The Role of A.I. in Marketing Is Scaled Relevance

Oftentimes, discussions around Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) tend to revolve around its potential for creation, productivity, and optimization. Many folks, including you and I, ponder whether technology will replace us, human workers. However, history shows that humanity has consistently become wealthier over generations. As Naval Ravikant rightfully pointed out, even an average citizen today enjoys a level of abundance far surpassing that of ancient royalty. Education and technology have empowered people with more choices in their lives. A.I. can help us too, if well used.

The Heart of Marketing = Relevance

In the realm of marketing, the core objective has always been to align business objectives with consumer relevance. While this remains unchanged, the methods for achieving this goal have evolved significantly. The internet and social media have democratized access to information, making marketing communications much more complex than ever before. Technology has empowered individuals with unprecedented access to information, connecting even the most niche interests and driving the growth of subcultures. Social media platforms are moving from social to interest graph, which serves each content based on individual user interests rather than social connections, effectively amplifying every single preference imaginable.

Relevance Has To Be Scaled.

That’s the reality. And that’s what honestly keeps marketers up at night now. Serving a matching luggage ad is no longer enough to satisfy the consumers.

A.I. presents a solution to this challenge, as it can infinitely surpass human productivity. Instead of asking whether A.I. will replace us, we could focus on how it can scale relevance, making marketing efforts more impactful and efficient. Let’s be rational optimists.

Leveraging A.I. To Scale Relevance

To leverage A.I. effectively, marketers can ask key questions to develop an A.I. roadmap that integrates seamlessly into existing operations:

1. How can A.I. assist in identifying consumer cohorts? Traditional segmentation has its limitations, prompting a shift towards viewing audiences as deeper, more nuanced cohorts to increase relevance. With A.I., we can enhance this approach, improving relevance by identifying cohorts that may otherwise be overlooked.

2. How can A.I. assist in enabling our marketing teams with a better pulse of Culture? While traditional research methods have their strengths, the rapid pace of cultural change means marketers need real-time insights. By harnessing A.I.-powered social listening or data tools, we can analyze information more efficiently, giving marketers a more accurate and agile understanding of consumer culture, so they can focus on Doing.

3. How can AI scale content creation in the most contextual manner? Consumers engage with brands primarily through content, much more than they interact with products & services, making every brand essentially an entertainment brand. However, tailoring content to individual tastes and preferences is challenging. That’s where A.I. can help - by reducing the cost of creative, allowing brands to scale up volume and deliver highly contextual content to diverse consumer cohorts. The goal is not just to increase quantity but to enhance relevance on a near-individual level.

Seamlessly Integrating A.I. Into Marketing Operations

By answering these questions, marketers can identify the right A.I. tools to enhance their operations. There’ll always be a new A.I. tool out there, since the technology is at its peak of the hype cycle now. Before we know it, A.I. will be integrated into our everyday tools - some of the best known martech tools already have A.I. integrated into it e.g. Canva & Salesforce. If you aren’t impressed by the A.I. technology today, good news - it’s developing faster than you think. However, the key is still to build a brand that stands out, and your human judgment is still going to make a critical difference. After all, tying business goals with consumer relevance has always been about bringing an element of real humanity into corporations. 

(Thoughts from myself, Editing assist & header image by ChatGPT 4.0)