The hottest topic on LinkedIn and on various marketing sites is the ChatGPT situation. I specifically use the word “situation” because this tool is being both lauded and vilified in equal amounts.
But I am not going to jump on that bandwagon. My focus today is the way that marketers use tools.
Far too often we (marketers) fall into the “latest and greatest” or “pure shiny object” trap. Remember Pokémon Go??? Remember the death of TV and radio?
The entire world is digital so being a digital marketing specialist is not so impressive anymore. While people need to know how to use a tool in a practical sense, there is far too much left incomplete on the input side of these tools.
Specifically, with ChatGPT, all of the marketing output I have seen is pretty generic. This is GIGO – garbage in, garbage out. If you read any blogs by the best ad creatives today one of the biggest laments is the creation of lousy briefs.
So, there are lousy briefs given to the new kid on the block. And if the new shiny kid is choosing from a sea of sameness in the digital realm, why are people expecting something new and brilliant to occur?
From those concerned with the quality of the output, the posts I have read indicate the output is just too generic to be effective marketing material. If every marketer put in the same brief, wouldn’t every ad or article come out the same?
And why would you want a generic marketing strategy? Which, btw, seems to be the output one gets from generic inputs.
Bill Bernbach often said that the focus of good advertising should be the study of “simple, timeless, human truths.” How can ChatGPT see what humans are actually doing when they interact with your product or service? Well, it can’t. Only humans can watch and study humans.
Granted, the study of human behaviour may enhance the brief for ChatGPT, but if you can see and hear and feel and sense the world around you why do you want to give to a machine learning tool?
We should be looking for more human interaction and understanding, not defaulting to generic ideas. Be intentional with people and your interactions with them.
Have you read the comments from Nick Cave about the use of ChatGPT to write songs in his style? Is response was “this song sucks.” Here is the link to the Guardian article https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jan/17/this-song-sucks-nick-cave-responds-to-chatgpt-song-written-in-style-of-nick-cave
I loved his comment where he called ChatGPT an exercise in “replication as travesty.”
Here’s the funny part – I had no idea who Nick Cave is! So, I checked out his bio and his work. I applaud his response and views.
The other areas of interest for me were the other uses of the tool. I have seen people talk about poetry, stories, students writing papers, and recipes, among other topics. Cool, but Google searches also turn up unique recipes that are also good and I get to see who posts the recipes. As for poetry and stories, the classics are the foundation and replication in a generic way will never be better than the original. As an instructor at university, I am really worried that students will use the tool to get the work done by AI rather than their own IQ. And yes, there are ways to structure assessments so ChatGPT usage can be uncovered or rendered useless…at this time.
The final straw for me is that this seems like marketers looking for an effortless way to do the demanding work. Look, I am all for efficiency, but not at the cost of effectiveness.
Effective marketing is challenging work.
Proper diagnosis of your situation – internal and external factors and capabilities.
Clear strategy – where are you going to play to win and what will it take for this to become real? What is the coherent action required to resolve a problem or take advantage of an opportunity?
Effective tactics…and tracking – only when you have done the first two steps can you develop your tactics. And remember that advertising is only a small part of the 4P’s of marketing.
Marketers, for the sake of your career, why spend time trying to game the system when you could put that same effort into improving your customer insights?
Do the reps!!! Study people and think about differentiation. Please don’t default to this new shiny object.
And as always – if you have a unique perspective please share. My luddite brain might be missing something spectacular.
I leave you with the wise words and views of Scott Adams.
Tim's Thursday Thoughts 