The marketing world is being transformed by the rise of generative AI. As this technology improves, it allows marketers to be more efficient, creative and data-driven. I recently spoke with Ben Dutter, Senior Vice President of Strategy at Power Digital, to get insight into how generative AI is impacting marketing.
Generative AI Boosts Paid Ad Efficiency
One major area where AI shines is in managing digital advertising campaigns. Dutter explained that machine learning algorithms have been optimising paid ads for around a decade now. But generative AI takes efficiency to the next level.
In the past, marketers had to manually adjust bids and target keywords. Now campaigns can be automated thanks to AI and cloud infrastructure. As Dutter noted, this allows experts to focus on deep strategy rather than tedious optimisations.
The time savings are massive. Tasks that took hours or days can now be accomplished in minutes or seconds. This efficiency boost allows for faster testing and iteration as well.
AI Copywriting Expands Creative Possibilities
Generative AI is also revolutionising marketing copy. Dutter gave the example of AI generating thousands of ad headlines or email subject line variations. This volume of content would be impossible for a human to produce manually.
Not only does this allow for more rapid testing, it also unlocks creativity. Brands can explore a wider range of ideas without worrying about production timelines. The human creator simply prompts the AI and edits the output.
This demonstrates how AI acts as a multiplier rather than a replacement for human skills. The unique value marketers provide is evaluating ideas and guiding strategy rather than repetitive content production.
Fast and Deep Data Analysis Democratises Insights
In the past, advanced data analysis required specialised expertise. Techniques like Bayesian modelling might take a data scientist hours to execute. But now, AI systems can provide these insights almost instantly.
As Dutter explained, even tools like the free version of ChatGPT can run causal impact analysis on structured data with a simple prompt. This level of speed and depth democratises data science for marketers. Powerful analytics become accessible without high consulting fees.
AI can rapidly process many possible scenarios as well. Dutter gave the example of predicting the most valuable target audience or product recommendations. This allows brands to maximise ROI through data-driven decisions.
Overcoming Biases Is Key to Using AI Well
However, it’s important to be aware of potential cognitive biases when using AI in marketing. Confirmation bias means we tend to seek out and interpret information in ways that confirm our existing beliefs. With generative AI, marketers may unconsciously prompt tools in ways that validate their assumptions rather than challenge them.
Marketers also face the risk of anchoring bias. If they anchor on initial AI-generated ideas, they may fail to consider other creative directions. An over-reliance on data analytics can fall victim to this bias as well.
Another bias to be aware of is the empathy gap. This refers to the inability to understand another perspective, especially relating to experiences we haven’t personally gone through. For example, AI might generate ad headlines that sound logical but fail to resonate emotionally with the target audience. Or data analytics could miss important human factors that numbers alone can’t reveal.
Closing this empathy gap takes conscious effort. Marketing leaders need to continually engage with and gather insights from customers and frontline staff. This helps ensure AI is prompted with strategic empathy rather than cold logic.
Being aware of these mental blindspots is key. Generative AI provides incredible leverage, but only if used wisely. Marketers who acknowledge their own biases will get the most value from this transformative technology.
The Future of AI in Marketing
To wrap up our discussion, I asked Dutter where he sees marketing AI heading in the near future. He predicted that within a year, performance advertising channels like Google Ads could be largely commoditised. The focus will shift from execution to strategy, creative, and testing.
Dutter also foresees synthetic AI-generated influencers becoming more prevalent. Brands can create endless customised video content through virtual avatars. This reduces reliance on individual content creators.
Additionally, new possibilities for applying generative AI in marketing are emerging rapidly. For example:
- Personalised video ads tailored to specific viewer interests and preferences
- Automated translation of marketing assets into dozens of languages
- AI-generated market research reports that synthesise surveys, interviews, and digital conversations
- Predictive analytics identifying which customers are likely to churn and how to re-engage them
These innovations demonstrate how versatile and expansive AI’s potential is for transforming marketing.
The Takeaway: Experiment Boldly, but Use AI Thoughtfully
Generative AI holds incredible potential to enhance human creativity and efficiency. As Dutter observed, embracing this technology allows for bolder experimentation and faster iteration. Data-driven insights become more accessible as well.
However, blindly following AI guidance can lead marketers astray. By acknowledging inherent biases, testing rigorously, and guiding AI tools strategically, brands can maximise value. With the right mindset, generative AI can revolutionise marketing effectiveness. But the human must remain in the driver’s seat.
About the Author
Dr. Gleb Tsipursky helps leaders use hybrid work to improve retention and productivity while cutting costs. He serves as the CEO of the boutique future-of-work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts. He is the best-selling author of 7 books, including the global best-sellers Never Go With Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters and The Blindspots Between Us: How to Overcome Unconscious Cognitive Bias and Build Better Relationships. His newest book is Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams: A Manual on Benchmarking to Best Practices for Competitive Advantage. His cutting-edge thought leadership was featured in over 650 articles and 550 interviews in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Inc. Magazine, USA Today, CBS News, Fox News, Time, Business Insider, Fortune, and elsewhere. His writing was translated into Chinese, Korean, German, Russian, Polish, Spanish, French, and other languages. His expertise comes from over 20 years of consulting, coaching, and speaking and training for Fortune 500 companies from Aflac to Xerox, and over 15 years in academia as a behavioural scientist at UNC-Chapel Hill and Ohio State. A proud Ukrainian American, Dr Gleb lives in Columbus, Ohio.
Affective Polarization is the Path to Toxic Political Polarization: A Growing Trend Which Potentially Undermines Democratic Accountability
By Marcelina Horrillo Husillos, Journalist and Correspondent
A research team from New York University found that Twitter messages that include moral or emotional words are shared about 20 percent more, but only within polarized political camps, not between opposing parties.
Also, according to a new Yale University study published in the journal ‘Science Advances,’ online networks encourage us to express more outrage because doing so online gets more likes and shares than in other interactions. In addition, these rewards had the greatest effect on users linked to politically moderate networks.
The cocktail of anger and rage is quickly becoming the holy grail of political polarization, as individuals have extreme reactions against views that differ from their own. While political differences are a function of any healthy democracy, toxic polarization occurs when those differences begin to pull citizens apart from each other and the societal bonds they share. It can undermine faith in democratic institutions and the freedom of speech.
Easy-to-access digital platforms generally promote the most emotionally attention-grabbing content, which produces a cacophony of politically extreme opinions around us.
As the philosopher Eric Hoffer published in his famous essay “The True Believer,” “All movements, however different in doctrine and aspiration, draw their early adherents from the same types of humanity; they all appeal to the same types of minds.”
Affective polarization
Affective polarization often prones strong negative feelings toward other groups, which may lead to hate speech. Audiences are often captured by the emotional tone of speeches, which are strategically pronounced with the aim of grouping individuals towards an ideology dangerously perceived as an identity.
This is also the main cause of the spread of fake news and various types of misinformation. It is a ‘tactic’ used to attack and undermine their opponents with disinformation—whether they truly believe it or not—to create a “sense of identity” and of belonging to their own group, and to be liked by their own “kind.”
Users in social media networks can easily select, edit, and share information with like-minded people. he aim of this interaction is to create ideological trends which will potentially create a large number of followers. As such, polarization is a serious threat to democracy, as it spoils the health of the information ecosystem with fake news and hate speech and causes political turmoil and violence. If left untreated, it may lead to social disintegration and general social instability.
Affective polarization has been described by scholars as the emotional dislike and disgust between members of opposing parties based not on policies but on identity. Whenever something happens, we decide very quickly whether it’s good or bad, if it is blameworthy or punishable, or overall, how bad it is. We form quick and strong opinions which seek to reaffirm the strength of our own identities. Then, we publish our strong opinions in digital networks, which creates certain feedback that we use to reaffirm our identity.
Political polarization
Political polarization is the result of intense affective biased polarization undergone. Groups with specific aims of creating controversy manipulate audiences by spreading strong emotional hate content in order to reinforce division among individuals. Often, these radical views are without adequate evidence. Significant division can undermine confidence in democracy or democratic institutions and lead to toxic political polarization, which occurs when citizens begin to view each other more as enemies than legitimate opposition.
The 6 January 2021 Capitol ‘insurrection’ was the culmination of a political polarization process driven by an enraged media culture and out-of-control social media algorithms that reward extreme emotional responses. This process leads to political trends engaged in emotional responses and a political culture that becomes increasingly divergent between metropolitan voters in urban economic hubs and everyone else—bringing together two contrastive storylines with a common response.
One set of researchers also found that people who hold radical political views on both the left and the right of the political spectrum have less insight into their own performance on a simple unrelated perception task and were slower to learn from their own mistakes. One takeaway from this research is that polarized individuals may simply be worse at considering evidence contrary to their own views, and are more apt to swiftly disregard the opinions of their opponents. Therefore, political polarization may well be the result of an intricate interaction between a person’s own cognitive makeup and environmental influences.
With the increase in toxic polarization comes the decrease in social identity complexity. Our different group memberships and identities—whether political, racial, or religious—are much more likely to line up and, in the process, we become less tolerant of members of outgroups. Bridging the divide calls us to acknowledge the complexity of our own belief systems and complicate our understandings of other people.
Conclusion
When ideology becomes identity, polarization also becomes toxic which can prevent us from breaking down barriers and humanizing each other. It can also uphold siloes, keeping existing members of movements from voicing different views given the pressure to adhere to group expectations.
An important review of academic research by journalist Thomas Edsall last year highlighted the degree to which the political polarization has increasingly taken on an emotionally negative tone. As Edsall notes, “Hostility to the opposition party and its candidates has now reached a level where loathing motivates voters more than loyalty” and “The building strength of partisan antipathy—‘negative partisanship’—has radically altered politics. Anger has become the primary tool for motivating voters.”
Patterns of toxic polarization are difficult to break. They resist change and cannot be solved by dialogue alone. Creating community-based structures to work together to complement bridge-building efforts is an essential measure that should be implemented.
Toxic polarization is not sustainable, but more importantly, it is the symptom of large-scale, structural problems. Toxic polarization worsens fears and undermines the hope in human rights and in free dialogue, therefore gradually erasing the foundations of any attempt to democracy.