AI is Shaking Up Ad Industry
In a recent Times of India’s Techies.AI feature, Umanshi, sheds light on how Generative AI (Gen AI) is revolutionizing the advertising industry. Umanshi’s founder Tamanna Gupta offers a firsthand account of the exciting yet chaotic world of Gen AI, exploring its impact on workflows, its effectiveness in generating content, and the challenges it presents. This article dives into the future of advertising, where AI acts as a tireless content creation machine but human expertise remains irreplaceable in crafting emotionally resonant stories.
How has Gen AI impacted your average working day? Are you or your colleagues using any Gen AI tools at work?
It is a mayhem at our office. It is like giving a bunch of kids a new toy and a toy that shape shifts every moment and we all are breaking our heads around it in excitement, bewilderment, frustration, joy and mixed emotions. At times, things and outputs are straightforward but most of the time, we are figuring out how to even figure it out. As we are progressing, we are getting aware of its limitations and possibilities both. AI is evolving and so is my creative team with its usage; hopefully we should be there soon. Indeed there is a lot of time being invested in understanding the same. It has not reduced the workload or time taken to deliver the creatives because we are still on a blind date with Gen AI. From weird to kickass creatives, AI and my creative team have their hands all over the place.
Some of the common Gen AI tools used range from ChatGPT that can whip up anything from killer marketing copy to beautiful poems in no time. We can generate headlines and ad copy in a matter of seconds. And with image generators like DALL-E 2, we can create mind-blowing, hyper-realistic visuals based on descriptions. These visuals are perfect for eye-catching ads or creating mockups of products. Then there’s Jasper that churns out all sorts of content formats, from blog posts to captions for social media. Midjourney helps us bring an artistic flair to the table. With Midjourney, we can generate dreamlike visuals that are sure to grab attention for ad campaigns or design projects. It feels like there’s a new AI tool popping up every day, which means we’re constantly learning and discovering new ways to enhance our work.
How effective are Gen AI tools for the advertising/marketing sectors?
Gen AI is totally shaking up the world of advertising and marketing. It’s like a total efficiency machine, cranking out all sorts of content like catchy headlines, social media posts, and even website copy faster than lightning.
More than handing out straightforward content, copy or creative, GEN AI is a buddy that also helps you discover unique ways to creative directions! A way of breaching storytelling that possibly we wouldn’t have imagined. But here’s the deal, you gotta make sure you communicate crystal clear with this super-powered tool to avoid any wacky AI outputs. It’s all about teamwork. The future is all about humans and AI joining forces. AI will handle all the heavy lifting when it comes to content creation, but us humans, we’re the ones who will bring the emotional stories to life that really strike a chord with our audience.
What are the challenges of using such AI tools?
One of the biggest challenges so far has been for those who aren’t strong communicators. While they might be amazing data analysts, for instance, if they can’t provide clear and concise prompts, the AI can get thrown off course. It’s like giving someone a fancy new drill but forgetting to explain how to use the different bits. However, this highlights a deeper challenge: the need for a new kind of expertise. Graphic designers now have to learn to work with vast datasets, a new “Gen AI fluency” is emerging. This encompasses understanding the strengths and weaknesses of different generative models, as well as crafting prompts that leverage the AI’s capabilities while steering it away from potential biases or factual errors. This new skillset will be crucial for unlocking the full potential of generative AI in advertising.
What does the future look like for your sector?
The future of advertising with generative AI is full of exciting possibilities. It’s like having a tireless factory that churns out amazing content at an incredible speed – targeted ads, personalized headlines, and custom visuals. This “industrialization of creativity” opens up new avenues for reaching our audiences with laser-like precision, creating messages that truly resonate.
Of course, there are some challenges we’ll need to tackle along the way. One of them is the sheer volume of content. With AI generating content on a massive scale, we’ll need robust filtering and curation systems to ensure top-notch quality and avoid bombarding our audiences with irrelevant stuff or be an idea factory on steroids!
While AI excels at generating ideas, the human touch is irreplaceable. Storytelling that connects on an emotional level requires human creativity, strategic thinking, and emotional intelligence (EQ). The future belongs to the dynamic duo of human IQ and EQ working hand-in-hand with AI to create the advertising campaigns of tomorrow.
Very nice to see the clarity in this article