Tony Chapman | Artificial Intelligence and the End Of Mass Marketing and Selling.
Today’s guest blog is courtesy of Media Personality, Entrepreneur, Marketing & Brand Strategist Tony Chapman. Tony doesn’t just inspire, he educates and motivates. He draws upon three decades helping organizations large and small, local and global, compete to create customized keynotes packed with relevant insights, ideas, and strategies that the audience can action in their marketplace. He has founded or cofounded two international renowned communications agencies and a research firm.
Can your brand and career survive?
If you are in the business of creating, marketing or selling brands you are about to be ‘ubered’.
Artificial Intelligence is going to hit your world like a sledgehammer and leave carnage in its wake. The roles of brand management, marketing and sales will change forever.
AI will render much of what we know about Brand Management, Mass Marketing and the Role of a Marketing and Sales obsolete. The 4P’s — Product, Placement, Promotion and Price that once anchored an annual marketing plan will lose most if not all relevance. Artificial Intelligence is driven by science, not art. It is powered by real time that continues to invest up to the point of no return, versus a fixed and arbitrary annual budget. Machines that are faster, smarter and cheaper will replace humans.
Share of wallet will be won or lost at the speed of life.
Share of wallet will be won or lost at the speed of life. AI will pump out predictive, continuous and increasingly personalized content to each individual.
Shopping for a midsize car? Every car manufacturer will know and be in the hunt for your business. Without having to ask, or rely on the ‘inquisitive talent’ of their salespeople at a dealership, their AI will be be armed with dozens, hundreds, and one day thousands of pieces of data on you. AI will know or accurately approximate your demographic, psychographic and behavioural information. How many kids you have, how you value and rank the importance of technology, safety, speed, and affordability. What type of music you listen to and whether it’s important to draw attention to the sound system. The average price of fuel and insurance in your area. What your credit rating is and what types of offers you respond to. They will know whether this car purchase is for family transportation, commuting to work or to support your career driving for Uber. AI will know whether you are a strategic, emotional or an economic type buyer.
The real power of AI isn’t what it knows but how fast it reacts to opportunity. The AI Algorithms of each car manufacturer will shuffle the deck and serve up personalized content based on what you value, where you are in your path to purchase, and what matters to you at that very moment of the day. As fast as you surf the web, or meander through a shopping centre, AI will continuously feed repurposed and repackage content and offers.
Now imagine that happening to you across all the products and services you are considering. Combine that with predictive modelling that will anticipate what you might want to buy in the future.
The current gap of content creation to content absorption will widen exponentially. Consumers who are already intoxicated from too many messages, promises and products will feel like they are drinking from a firehose that is chasing them wherever they work, live, shop and play.
My belief is that Artificial Intelligence will disrupt traditional Mass Marketing far faster than most realize. The reason is that it is based on math. You continue to invest in your campaign until you have no more returns.
I also believe that the real benefit of AI will be realized by the early adopters of the technology. They will be ones that first entice you with highly personalized and relevant content and different offers. As more organizations turn on this technology to uncover insights, create and distribute custom offers, the faster the playing field will be levelled and messages might once again start looking the same.
The role of Marketing and Sales will change dramatically. We can’t think or act as fast but we have a heart which will be needed in three key areas.1. Innovation
In this world of abundance, innovation must become your top priority. AI will identify meaningful customer and marketplace insights, but humans will be the ones that match them to the capabilities of their organization, and ladder them into new products, services and messaging.
2. Attention
Attention is the oxygen of marketing and sales and your only path to persuasion. In this world of abundance, one size fits all mass messaging will be irrelevant. AI will repurpose and repackage your content in nano seconds, and lead with highly personal benefits. However the ingredients that go into making personalized content will still need to be exceptional and worthy of my time and ongoing attention.
3. Provider to Enabler
AI can create the most personalized ads for me, but if I deem your product or service to be ‘me to’ or worse a commodity, then price becomes your only tiebreaker. You are in a race to zero without an airbag. To win in this marketplace you must shift the focus from being irrelevant to being relevant for each customer. From simply providing a product or service to clearly demonstrating how what you do enables my or my families life and my livelihood. Apple put a 1000 of my favorite songs in my pocket. Go Pro enables me to capture and broadcast my life. Sun Life’s Money for Life gives me a monthly pay check throughout retirement so that I don’t have to worry about outliving my money. Dyson Vacuum Cleaners lets me see the dirt, the fruit of my labour.
My Predictions
More marketing services, including AI, will be brought in house as speed, first mover advantage and data security will all be paramount to success.
We will see the ‘gamification’ of Marketing and Sales. On line, mobile and social game creators will be be among the most in demand marketing and sales support jobs as they create content that creates an itch, invites participating and socialization with the consumer.
The success stories in the marketplace will be ones where we stop providing products, services and content and instead enable my and my families life and livelihood, To move from Mass to My which is the theme of my new keynote.
As AI takes hold we can expect science to replace the art of marketing and sales, continuous investing to replace annual budgeting, and machines to manage tasks. However from this disruption will rise a new role for Marketing and Sales. One that is based on the human soul, and excels at innovation, attention getting and being meaningful.
Learn more on Tony and how his insights can help your organization’s marketing efforts by viewing his speaker profile or contacting us here.
