, right? It really rolls off the tongue…
“Generative” is as it sounds, namely AI generates articles, summaries, images, you name it.
“Pre-trained” refers to the need to feed it data, so it munches through website, books, films, music, learning as it goes. Think Johnny 5 in Short Circuit, looking for input.
That’s another 80s reference. I need to stop the 80s references.
“Transformer” is because it’s able to turn into a truck and disguise its robot self to blend seamlessly into society.
Immediate fail on stopping the 80s references. Last one, I promise. I really liked my Optimus Prime toy.
Actually, “transformer” is how it learns and develops its neural networks. And that should give off Skynet vibes for those who grew up watching The Terminator.
(I know.)
As for what it does, anybody reading this has seen or read some AI-generated materials. Some of the images are questionable – people with 2 left hands with 7 fingers on each – but a lot of the written work is very good. Particularly when you prompt it on a broad or complex topic.
Us marketers know very well that we create content for different reasons. We produce lots of blogs for SEO purposes, writing for Google rather than writing for prospects. AI is great at that.
Frankly, AI is great at helping us with lots of things. All the computer vision stuff – show it an image and it will tell you what it is or where it is – is tremendous. I’m a particular fan of the ability to create, say, a 200 word abstract of a 1,500 word article.
For some of our content, we live by the rule that “good enough is good enough”. AI is our friend here, no doubt about it.
But sometimes, we have to be great.
What’s the opportunity?
Thought leadership pieces are a great example. I’d never let AI write one for me, though I’d rely on it to cut down my research time a lot. Ditto white papers, eBooks, and so on.
In long-form writing, you need to be a good hang. The audience must enjoy spending time with you, if they’re going to dedicate 10+ minutes to being in your virtual company.
Sometimes, with articles like this, the whole point is to get the individual’s personality across, along with the core message.
Other times it’s the company itself who is the narrator. It’s the brand that’s talking.
How good a sense do you have of your brand archetypes and personality? How expressive is your tone of voice? The human touch is still needed here.
I have, very deliberately, tried to exercise the power of personality in this guest blog. Almost to the point of caricature, to prove a different point.
Maybe this blog gives you a sense of who I am. You might think I sound like I’ve been around for a whole, maybe know what I’m talking about, that I’m a bit irreverent, I like having fun at work, and I grew up in the 80s.
You might even think you’d like to sign up for our webinar to hear more from me on these topics and more. I’d be immensely flattered if you did.
Doing so would make my point for me in a far more eloquent way than my prose could ever accomplish. The power of personality led you to engage with the CTA below to come to the event, and maybe that can be the start of a great professional relationship.
There are many other ways to get your personality across. Video is surging in an AI world, but can you showcase your brand properly? Add beautifully crafted designs and visuals into the mix?
Webinars remain popular and face-to-face events are picking up steam in the post-lockdown new normal. What better way to show personality than to breathe the same air as your target audience? Can you give them things to take away so they remember you?
Marketers aren’t just passionate about brand execution because we like being the brand police (newsflash: we don’t). It’s because it matters. Your brand is a living thing. It resonates with people or it turns them off. It builds loyalty or it repels.
Ask yourself one question: if your brand or website or social media persona turned into an actual person, would you want to go down the pub with it?
Most companies don’t like the answer they give to that question. We’ll be chatting more about that and more soon.
If you’d like to join in, and help us to turn content into conversations, we’d love to welcome you to our webinar on 5th November where you can chat to our panel and your peers.