“Just Sayin’…” by Doug deGrood
By The Minneapolis Egotist / /
It’s Back to Cool Season.
I just returned from a nephew’s wedding in Charlottesville, VA, where in attendance was a mob of accomplished twenty-somethings, including a young woman I’ll call Courtney who works for a social media agency in NYC. Upon learning I worked in advertising (and, judging by my grey hair, clearly back in the “golden age of advertising”), she cornered me and the inquisition began:
“What do you think about social media and its future?”
“Do you think AI will take over?”
“Should I get out before it’s too late?”
She then went on to describe her job, which best as I could tell is one part analyst, one part content creator. But, she’s not exactly making the kind of content she’d like to for the usual reasons, e.g., not enough budget, time, or appetite.
“I feel more like a number cruncher than an advertising person. I want to do brand work. Ya know, commercials.”
If I had a Bitcoin for every time I hear this lament from young people, especially my ad students, I’d be a rich man. I find it ironic that the generation that grew up on smart phones and tablets cares mostly about making TV commercials and print ads.
But back to her angst about the coming AI takeover, my response was something like this: Don’t be so quick to buy into expert predictions. I vividly remember being told that TV was dead as long ago as the early 2000’s. And while it has shrunk as a percentage of total marketing spend (but only because of media proliferation), many would argue it’s still king. FYI, when I use the term TV, I’m including network, cable, CTV, even paid social. I don’t care how it’s bought or what appliance or device you watch it on, as Billy Joel sang, “It’s still T…V… to meeee…” Wait, he didn’t?
I went on to suggest to her that AI is ‘the tool,’ not ‘the craftsman.’ And while AI is scary good at regurgitating existing information, or “what was,” it’s not necessarily any good at creating “what could be.” By that, I mean originality. The novel or unusual. Ideas so cool, they stop you dead in your tracks and make you think, “Damn, why didn’t I (or AI) think of that?
Originality seems to be in short supply these days. Which is good news for people in the originality business, no? With scarcity comes demand, not to mention killer margins. So, it stands to reason that the marketing industry should focus at least as much on human intelligence as artificial intelligence. (Side note: I was so taken with this thought, that this morning I actually bothered to re-write the homepage headline on my personal website. See below.)
Of course, original thinking is hard as hell. It takes time. Toil. But more than that, it takes talent. And not everyone has it, just as not everyone is capable of writing a symphony, or a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, or a mathematical theorem.
So, does Courtney have what it takes to make it as an original thinker? I have no clue. I’d like to believe if her raw talent matches her desire, and she’s willing and able to invest the requisite perspiration, she could get there. Time will tell.
In the meantime, for Courtney and the rest of an industry that long for original thinking, I say, it’s back to cool season. And class is in session.
Just sayin’….
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