Encyclopedias, Tsunamis, and Hockey Sticks: A CMO's Guide to AI Success
November 7, 2023
Introduction: The AI Imperative for CMO’s ~ AI's Growing Influence on Marketing
Artificial intelligence is making waves in nearly every sector of business, but its influence is especially felt in marketing. The capabilities of AI-powered tools are evolving at a rapid pace, offering game-changing solutions for data analysis, customer engagement, and content creation.
As a CMO, understanding the basics of AI is no longer optional—it's a necessity. It’s hard to believe it has not even been a year since OpenAI shook the world with the launch of ChatGPT. Since then, the ascent of AI / GenAI technologies and tools has taken the Marketing world by storm to the point where the failure to understand AI and take action presents the real risk of a Marketing Organization becoming quickly irrelevant.
In recognizing the need to act, the question on the minds of CMO’s everywhere is: How do I get my organization up to speed with AI and how do we begin to take action?
When it comes to moving forward, often the best course of action is to take lessons learned from the past and apply them in developing strategies for the future. As they say, those who fail to learn the lessons from history are doomed to repeat their mistakes.
Lesson #1: Don’t underestimate the speed at which AI is Evolving.
If you are not regularly updating yourself with the latest advancements in AI, you're bound to fall behind. It's not just about the technical aspects, either. The rapid evolution of these tools impacts how we approach marketing as a whole. AI, whilst powerful and impressive, is at the end of the day an Emerging Technology (EmTech) and follows the rules of all EmTech with regards to adoption: A period of awareness and understanding, followed by strategic testing, then adaptation and optimization, and finally NextGen innovation.
The critical difference between AI and previous EmTech is the breathtaking rate of AI’s evolutionary cycle. If we consider past Marketing EmTech adaptation cycle times via their intensity (akin to storm measurement), it may look like this.
Broadcast Television: Began taking hold in the 1940’s and remained dominant until the 1980’s >> 40+ year adaptation period.
Storm Rating: Strong Thunderstorm
Cable Television / Personal Computers / Fragmented Media: Increasingly relevant in the early 1980’s until the mid-1990’s >> 10+ year adaptation period.
Storm Rating: Tropical Storm
Web 1.0 / Internet: Late 1990’s - early 2000’s >> 5 year adaptation period.
Storm Rating: Cat 5 Hurricane
Digital Marketing / Mobile Computing / Social Media / Metaverse: Increasingly shorter adaptation cycles.
Storm Rating: Cat 3 Hurricane
AI / Gen AI: The possibility of just a year or even just a matter of months to adapt and establish Leadership or face irrelevancy is a very real possibility. >> ??? 1 year adaptation period.
Storm Rating: Tsunami
Take Away: With past EMTech cycles, it was possible to hunker down during the initial storm to research, understand, test, adapt, and innovate. AI is different - a Tsunami as opposed to a rain cloud. Our advice: Instead of installing plywood to prevent damage and ride out the storm, fully commit to AI, grab a surfboard, and ride the AI Tsunami to success.
Lesson #2: Understand the potential of AI and the opportunities it presents your Business & Marketing Organization in order to seize a Leadership Position and Success.
To leverage AI effectively, one needs a deep understanding of not only the capabilities of AI technology and tools today ~ but importantly where AI is evolving to and the opportunities it represents going forward.
First: Some cautionary tales (followed by a hopeful story!). During one of the more transformative EmTech cycles (Web 1.0 / Internet), there were scores of Market Leading companies who failed to grasp the potential of the opportunities Web 1.0 presented. And just as Gutenberg’s Press sent Town Criers packing and Video killed the Radio Star, so to did Web 1.0 displace once great Brands:
In the early 1990’s, Blockbuster enjoyed a vast market share leadership in the Home Video & Entertainment business. In a time when it took ½ an hour to download a simple photo, the ability to stream a video seemed ludicrous (remember dial-up modems? Good Times!) Hi-Speed internet and its impact on Blockbuster serves as a poignant reminder that the future often arrives faster than we anticipate, and the key to enduring success may lie in continuously exploring and embracing potential innovations.
In the 1990’s, Encyclopedia Britannica was a household name and considered the academic authority for schoolchildren everywhere. EB encyclopedias were considered a status symbol and emblematic of parents who valued their children’s education. Despite efforts to transition to digital formats, EB was unsuccessful in transforming the value of their Brand’s trustworthiness as a source for impeccably vetted information in the coming digital world of unverified misinformation. Who knows, ‘EB It’ might have become a catchphrase for searching for information today instead of ‘Google It.’
Starbuck’s has been a success on many levels since they launched in the 1970’s. They could have easily bypassed the Internet EMTech revolution as they sell a decidedly non-technical product. But CEO Howard Shultz decided to embrace digital technology and rode the Web Wave to unprecedented heights. Today, Starbuck’s has one of the best digital ordering and loyalty programs of any company and continues to set the standard for digital marketing excellence.
Take Away: Unlike past EMTech cycles, the rapid evolution of AI forces us as Marketers to think about an ‘Everywhere, Everything, All-At-Once’ strategy. With an EEAAO Strategy, an Organization simultaneously Trains & Upskills their Teams, Develops Deployment Strategies closely linked to Business Goals, and focuses on Innovation for the NextGen AI Economy to come.
Lesson #3: Keep an eye on the AI horizon then determine where the NextGen Economy opportunities will be.
The beauty of AI is in its versatility and its rapid evolution. Marketing executives now have access to a suite of tools that cater to various needs—whether it's data analytics for understanding customer behavior, chatbots for enhancing customer service, or machine learning algorithms that can predict future trends.
Importantly, as Marketers better understand how to apply the new AI tools and technologies, it will give rise to innovating new ways to market products and services, forge deeper connections and relationships between Brands and Customers, and make the quantum leap to Iterative NextGen Marketing.
As an example of the rapid evolution of AI:
Just a few months back, Runway.ml could turn a still picture into a four-second video. Now, it's up to 18 seconds. This pace of improvement is not an outlier but a representation of the field at large.
Google's focus on AI in their new phone models exemplifies how companies are increasingly integrating AI into their products, pushing the envelope every few months.
OpenAI’s GPTs Marketplace, which OpenAI debuted November 6th is already causing shock waves throughout the economy. Just as YouTube heralded an era of the democratization of Video Education and Entertainment, GPTs Marketplace is set to democratize Software and Video Game production. If you can dream it, you can do it!
Take Away: It’s important to get started with AI today. Equally important, though, is to keep an eye on the evolution of AI and the opportunities it presents. Marketing and Business leadership need to have a vision to skate not to where the AI puck is today, but to where the AI puck will be in the future.
Conclusion: The Future of AI in Marketing
As we look toward the future, it's clear that AI will continue to be a significant player in the marketing sphere. The challenge for CMOs is to marry their deep experience in marketing with a strong understanding—or even an obsession—with the disruptive capabilities of AI. In this rapidly evolving landscape, agility, continuous learning, and a willingness to adapt are not just advantageous—they're essential. Most of all, though - do not delay. The AI future started yesterday.
Please reach out if you are interested in learning more how we can help you by Transforming Uncertainty to UnbelievAIble™.
