Burger King recently released an advertisement it says was written by artificial intelligence. With the video of tasty-looking burgers and fries rolling, the robot-like voice blurts: “The chicken crossed the road to become a sandwich. Burger King encouraged the chicken. Made with white meat chicken. Bed of lettuce for you to sleep on … ”
In its press release, Burger King claimed the ad provides a glimpse into the future of marketing and communications. But an exposé in AdWeek reveals the ad was created by a human copywriter and not “high-end computing resources and big data” as Burger King’s press release maintained.
“AI, bots, machine learning, deep learning algorithms, blockchain, among others—these are all topical as we explore our future in marketing,” Marcelo Pascoa, Burger King’s global head of brand marketing, told AdWeek. “But we need to avoid getting lost in the sea of technology innovation and buzzwords and forget what really matters. Artificial intelligence is not a substitute for a great creative idea coming from a real person.”
While mocking AI, the ad reveals how many marketers feel about toward the technology. It’s not a substitute for human creativity.
What AI Can and Cannot Do Well
AI is best at solving problems if the goal remains clear and consistent over time, like identifying cats or driving a car, says Tod Loofbourrow, CEO and chairman of ViralGains. It’s not so good for marketing, advertising and PR. People are complicated, and marketing goals are fluid and difficult to articulate, Loffbourrow writes in MarketingProfs. AI will not replace creative directors or marketing managers any time soon. AI can most easily analyze purchases because purchase decisions are binary: People either buy or they don’t. But other steps in the marketing funnel, such as analyzing engagement, quickly become more problematic. One issue: It’s difficult to find metrics that lead to useful insights.
“For example, if an impression is your proxy for engagement, you can optimize with AI all you want, but you’re not necessarily going to better understand how people are truly interacting with (or feeling about) your content,” he explains.
In addition, AI requires time to accrue enough data. Marketing campaigns are typically brief.
The digital duopoly of Google and Facebook poses another barrier. The digital giants tightly control data within what’s called their walled gardens. AI needs to know the media context, but it cannot see inside those closed ecosystems. “In fact, AI without context isn’t intelligence at all. But AI without context does explain how advertisers end up with clunky placements and embarrassing brand-safety issues,” he says.
Some Say AI is Now Impacting Businesses
Despite years of hype, false starts and limited use cases in marketing, AI is at last bringing benefits to a variety of business sectors, say experts writing for the McKinsey Global Institute.
AI now powers real-world applications, such as facial recognition, language translators and voice assistants, point out James Manyika, a McKinsey & Company senior partner and chairman and director of the McKinsey Global Institute, and Jacques Bughin, MGI director and senior partner. And because of greater computing power, massive amounts of data and advances in machine learning, more business sectors will soon profit from AI.
Customer service can benefit from improved speech recognition. Many retailers already combine customer demographics and past transaction data with social media monitoring to generate individualized “next product to buy” recommendations.
AI still faces many practical challenges, including obtaining sizeable data sets and finding personnel with the sufficient computing skills, they caution. The pace and extent of adoption has been uneven across different organizations and sectors.
Many fear AI will eliminate jobs. While jobs involving repetitive tasks will disappear, demand for social and emotional skills such as communication and empathy will grow almost as fast as demand for many advanced technological skills, they predict.
Bottom Line: Artificial intelligence may be the future of marketing and communications and may remain the future for quite some time. Although more business sectors now reap benefits from AI, marketing has seen limited impact. Implementing AI in marketing faces distinct hurdles.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
