An underrated skill in advertising is understanding human nature. Or more precisley, understanding and predicting HOW people make choices to which will positively impact the conversion and ROI on any advertising campaign.
Blog
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Deep editing
With so many tools now allowing you to create social posts, flyers or any graphic, I’ve noticed a trend. You get your comms done quickly and if you’re lucky you can be one of th first to use a cool template, but the ability to tweak and craft things is not available. things like tweaking the spake between certain characters that are known to have kerning issues, is not available as well as sublet tweaking of images.
That’s okay, it will be the one thing that differentiates a template from a bespoke creation. Apps like Adobe will be fighting for their space as industry leaders and I’ve noticed how much freedom their apps give, but some people are unaware of those subtleties, they just know that the bespoke design ‘feels’ better and they don’t know why.
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Bad at AI
This year I’ve told myself that I’m going to be bad at stuff I want to do, because everyone starts off with cringe and awfully bad stuff when it’s something they’ve never done before – a beginner has to start somewhere right?
I was inwardly criticising the usual flood of AI slop in my timeline when I realised how most people are really bad at it right now (they don’t know because it’s the first time that they can so effortlessly create visuals) but where will they be in a year?
Bad AI is okay as a starting point, because it will get better, the trick is to be better at it now in order to be the best later.
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Yes, of course the sales team want that!
AI gives you more control, no more wait times, just input a prompt and viola! Everything that previously took a team to handle is now available.
- Your social media post about the event – done!
- Your flight and accommodation for the event – done!
- Your visa – done!
- Car hire/transport – done!
- Special dietary needs for any catering – done!
- Updating the company brochure for the event – done!
- Updating your digital business card and adding the new promo – done!
- Creating digital billboards and ads for the event – done!
But wait a mo… you’re in sales, you’re not a one-man startup. You want to SELL, that’s what gets you excited about your work, the stuff above is really NOT your job!
So instead of your sales team being out there getting sales, they’re doing a bunch of other stuff and trusting that AI is doing it right first time.
Yesterday I spent about 30 mins updating proposals for sales, yes, they have the template and they can update it themselves, but they know that I can do a much better job.
We all have enough tools we use to make our workday efficient, but no one really wants ANOTHER tool for job that isn’t theirs.
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Resetting the baseline
The current AI slop flooding our timeline is setting a new baseline.
The previous baseline was people with no access to creative sources posting text only or badly done graphics. Now, anyone can add a prompt and generate an image, but… they ALL look the same and that is the new baseline – media drowning in a sea of sameness.
I find myself rapidly scrolling past most AI driven ads/media with a subtle ‘ew’ resonating in my being, but stopping at the content that appears thoughtful and human made.
Creative work is not dead, the assumption that it can be replaced with an algorithm will eventually show that you do need creativity.
There’s still lots of space for creativity, it’s just shifting and doing bit of shape changing, the creativity of the future is grounded in authenticity and craftsmanship.
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Let’s fully trust the algorithm shall we?
How many times has Facebooks ‘people you may know’ actually been correct?
Out of the 70 plus people it feeds you daily, how many of those do you really know? Some are old acquaintances that you don’t want to reconnect with, some are there because someone you knew has had their mobile number recycled so you clearly DO NOT know that person? How many of those people do you really want in your intimate circle?
This is why human judgment is crucial in the age of AI. It’s trained on past human experiences/knowledge, responding to the present in the absence of the subtleties that make us human.
I see some are abandoning creative input in the favour of data, idolising the cold hard facts. People try a bit too hard to quantity, commodify and replicate creativity through its polar opposite: numbers, patterns and data sets.
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The future of the new work
There are two basic routes some companies seem to be following when restructuring with AI.
- Using skilled subject experts to teach their AI models and then replacing them with less skilled (lower paid) staff to stay and use the AI and training them as they would need to increase their skillset
- Using less skilled/outsourced services to teach their AI models and employing multi-skilled more experienced staff to stay and use the AI
Neither of them are great ideas as you need quality input as well as quality AI ‘Operators’. The focus is on short term financial wins and the fact that they’ve been overpromised what AI can do.