Humans Define “Modern Marketing” While AI Smiles & Dials.
The year is 2025. It is a quarter century past when planet earth was supposed to end, and AI has officially penetrated its way into daily human work.
With AI, the speed and ultimately the creative possibilities of “modern marketing” have reached an entirely new dimension.
It seems as if everything we thought was modern is quickly slipping into some “pre-generative” era.
Not long ago, if I had an idea for a logo, I’d have to spend a couple hours in illustrator and photoshop finessing just to compare side by side. Now, I can have AI whip up rough versions of these ideas in minutes. AI is also going to be opening doors beyond just the speed of production, but the way we receive brands and marketing.
Creatives, we’re playing a new game now. So, maybe now is a good time to reflect on the foundations.
The marketing helps the selling. And the brand steers the marketing.
In 2025, it’s not about having a great product. Businesses are competing for mental attention from the customer to simply be noticed.
Simultaneously, the customer has learned some tricks of the salespeople, and the fact that the customer has learned the “tricks” is why marketing, like everything, evolves. Just look at an old Coca Cola ad and compare to their website now. The company that was known for sponsoring different major events, has done some reflecting on what people want (to be seen), and are now humbly “Proud Sponsors of YOU.”
As AI enters the area, we welcome with open arms the functionality, while fearing the energy consumption. We see AI like having 10 assistants, who can brainstorm ideas, and instantaneously show me “words related to space exploration that can be used to parallel a life science consulting business’s approach to discovering unchartered areas of a business to improve performance.” From there, we can immediately revise that list to be less “space exploration per-se” and more about discovery and execution. It’s out of this world - ba dum tss.
Terrific, so us workaholic’s have a 24/7 buddy who also loves to work and be productive on exactly what we want to work on. But the customers learn quick. And they can still pick out those nuances that make something human vs AI (sorry chatGPT).
So, while “modern” solutions (from chatGPT to Salesforce’s Einstein) are surfacing, and different tools, widgets, apps, and websites will continue to emerge, the center of what drives sales has for a long time been emotion. People buy on emotion and justify with logic, so until AI truly grasps emotion, it appears humans still sit in the drivers seat, while AI steps in as a flashy new co-pilot with the cool shoes.
While AI has so much to offer, it by nature will work best when working in tandem with a human who knows how to work with the machine. The above query about ‘words related to space exploration’ was a real input used to brainstorm and get ideas flowing, and the following input led to the language that ultimate gave the consulting firm it’s mission statement- one which has to do with the idea of exploration, like how we think of NASA.
We welcome AI as a tool to facilitate ideas and offer a deeper connection, ironically, to the humans we are trying to connect with through branding.
