Brand Champions in the Age of AI
by Roberto Avila
We are at the sunrise of an AI revolution in marketing! Thousands of Martech tools are now available, promising to assist or replace your current tools and processes. The bots are here to take over your mundane daily tasks so that you can finally enjoy that long-overdue island vacation. And upon your return, maybe your job will be relegated too. But just look at all these shiny AI tools, and this list is growing daily, or hourly.
Brand Champions in the Age of AI
by Roberto Avila
We are at the sunrise of an AI revolution in marketing! Thousands of Martech tools are now available, promising to assist or replace your current tools and processes. The bots are here to take over your mundane daily tasks so that you can finally enjoy that long-overdue island vacation. And upon your return, maybe your job will be relegated too. But just look at all these shiny AI tools, and this list is growing daily, or hourly.
Sequoia Generative AI Application Landscape V2
Why Being a Brand Champion is More Important than Ever in the Age of AI
Listen up, my fellow brand champions! In the age of AI, our role is more important than ever. It does not matter if you are a Brand Manager, Marketing Director, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Brand Strategist, Product Manager, Creative Director, Advertising Manager, Digital Marketing Manager, Public Relations Manager, Communications Manager, or even the CEO, AI has given businesses the power to understand their customer’s behavior and preferences like never before. But you are still the keeper of the brand’s guidelines. It’s up to us to ensure that bots don’t take over our brand! This is your baby, after all. Use the tools but use your head too, to make sure you stay on brand.
Understanding AI and Its Impact on Branding
AI can be an amazing tool and partner as you navigate your marketing funnel. It can help you gather lots of data to understand your market, and your customers and even brainstorm on creative marketing campaigns. But be aware that, as the bots state, not all info is correct or verified. Stay critical of all its output, and fact-check its answers to avoid any recalls or even worse, a PR disaster later. For better brand execution, engage directly with your brand’s customers, through your website, surveys, email, social media, chat, or in-person. Focus on relieving their pain points and presenting solutions that bring value to their lives.
Sequoia Generative AI Application Landscape V2
Why Being a Brand Champion is More Important than Ever in the Age of AI
Listen up, my fellow brand champions! In the age of AI, our role is more important than ever. It does not matter if you are a Brand Manager, Marketing Director, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Brand Strategist, Product Manager, Creative Director, Advertising Manager, Digital Marketing Manager, Public Relations Manager, Communications Manager, or even the CEO, AI has given businesses the power to understand their customer’s behavior and preferences like never before. But you are still the keeper of the brand’s guidelines. It’s up to us to ensure that bots don’t take over our brand! This is your baby, after all. Use the tools but use your head too, to make sure you stay on brand.
Understanding AI and Its Impact on Branding
AI can be an amazing tool and partner as you navigate your marketing funnel. It can help you gather lots of data to understand your market, and your customers and even brainstorm on creative marketing campaigns. But be aware that, as the bots state, not all info is correct or verified. Stay critical of all its output, and fact-check its answers to avoid any recalls or even worse, a PR disaster later. For better brand execution, engage directly with your brand’s customers, through your website, surveys, email, social media, chat, or in-person. Focus on relieving their pain points and presenting solutions that bring value to their lives.
The Role of Data in Building a Strong Brand in the Age of AI
All these AI tools, and especially Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, BERT, Claude, LaMBDA, LlaMA, and others, are now available for your branding use. These models are trained on billions of parameters of data across all subjects and tasks, but it is still up to you to make sure that the data received is factual, and actionable for your desired outcome. At this point, ethics are still questionable as they pertain to the models’ output, and legal suits are appearing more in more, while regulations are still lacking and may take years to take effect. Proceed with caution, as lawyers are standing by.
Creating Authentic and Personalized Brand Experiences with AI
AI can still assist us in brainstorming ways to engage with your customers in your particular industry. It can be intimidating to start designing marketing campaigns from scratch, especially million-dollar ones, that span months or years. AI tools can be used as a catalyst to get your creative juices flowing, but don’t take its output at face value. Always double-check it against your creative brief. You do have a brief, don’t you?
AI image generated by the author via Midjourney
The Role of Data in Building a Strong Brand in the Age of AI
All these AI tools, and especially Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, BERT, Claude, LaMBDA, LlaMA, and others, are now available for your branding use. These models are trained on billions of parameters of data across all subjects and tasks, but it is still up to you to make sure that the data received is factual, and actionable for your desired outcome. At this point, ethics are still questionable as they pertain to the models’ output, and legal suits are appearing more in more, while regulations are still lacking and may take years to take effect. Proceed with caution, as lawyers are standing by.
Creating Authentic and Personalized Brand Experiences with AI
AI can still assist us in brainstorming ways to engage with your customers in your particular industry. It can be intimidating to start designing marketing campaigns from scratch, especially million-dollar ones, that span months or years. AI tools can be used as a catalyst to get your creative juices flowing, but don’t take its output at face value. Always double-check it against your creative brief. You do have a brief, don’t you?
AI image generated by the author via Midjourney
The Ethical Implications of AI in Branding
Ethical considerations, trademark and copyright infringements, biases, discrimination, privacy concerns, data protection, security risks, and lack of transparency are some of the major issues in using AI in business today. Here your, in-house or outsourced, legal department can be your best advisor and friend. Consult with them, from the beginning, alerting them how you plan to use these AI tools in your branding work and what your exposure would be. Then, along with your C-suite, make a decision on how much risk adversary you are willing to risk as you plan and execute your marketing programs. And remember that lawyers can be your best friends too!
AI image generated by the author via Midjourney
The Ethical Implications of AI in Branding
Ethical considerations, trademark and copyright infringements, biases, discrimination, privacy concerns, data protection, security risks, and lack of transparency are some of the major issues in using AI in business today. Here your, in-house or outsourced, legal department can be your best advisor and friend. Consult with them, from the beginning, alerting them how you plan to use these AI tools in your branding work and what your exposure would be. Then, along with your C-suite, make a decision on how much risk adversary you are willing to risk as you plan and execute your marketing programs. And remember that lawyers can be your best friends too!
AI image generated by the author via Midjourney
Future of Branding in the Age of AI: Challenges and Opportunities
The future is bright, with AI at your side, helping you further your brand champion’s mission. While some roles will be eliminated in the near future, savvy marketers with AI knowledge will always be in demand. This means that a learning mindset will be your best bet, for you and fellow marketers, as we embrace this rapidly changing marketing landscape fairly, transparently, and ethically.
Some brand champions will fight these fundamental changes, and others will embrace them as part of the ever-changing marketing landscape. You need to decide if you are more like a chameleon that adapts to its landscape or a dinosaur that refuses to change. That change is already here, as the AI sunrise has begun and is manifesting itself across all industries. Your role as a Brand Champion remains the same–learn, embrace, and execute–but now you have additional tools in your toolkit. Stay true. Stay critical. Stay on brand and have fun!
Written by Roberto Avila
Generated by the author via kittl.com