The latest buzz in the digital world is VR and AI. These technologies are unceasingly bringing in disruption within the marketing communication industry across the globe.
AI powered advertising will soon be a buzz word and will be part of mainstream terminology in advertising and media parlance, we are already seeing how AI powered advertising has started to disrupt ad agencies. With increasing data overload and advertisers putting more and more emphasis on data, pushing their partners for more meaningful actions from that data, agencies are now turning to AI. This will definitely alter business strategies of agencies as well has how they employ or hire future employees. While AI is still in its early stages, one feels that these advancement will need people to be very well versed within the digital world and understand how it works.
The new generation of AI powered ads are using these advancements to make the most of consumer information. Due to its predictive nature, AI can now predict whether these campaign which are being launched will have a success a future or not. Future of AI advertising would lead to foreseeing ultra-personal ads.
AI will also sharpen the algorithms that powers the automated buying and selling of inventory. In future just like programmatic being the talk of town, AI will become the word or thing to be talked in every agency/ publishers credentials.
How can marketers make the most of market research and come up with captivating campaigns? This is where Artificial Intelligence comes in. AI is designed to find answers to complicated questions, and can handle mass datasets like those accumulated by marketers and advertisers. But how can AI enhance ad campaigns, and how will this disrupt advertising?
Some of the challenges which AI will face in future and it will have to overcome this is related to Privacy. People don’t like the idea of their information being collected and used, especially if they are not aware of it or unwillingly they would have agreed to give their data.
One of the challenges which advertisers keep on consistently face and is not much recognised is inability of matching relevant creative content & context with right media choice. Right message at the right time to right person is so tough or increasingly becoming difficult. Finding & Following the consumer was never a problem, it was being relevant with right messaging or creative. Now in this programmatic driven world, as a consumer you still get followed by same kind of ad and same messaging over and over again, although in different screens and environment, but I feel this is purely a waste. There have been instance when you would have done a transaction and got into the product, you still get access to the same advertisement. Cardinal sin is serving an ad which does not create any positive intent.
With advent of AI, this can be reduced and one feels it can enable us to match context and creativity. Some evolved clients are already using A/B testing of their messages to figure out relevance and efficiency. AI will enable us to do this testing to greater lengths and accuracy. They would suggest new visual /textual variations in keeping with brand guidelines for a targeted set and keep on optimizing the messaging real time from the feedback it received.
AI powered advertising, can scan and learn from the audiences of YouTube videos, and figure the messaging which is powerful and relevant for your brand, what’s working and not, what’s responsive and what’s none.
So what is future of agencies creative teams when these variables are no longer the only exclusive rights of creative agency teams?
Anyhow I strongly believe better AI technology and its advancement not necessarily mean better advertising, pure ad age still continues, teams and people still need to have great brand narrative and use this technology to connect to its customers. Eliminating human interference is not at all possible or recommended, as while algorithms may do the work of getting data structured, real value will come when this data can be disseminated into meaningful narratives, figuring out real problems and looking at these technologies to figure out a solution for them. This will ultimately lead to advanced attribution insights giving brands increased freedom to test creatives and adapt them to what works for the most important audiences.
So with all this talk about AI disrupting work and advertising, it’s important to remember there is no shortage of work which has to be done by humans, and this will continue, the challenge one faces today is to work in a world which is rapidly changing. The response would be how one evolves to these changes and be prepared to adapt and adopt to new emerging tools and models to create great advertising.
AI promises to give consumers more control over what brands can connect with them, when and how. It will need inventive and strategic thought to navigate and this is something that machines alone can’t do. While certain functions will get automated like media buying etc. human intervention will be much sought after all we are dealing with real people with real emotions.