Fast Company recently shared an article on ‘4 ways generative AI improves creativity in marketing’. Written by marketing expert Marie Hattar, the article details how AI tools can aid creativity.
Refusing to embrace AI in marketing is like favoring an abacus over a calculator.
Hattar acknowledges that AI has pros and cons, but it is undeniably changing the way creatives work. The entire industry feels this shift, and will continue to feel it as AI becomes more prevalent.
Here are Hattar’s four ways that generative AI can help to improve creativity:
1. Speed up the research phase
Rather than spending hours on research, marketers can use ChatGPT to quickly get a high-level overview of any topic. This gives marketers the basic context they need to move on to the next steps of campaign planning.
Hattar also suggests using ChatGPT to summarise books and papers, if you lack the time to read them in full—cautioning, however, that the free version of ChatGPT has only been trained to acknowledge world events up to September 2021.
We would suggest a second caution when using ChatGPT for important research. The popular AI tool has been known to generate unreliable information and even fake references. Although it can be useful when providing an overview of topics, when you need to be precise, it’s best not to take research shortcuts.
Hattar goes on to provide an example of how ChatGPT can be used for research:
For example, if you’re launching a campaign to target electric vehicle manufacturers, you can ask ChatGPT a simple prompt such as, “Please provide an overview of the electric vehicle market.” In seconds, ChatGPT will generate a brief market analysis, including growth in recent years, types of electric vehicles, key challenges, and major players.
While it may be true that ChatGPT can generate these things, the accuracy of such facts are best checked over by a human—at least for now. At Novagram, research is incredibly important to us, and we know the value of getting things exactly right. We do use AI to enhance our human team, but always make sure to double-check the details.
2. Kickstart brainstorming sessions
Generative AI helps marketers get over the hurdle of a blank page by offering ideas and sparking inspiration. Especially for remote employees, it can serve as a kickstart to get creative juices flowing and overcome writer’s block. Marketers can brainstorm content ideas for blogs, social media posts, email subject lines, and more.
Hattar also notes that you can feed ChatGPT a selection of your own ideas and ask the chatbot to expand on your initial thoughts.
We agree that AI can be useful in warming up your own creative muscles (some have even wondered if AI might be more creative than humans). We have used ChatGPT to help us generate jumping off points for various creative tasks, and although the end product is usually entirely distinct from any AI-generated output, we still recognise the usefulness of this tool in kick-starting the creative process.
3. Scale omnichannel marketing campaigns
Generative AI can also help marketers create interactive content to share across digital channels. For example, a marketing team can take the script for an explainer video and use AI to draft copy for other specific formats, such as a LinkedIn post, Facebook ad, email newsletter, or variations for A/B testing. You can also leverage ChatGPT to personalize content for target customers or segments. This enables marketers to quickly scale a single piece of content into an omnichannel campaign.
We have found that AI can be handy when generating lots of similar versions of the same text: whether this is to explore tone of voice, personalise content, or refresh a stale draft. Once again, this is where a human is required: text that is taken directly from a generative AI is almost never as satisfactory as the subsequent re-draft by a human. This isn’t because AI is incapable of producing satisfactory work, but rather because we humans often struggle to articulate our prompts correctly. Regardless, the best work is produced when a human carefully utilises AI.
4. Spot emerging trends
Generative AI can assist marketers in identifying emerging trends. By synthesizing massive amounts of data from social media conversations, online forums, news articles, and blogs, AI tools can help determine the most relevant issues for your customers. Then marketers can develop messaging to reflect those trends and demonstrate how their product will help solve today’s challenges.
As mentioned above, this is somewhat hindered by the cut off point of some AI tools (as in the case of ChatGPT’s free version). However, it is possible to use other AIs (such as Bard, Google’s chat-based AI) for this purpose. We recommend also keeping your own finger on the pulse of your industry: AI cannot replicate the serendipity of stumbling across a relevant corner of social media, or the expert knowledge of humans with years of trend-spotting experience.
Hattar closes out the article by pointing out that the best results are produced when AI is blended with a human touch—and we couldn’t agree more. We are enthusiastic about any and all tools that can elevate our creative offering and help us to produce the best results for our clients. If AI can help with this, then we are all for it.
To learn about what we could do for your business, contact Novagram today.
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