Generative AI in Content Marketing: Why Creativity & Authenticity Will Make it Work

What's going on, everyone? It's Daniel Litwin, the voice of b two b, and welcome to another episode of Experts Talk. This is MarketScales premiere debate and discussion roundtable show where we sit down with the top voices in your industry to talk shop on major trends, technologies, timely news, market movers, you name it. The real forces that are shaping your professors, the entrepreneurs who are pushing the mantle and planting their flag of thought leadership in the space. We'll curate a dynamic discussion and get really into the meat of these conversations so that you can walk away feeling a little more confident in maneuvering these market shifting forces. So thank you again for joining us here on Experts Talk. Again, I'm your host, Daniel Litwin, the voice of b two b. We've been off the air for a little bit for about a month. I had some major life moves. I got married. I had my honeymoon. I went to Colombia to go visit some family out there. Viva Colombia, we're in the Copa America final. So gotta get, some love to the selection there. La selection as we say. But folks, we've got some juicy content to get into today. So make sure you're heading to market scale dot com to get a full catalog of our previous episodes of Experts Talks. You can get fully caught up on where, experts are seeing their industries evolve today. And if you wanna make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, you can head to market scale dot com and check out our live programming schedule. Alright, team. As you can see below, we're gonna be talking generative AI content today, specifically for content marketing. So let's get into it. Right? The big question here is how should marketers use generative AI content in their campaigns? And is the novelty or the time saved of generative AI content worth the consumer response? And we're gonna unpack that with a little more detail here. But even though marketing teams are already using generative AI for things like written content and other visuals, including a text to video functions, It wasn't really until this summer that we started to see a full fledged use of AI video marketing in action. We saw this with the recent Toys R Us ad, the recent Under Armour ad, and these were created entirely with or supported in a, you know, a an overwhelming fashion with AI generated visuals. Now let's say that the consumer response was more cringe than celebration for some of these. Right? And that's why we're wanting to host this discussion is because in some ways, the conversation around generative AI video is awe inspiring. It's, you know, getting the imagination, blossoming, the wheels turning. But the response sometimes to this content can still be one of, you know, like you're looking at an uncanny valley piece of content, and consumers are often more put off than they are engaged with content that is so overtly AI generated. So as tools like OpenAI's Sora or other tools like Odysee and Runway all race to launch a a truly, mature and ready consumer generative AI video solution this year. We wanted to get a pulse for whether consumers are ready to see these tools in action on their screens. Right? How capable are today's generative AI content tools, And how should this shape how marketing teams actually leverage these tools? Right? What is there to learn from some of the to these recent generative AI ads? And overall, what does our panel think is going to be the best use case for these tools for marketing content? Well, let's let the experts talk on Experts Talk and really get their perspectives. So I'm very pleased to welcome our panel of four experts here on Experts Talk. Hello to the four of you. We've got a stacked cast here to get in the weeds of strategy. So let's go one by one, get a little hello from everyone. We're joined first by mister Ray Smith. He's cofounder at Speakerbox Media. Ray, great to have you on. How are you doing today? Hey, Daniel. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited about this conversation. My name is Ray Smith. I'm one of the founders of Speakerbox Media. We're a full service podcast agency that helps brands build authority online. And, you know, what I wanna bring to this conversation is some perspective on long form content, and how it can be broken down using AI. We're using it here every day. And as consumers of podcasts, we're also starting to, yield the benefits of of those, these tools. So I'm super just excited to dive in with you you guys today and and talk more about AI. Absolutely, man. Thank you for joining us. We're also here with Danny Wong, VP of growth and innovation with TeamLouis. Danny, welcome. How you doing? Thank you, buddy. You know, so, you know, I'm also super excited to kind of talk about, you know, how, you know, some of our conversations that we've been having with clients pertaining to kind of generative AI in the space and stuff like, you know, what are some of their concerns? You know, how they've been kind of looking at it, from a brand lens and stuff as well. So happy to kind of color that conversation, you know, in today's, fireside chat. Absolutely. And you know the heat is gonna be hot when there's two Dan's on the conversation. So hot heat. Right? Yeah. Nice. We're also joined by Summer DuBois, director of operations and agency innovation at public label. Summer, welcome. How are you? Thanks, Daniel. I'm so excited to be here. I would love to talk more about AI and all the things that we're doing here at Public Label. We specialize in ecommerce content and, experiential marketing, brand strategy. So we found several use cases, and I'm excited to dive into the conversation. Definitely. And I gotta say, I think you win the award for coolest office too back there. That's that's a nice look. I love it. And then last but not least, we're joined by Kent Kersey. He's CEO of Invoke. Kent, welcome to the conversation. How are you? Doing well. Thanks for having me. It's exciting to talk to other people who are in the weeds on this stuff. I think from our perspective, for some context, Invoke is one of the, I would say, cutting edge tools for creative control and creating visual media. We focus primarily on images right now and, producing the highest quality, static image content that we can, trained on custom content and things like that. But that shapes the perspective we have on where we're going. We see how this is applied at that high degree of of quality that most people are looking for from these tools. And I think video is right around the corner. It sure is. And in some ways, it's already out there and starting to shape, you know, both professional perception and public perception on the use, the novelty, and the integrity of AI as a tool. And so I think we're right at that precipice. And so that's why I'm so excited to have this conversation with the four of you. So folks, let's just get into it. I wanna start with some hot hot takes to stir things up. Really, these perspectives honestly might change by the end of the discussion. That's why I love these round tables. But I I want everyone to plant a flag early and just help get the conversation flowing. So could we get everyone's take here on just generative AI video content in general? Right? Do you think based on where it's at today, should it be seen as, you know, awe inspiring? Right? Is it a bit overhyped? Is it already useful? Is it maybe more problematic? You know, introducing more problems than it's worth. Is it still kinda tacky? Is it exciting? Right? Is it changing the creative workflow? What are y'all's just immediate high level takes on where generative AI video content is at today? Whoever wants to jump in first. Yeah. I think it really depends on the use case. Right? I mean, when we think about something like a music video, we're used to seeing something edgy. We're used to seeing technology be super edgy and do something a little different and innovative. We've seen that since the early days of MTV. But when it comes to something like marketing where you're selling something, where you're looking for trust, I think that's a different use case. And I think that's what you're seeing with the Toys R Us backlash backlash is we really need to be, making sure that we're authentic with our consumers. And so it's different when you are go from an art space to a a commerce space. Hundred percent. And just to kinda build on what Summer, yeah, just to kinda build on what Summer mentioned as well, it's really about, you know, ads being, you know, a piece of design communication, and that needs to have a very clear message and clear purpose. Right? So once once it kind of veers into the space of artsy, then authenticity kinda comes into into play and stuff as well, you know, to that, Toys R Us piece and stuff as well. You know, they chose to tell a story that was not necessarily, you know, highly interesting or kind of, you know, well told. Right? So no matter, you know, how good the platform is in terms of the, technology, right, it's still not gonna kind of, set it up for for success in that space. Yeah. Yeah. I think the the thing to call out would be primarily how is the tool being used? How how are we leveraging the technology? And I think when I look at the toys r us commercial, I see I I would say probably a initial stab at what might, be useful with these tools. It's a lot of stitched together clips, and I don't think that's where the technology is right now. I think in contrast, when you look at a really, really clean application for advertising, I would look at Volvo. Volvo's recent, ad was not AI generated in its entirety. It had almost composite elements that were AI generated. So they were using it to stitch together an overall narrative. They weren't relying exclusively on the AI generated clips to produce, the the overall composition. And I think that's where today, you ask the question, like, or is it overhyped? Is it useful? I think the answer is that the technology stopped today. We would find ways to use it. It would be useful. There are legitimate ways to use it. We would develop the skills for stitching it together well and kind of reaching that high quality we're all looking for, but most people don't do that. Most people aren't applying the technology that way. They are using the type in a prompt to get a video, stitch it together, and hope that that looks good enough for someone to buy. And and the answer for theirs, it's not. It's not ready yet for that type of use case. Yeah. I mean, the bottom line is that humans like to look at other humans. And I don't think that's gonna change. Even with these tools, I think we're gonna get great b roll. We're gonna get great backgrounds. But humans like to observe other humans and watch and engage with other humans, and I don't think that's gonna change with the advent of these tools. Yeah. And I think I'll add, you know, in there, to piggyback kind of off of what Kent was, you know, saying here. We're kinda in the early stages of, this right now to really form an opinion. It's kinda tough. You know? I think about the early days of animation when we were flipping through, books and things like that to now we have Pixar animation. And, you know, to look back then to now and see the quantum leap that was had is, kinda can be likened to AI, you know, in many ways. So, when I look at AI, the speed of of innovation that's happening with it is is just blowing my mind. So when I saw the Toys R Us ad, I was like, woah. Just three months ago, we we weren't here. And now, I mean, this is borderline. Yeah. You can still tell in some areas, but, you know, I I think about it, in a very optimistic way, and and, very excited way. So I'm not on the side of, oh, we gotta I'm I'm afraid of it. I'm like, oh, bring it on. This is this is awesome. You know? Especially in in the realm that I'm in, which is podcasting where we're looking for b roll all the time, and I have to go through and search. I could do that so much faster now, which is super exciting. And I think that gets to the core of the conversation, which is really less premised around video content or, like, generative AI as a an esoteric concept, but more about what are the needs of marketing teams today. Right? When they go to sit down to launch a video campaign or to integrate b roll in their podcast or to try to be cutting edge in their space, and then they turn to AI as a tool, what role is AI playing in helping them solve their business needs. Right? And so, you know, we see content that is premised around the novelty of it. Oh, it's just cool that it's AI. Look how far the video has come. And that is appealing. Or it's meant to, hey, you know, help patch up the fact that we have a team of two and we don't have, you know, the funds to spend a thousand dollars on one Getty image. Maybe we need AI to help us out there. Right? And so, that's what I think we're gonna get into here in a little bit is trying to dissect those challenges today and where AI can play a useful role. But since we're talking about the Toys R Us ad, I wanna go ahead and show that for our audience in case they haven't seen it. Because I I think, you know, we're gonna see some mixed responses here about what's exciting about it and what's a little uncanny about it still. So let's go ahead and roll that Toys R Us ad for the audience, and then we'll continue our conversation. Did you ever wonder how Toys R Us and Jeffrey the Giraffe came to be? The son of a bike shop owner, Charles Lazarus, had a vision that would go on to change toy stores forever. The greatest tour Toys R Us was the dream of Charles Lazarus. May all of your dreams come true too. And the dream continues on with the Toys R Us at every Macy's. Okay. So my personal opinion is that I agree with Ray that it's cool to see, like, I don't know if you've seen the compare and contrast of it's like a video of, generative AI Will Smith eating pasta. And it's like what that looked like five months ago. It was this horrific, almost like horror movie visualization. And today it looks pretty decent. Right? I think we can see that at work here. There's, you know, really impressive generative content here. At the same time, I think the story they chose to tell and I think the images they chose to generate. Like the soft smile of a child. Right? Like when that is uncanny, it's like, oh, something feels wrong here. Right? And so I think it's more of a strategic mistake than a content, you know, or like a tool mistake. But I wanna get thoughts here. What are y'all's takeaways from that ad? What works? What doesn't? And why? I mean, the bottom line is that we're talking about Toys R Us for the first time in a long time. Very true. They did a great job of finding a reason for us to talk about them. Right? So for me, I think it's more of a stunt than it is an attempt at great creative. There's a lot of problems with the stability there. I mean, if you see, Jeopardy the Giraffe, that's definitely an added in feature. That's not something that came out of generative AI in in addition to the Compton logo for Toys R Us. I think there's some after effects happening with the sparkles, and some of the toys seem to be three d artifacts. So it's not quite out of the box. And I know that there's a lot that was probably on the cutting room floor. The boy changes, his glasses change, his hair changes. So there's some issues with that video, but ultimately, we're talking about Toys R Us. Right? Yeah. I think impact is something we can call out as it's successful at getting us talking about Toys R Us. I think if we're looking at the creative and how the tool was applied, I think we can critique it, pretty significantly. But what you'll you'll notice is that notion of composited work and AI generated plus non AI generated work being fused together for the overall, kind of narrative to be created. That's what we saw there. And I think to to Summer's point, we got, some elements that were layered in, I I would say, poorly. They were stitched together poorly. It didn't look, like a coherent generation. And part of that, I think, is because the budget was lower. So you were using the tools at hand and kinda stitching it together as best you could. I I think where we really, as as humans, have set expectations is is we expect it all to feel coherent. We expect it to be composited well. And and I think we're still learning as, you know, the creative industry industry evolves and is adopting these tools. We're still learning how do we do that well? How do we take something that's AI generated and get it to feel coherent with everything else that we're using? And I think the tools are advancing on that dimension as well around stitch together to to kind of bring it all into one coherent frame. Stitch together to to kind of bring it all into one coherent frame. And then just I mean, you know, ironically, internally as well. Right? You know, when we, kind of discussed this at, you know, at one of our brainstorms and stuff there as well, it it was, interesting to see how the the the the teams were split. Right? Let's say, for example, commercial teams were like, oh, cool. This this beloved brand is kind of moving into the space of exploring AI and stuff like that versus, you know, the creative teams who who who went, oh my god. This isn't, you know, this is a, you know, somewhat of a, you know, creative atrocity. Right? Okay. So it really depends on the lens that you're kind of viewing it through and stuff like that as well because different people look at it from different things. Right? And the fact that it came out during cons and stuff like that as well, everyone's like, oh, it's just an attention grab. Everybody, you know, the the the number one overused buzzword in cons is AI. We need to have something in that space and stuff as well. So, you know, it's, you know, hence the reason why potentially the blowback was so big because it it felt, more opportunistic rather than kind of, you know, kind of, you know and once again, ToysRUs is a beloved kind of, you know, you know, brand that a lot of people hold close to your hearts. Right? So, you know, you know, it it just kinda kinda didn't didn't do it justice. Yeah. I I think, you know, this this has kinda been around for a while now. When you think about CGI and green screen and things of that nature, we've been seeing this happen, you know, in media for a while. And I think a lot of the content that we, see nowadays, are green screened or CGI. And it's almost the expectation of quality is going to be raised with with AI. And that's that's my belief is that the standard is gonna continue to be raised. You know? I remember when I first seen, you know, Batman, you know, flying through the air, and I look back into some of the nineties, movies that that I loved, you know, and I and I watch them now. I'm like, oh, Batman wasn't flying through the air. That's totally, you know, a green screen. You know? So I liken that to to this, and I think what what is the core element we need to be looking at is authenticity. I think that's one of the the phrases I keep hearing that that comes up is authenticity and, and story. I think story is gonna be, more of the root here, of the matter is how can how good was that story and and and leveraging AI as a tool, in our toolbox to make better content. So, overall, you know, I I think it's it's great, it's a a great starting point, but it's not the end by any means. Yeah. Now as a contrast, let's play, this Volvo ad. So this is actually a it's a fake Volvo ad by a YouTuber called Hello Locko. Co. And it was an attempt to kind of showcase how to integrate generative AI video content in a more, I guess artistic way into what is a typical, like, familiar formula of a car commercial. In my opinion, I think this one works a little better, but I wanna get everyone's perspective. And let's go ahead and roll that Volvo ad for the audience. My YouTube two m p four download didn't rip the audio, so sorry. But I mean, that's classic. Right? They can't perfect a YouTube ripper. Like, come on. But, the visuals are what matter there. Right? And I, you know, to me, what I think works better here is that the generative AI was meant to be otherworldly. It was meant to be unfamiliar. And it was meant to push the boundaries of like, look at AI almost bleeding into the real world. As a novelty. As, an expressive artistic element over footage that is pretty familiar. The car cruising down the, you know, deserted, salt flat highway. Right? That's classic, but then you've got the big blooming trees flying out of skyscrapers. So in my opinion, this one works a little better. But it might be hard to say why. Right? From a creative strategy lens, what are y'all's perspectives here? Do you feel this one works a little better than the Toys R Us ad? If not, feel free to disagree. But what do you think was the strategy at play here? I mean, here at Public Label, we're always talking about what can generative AI do that wasn't possible before. Right? What's possible now that was previously impossible? And I think that's what that video shows is there's new possibilities that we wouldn't be able to do necessarily with CGI in some ways, where we wouldn't be able to do that with out of the box, just on set cameras. So I think it's really innovative and exciting to see what's possible. And I think that's what we're leaning into is now what can we do that wasn't possible previously. Right? Added, I think, also felt right. If you contrast this to what you saw in the Toys R Us commercial, one thing that we look at a lot is obviously AI generated content. And after you look at it enough and I think at this point, we've seen enough on, like, LinkedIn and social channels that I think everybody's developed this eye, you see the pattern of, like, low effort generative AI. You see this kind of, like, hypersaturated, very complicated composition that's a little bit messy, and you kind of sensed that in the Toys R Us commercial. You saw that in some of the scenes that they generated. They didn't help themselves by adding more, like, sparkles and things that made it even more, like, claustrophobic of a of a shot. But when you look at this Volvo, ad, which surprised to me that it's not real because I've seen it so much. I just thought it Right. It was real because it's been spreading around. But when you look at how this was composed, like you said, it felt like the generative AI was an accent. It was being layered on top of something, and it felt natural how it was integrated together. It was artistic. It brought in something that was a really cool story. I think that the the narrative of the car driving through the city and bringing kind of, like, nature with it is a really good message for a car company especially. But I think the most important thing was it felt authentic. Right? It felt like this was a coherent story. It felt like they weren't abusing AI to create something cheap, but they were integrating it well to create something new that wasn't possible before. I think I'll add that, you know, in a way, I I expect things to be a bit better. I think even before AI, this type of video is being created. So, I think that we have to really push the limits of what we can do with AI a little bit better, and and enhance the creativity. Maybe it's a hybrid of the two, to, enhance the experience for the audience. Because when I think about, immersive experiences or perhaps, some of the VR things that are happening or web three, It's all about how that consumer is gonna be consuming this content. So, when I look at these sort of three-dimensional kind of AI, ads that are that are being created, I I really think that we could start to push the limits more. One, on how we consume it. That's that's the first step. But also just, the elements of creativity. Just because it's easy or just because it's fast doesn't mean you get to take a back seat on creativity. Yep. And I think, you know yeah. I I think I think to, to to to that point and stuff, that's really about, you know, what's the use case of use utilizing AI. Right? Are we using it to kind of do something that can already be done? Or are we using it to kind of solve an, existing, you know, business problem? So, you know, at Team Lewis and stuff like that, we always try to kinda knuckle down if you know, don't do AI for the sake of doing AI, but, you know, what are we trying to solve for here, in terms of, you know, the commercial viability? One good example is, you know, McDonald's did this campaign called Sweet Connections previously, and, you know, they kind of utilized generative AI. The insight to that campaign was more in the sense where they realized that a lot of people, whenever they speak to their grandmothers, they couldn't speak the native tongue, whether it's a dialect language and stuff like, whether it's things like, you know, in, you know, Hokkien in in in Chinese or, you know, whether it's, you know, you know, various sort of permutations of that and stuff as well. So by kind of utilizing kind of, you know, Hey, Jen, you're able to kind of speak in English, but yet they can hear it in their, you know, native tongue. And that way, you know, it kinda bridges that gap between, you know, vanity and functionality. Right? That's probably where, you know, the the biggest role of, you know, kind of generative AI could play because then it then it feels authentic. It feels it serves a a greater purpose rather than just doing for the sake of doing. Yeah. And I I think that's a really good point. I totally agree. And I feel like it's that, like, it's that formula that, you know, puts more, trust in the consumer to understand what's in front of their face. You know? Both that Volvo ad and the Toys R Us ad were very clearly, you could tell, it was generative AI content based on kind of what we're used to seeing. The way that it it kinda got that sheen, the way that the the the visuals sort of blossom out of thin air, in a in a almost like fractal way. Right? But because of the intentionality behind it, because of the story, because of what the purpose of AI in that campaign was, I think the response was different. And clearly everyone's sharing the Volvo ad is like a, oh, check out this cool ad. Everyone's sharing the Toys R Us ad is like, I don't wanna see this or anything like this ever again, please. And so it's it's a curious dynamic. Right? And I'm glad y'all are talking about the strategies for marketing teams. Right? We mentioned this a little earlier, but let's go ahead and unpack that. I think generative AI content, you know, its use is really going to be defined by what are the needs, the business goals, the content goals of today's marketing teams. So let's go ahead and get that perspective. We've got folks that are sort of on the agency side of this, that are on the, you know, actual content marketing solution side of this, and then on the tool side of this. So where are y'all seeing some pain points today in content marketing that are motivating the use for AI? And how should that shape our conversation? Maybe some of the empathy we have too for the content that we're seeing being put out there. I mean, I know that we're doing a lot of remixing where we're taking content that's on one channel and we're finding ways to use it in another way at another channel. So the content itself isn't necessarily generated by AI, but we're reformulating it. We're splicing it and cutting it to be in different channels. So what's a landing page might become a blog. What's a blog might become a post. What's a post might become an article and so on. And so those are some of the ways that we're kind of repurposing some of the content that we've already created, especially when we're finding that there's users and consumers out there that want a little bit more on that. So one of the ways that we're doing that is with ecommerce content. Right? We're optimizing ecommerce content, but we're testing and learning using generative AI. So we understand based on an audience lens, what would likely convert. Those are the use cases that we're finding really meaningful right now for our clients. Yeah. And another use case that clients, you know, are coming to us with and stuff like that is how do you create content at scale. Right? Because that's the biggest, you know, kind of headache because with marketing budgets, you know, kind of, you know, shrinking and stuff like that, or at least, you know, in in some markets and stuff like that, clients need to do more but with less. And, of course, you know, if let's say, for example, a client is a multi market client. Right? They've got, let's say, for example, Europe. They've got Asia where everyone speaks different languages and stuff like that. Right? How can you take an existing piece of content and replicate it at scale? And, you know, I think the, the earlier example about, you know, kind of, you know, language translation and stuff like that. Right? You could record a masterpiece of content in English, and then now you can have it in Japanese, Korean, you know, Spanish, and stuff like that as well. You know, that's, you know, once again, it comes back to the whole idea of how do we solve, you know, kind of certain business problems for clients, you know, in terms of, you know, you know, expanding your budget, but but also extending out your content base, and, you know, volume. Yeah. I think one thing that I'll call out as far as, the ways that we've seen a lot of the creative, content be created. I think we're at this this juncture right now where we have a lot of tools that are used to augment the creative that we have. Right? So when it's done well, you're maybe replacing a background, and you've got a product that you took a studio shoot of, and now your PDPs are, being filled with different backgrounds and different settings, but the same product. Like, that's a a use case that's relatively easy, it's simple, and it's doable today. What we're actually starting to see is brands look at this notion of training on their products. And so the interesting element of these, AI models is that right now, we're going and renting someone else's model. Right? Their model is the style and aesthetic that they've composed and that everyone's kind of borrowing. But we're actually in the open source ecosystem. We've seen a lot of of interest in building and customizing and fine tuning the underlying model so that it has a better understanding of your of your products. You can almost imagine going in and trying to prompt for your product by SKU and DALL E or in MidJourney, and it would have no idea what you're talking about. If I want this product in this setting, it's like, okay. I have no idea about any of your product lines. But when you train the model, it actually has a new language. It has a new vocabulary. And so you can say, hey. You know that product, we wanna see that on the beach. And when it has that type of durability and flexibility, your AI systems now can produce content that has the high quality and fidelity and truth to your product that you can now use to generate creative. And I think that's a very early conversation that brands are having because of the sensitivity of consumer response to AI. But when we're looking at how creative is gonna be produced five to ten years from now, it is not gonna be by borrowing some other company's AI model. You're gonna have this as a core capability of the business and the marketing team. And I think the real question to ask is, do you have people on your team who are adept at using these tools, or are you working with an agency who is adept at using these tools? And that's gonna be an answer that varies by company, but you should have a thought about how you're strategizing where this type of creative control and capability is gonna be housed. Kent, that is a huge point because I think that's the issue is that there's not a lot of people out there that know how to use these tools, that truly can wield these tools effectively and have the bandwidth to start experimenting and, learning how to use them innovatively for their own use cases. Right? So I think that's why it's so important for our teams to become confident on these tools now. Even though they're not ready for consumer facing showtime, it's important that they start to become comfortable and confident so that when it is time and when these tools are ready, we're ready to jump in. And that's a differentiator, at least, for our agency. Yeah. I think I'll add is not just the tool. Right? It's also, a lot of the other things that we've talked about previously on this this call, which is, like, how how do you integrate that into everything else that you're already doing? What assumptions change with how you create content? What assumptions don't change? We still want a good story. We still want something that feels authentic. Right? Those are not different. Yeah. And I think that I'll add that, you know, one of the things that I love about AI right now is it's getting rid of all of the mind numbing stuff that we used to do, a lot of the tedious work, and allowing us to really focus on some of the higher level, creative that we that we do in strategic, work that we do rather than spending it, you know, switching a video, which we do a lot in, podcasting. Believe it or not, that takes, you know, three to four hours. I'd rather have my editor working on higher level creative, for our clients to, increase the creativity, around what we do. Yeah. But to everybody's point, I think it's super important for everybody to, you know, to start using these tools early. And I think it's important, as leaders that we give our our teams ability and access to these tools. So, you know, I'm hoping that that will continue to be adopted over time. Yeah. Training and, you know, empowering of content marketing teams, to make best use of generative AI is gonna be critical. You know, I I and, honestly, I think it's gonna make folks more competitive. I mean, I already know that graduates who are already just interested in using generative AI content are more appealing. You know, I've seen it just here in the office. Right? Or, like, working with clients as we're looking to expand teams. You know, we're looking at who's kind of already at the cutting edge of wanting to use this content and wanting to integrate it into shaving away the mind numbing hours spent like drafting an initial script or story board or getting a visual reference for graphic design. Right? That kind of stuff. But y'all mentioned consumer response as well. That's been part of the conversation and I wanna get more strategic here on linking these two things. Right? The needs that marketing teams have and what's motivating them to even use AI in the first place. And then the sort of opportunity cost balancing that you have to make of like, okay. Yeah. This might save us some time, but like, if consumers hate what we put out there, is it is it worth it? Right? How do we now balance those two needs? So what are y'all's thoughts here on some lessons that can be learned again from some of the backlash around like the Toys R Us ad, for example, and the excitement around the fake Volvo ad as well. And how this should shape future strategies around how marketing teams use these tools for their own needs, but also for the final goal which is to attract consumers and, at the end of the day, generate brand awareness and revenue. Well, it's interesting. I wonder if, anybody has done testing and learning when it comes to these generative AI outputs. So I wonder if Toys R Us used perhaps a synthetic data set to focus group that commercial. I would assume they didn't. But that's something that generative AI can do for us. Right? Like, we could be doing the next advent of AB testing, which is developing a synthetic focus group. And so I think that's how we can understand how consumers are reading and experiencing this this generated generated content through AI. I think that's one of the ways that we can kind of, before we publish, make sure that the consumer sentiment is there and that we're actually meeting the mark. If we're not, then it it needs to be going back to the creative like Kent said. It's all about the good creative, and it it has to be a good story. We have to have great creatives on the task. So if the tool matches the moment, that's great. But But I have a sense that it's going to be layered in when needed, but not necessarily for every project. Yep. And just adding one more, you know, lens on top of that as well. There needs to be kind of a balance between content and commercial. Right? Because anything that we kinda put up there in the wild and stuff that, you know, as as we know, generative AI is a constantly changing landscape and, you know, each, each and every day, you know, new things are being discovered. You know, there's a lot of concerns pertaining to, let's say, for example, the, source material, you know, in terms of, you know, the legalities of, you know, publishing in a public space and stuff there as well. So, you know, kind of, you know, all the creative is being driven at the same time. You know, I think conversation needs to be had in the background pertaining to things like, you know, legalities and and make sure that that the the, commercial team is working in tandem with the, legal team and making sure that you clear all these things. Because the last thing you wanna do is create an amazing piece of content and realize that you can't put it out there for the world to see. Right? I think the the goal is probably what I would focus on is what are you trying to do with this? And if your goal going in is we are going to use generative AI to create an ad, you're probably gonna fail. Right? Because that should not be the objective. The objective should be, how do we create something compelling? How do we create something that would really, really convey the message we wanna communicate? How can we use generative AI to do that as part of the, like, strategy and the tactics of executing on that? But if you change your objective to focus on Gen AI, I think you'll end up shipping something that has Gen AI in it, but very likely misses the mark on the creative. But we can still challenge these marketing teams internally. Right? We can still have fun. I bet Kent, Danny, I bet all of you have a good time playing internally, and I think that's where we can, get innovative without, upsetting the consumer or, not really delivering for our consume our client. Right? So, internally, we have AI challenges, and everybody can do it, not just the creative team. We'll kind of create, like, a prompt, with a few, blank words and and have people kind of get creative with how they wanna provide their own POV on what generative AI can do. So I think that's one of the ways that marketing teams and and companies themselves can start to use these tools and get innovative internally. Yep. And, you know, I think it's about kind of identifying points in your existing work streams where it would add value. Right? So for example, if, you know, I think, Daniel spoke earlier about, you know, things like storyboarding. Right? You know, now you don't need an illustrator to spend two days to kind of draw and bring that to life so that the clients can kind of visualize where this is going. The other piece that, you know, generative AI is quite useful for, is also things like synthetic profiles. Right? So if you wanted to kind of build out a a targeting profile for, you know, for your for your customer or different customer sets, that's something that, generative AI, you know, is, you know, very useful for, right, as well. One thing that you told me that is important Yeah. Important to to dive in on is the giving space and time to the team to play with the tools. Something that you kinda mentioned was doing internal challenges. Some of the, best organizations that we've seen in actually adopting and implementing these tools do stuff like a creative jam every Friday where people have access to the tools. They're given time and space out of the normal workday to say, how do we create something interesting with these? And what lessons can we learn by trying it out and taking on these creative challenges? And I think once you have it a couple of at bats of doing that in a constrained environment where you can get honest feedback from other people, I I think you you end up learning the tools. You end up learning what's possible with them, and you understand where to apply them. Yeah. And I think it's getting back to the end user. At the end of the day, you know, AI and all of these technical things that that we are able to discuss as experts is great, but we always have to keep the end user, at the forefront and have kids look at the Toys R Us ads and say, hey. What do you think about that? Because that at the end of the day, that's really what matters. Right? And that's that's the the front and and the and the flag that I put in the ground is, hey. End user every day. So I think we we gotta go old school. Gotta stay old school in some ways and go back to those focus groups, bringing consumers into a room and saying, hey. What do you think? Because at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter what we say. It matters what that the experience of that end user has. So Hey. I'm a kid at heart, and I saw that Toys R Us ad. I was totally freaked out. Yeah. Right now. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I I don't wanna see, you know, Charles Lazarus generate a generated AI version, like, in the corner of my room, you know. Like, that's it's it's like uncanny valley stuff. But, I I agree with what y'all are saying. And, you know, my tip, I guess, is being in the creative world as well. I tend to go in the direction of get weirder. Like, take more risks with generative AI and embrace the limitations of the platform. I know that, you know, when I was using DALL E in the early days, my friend and I made like a a chiptune eight bit soundtrack to an imagined video game, just like a fun little side project. And we wanted to do visualizers for it. We use DALL E to make, little like square visuals per song that sort of capture the world or the character. And they're very clearly AI. I mean there's, you know, errors all over it. There's fragments. It's weird. It's kind of like a liminal space strange looking visual, but that's the appeal. Right? And I think that marketing teams that can maybe take risks with this content and try to embrace the weirdness or the limitations around the tool will probably capture more of that, spirit, you know, of the next generation that is seeing these tools evolve in real time. I mean, you know, today's kids are watching skeebidi toilet content, which is all which is all using like three d, Gary's mod content. Like, you know, Gary's mod is this old video game. And when I was twelve and on YouTube, they were making Gary's mod, like, YouTube poop content. Right? They're still using the same weird exaggerated three d animation to make memes that relate to today's, you know, young consumers. And so I think marketing teams can take a look at that and say, maybe we don't need to get polish out of these tools. Maybe what we need to get out of these tools is edge, is a question mark, is, you know, something that actually challenges the consumer a little bit. Not in a not in, like, an offensive way of, ew, I don't like the way this looks, but in a, wow, that's a really interesting way to use a dynamic store's first music video. It took about six weeks, and I think they out Sora's first music video. It took about six weeks, and I think they generated about seven thousand clips. And out of those seven thousand clips, they only were able to use fifty five. But that's, an example of something that wasn't possible before. Right? So it's a full zoom. If you watch the video, it's a infinity zoom. And the director actually said that this is something he thought about many years ago, but he wasn't able to do it until Sora until generative AI came along. And so that's, I think, a very successful way that generative AI could be applied. I watched the video and I almost, like, I felt very emotional afterward. I mean, obviously, the music plays a part in that. But I was shocked because there was just something about that video that really, like, hit me emotionally. I would love to hear from you if you have ever heard of it or or watched it before. It was a very ambitious project. Yeah. I mean, I think it it had a lot of the, telltale signs of being generated by Sora. Like, you could still tell some of those pieces. But I think to your point, the purpose was serving this big idea, which was what if we created this kind of infinite Zoom experience where you're kind of, like, continual continuously going through on one shot and kind of exploring this this crazy world and having all this stuff happen. And I think to your point, it it works really well. I'm sure, like, the technology five years from now will look even better, but, like, that idea was made possible by generative AI but existed prior to it. Right? And I think that's the piece that's interesting is the idea is what is creative. The idea is what we are engaging with. Generative AI is just a vehicle for delivering that. Yeah. That's why we have to remember that these are tools and, like, it technology itself the idea of technology is, like, how do we make things easier for ourselves as humans? Right? We're always gonna wanna do things that are easier and less manual, and I think that this is just the next iteration of that. I think there's gonna be a lot less consumer, reaction in a negative way to this stuff as it becomes more adapted and more normal in our world. You know, I think there were a lot of people that didn't wanna have an iPhone when it first came out, and now you can't not have a phone. So I just think that it's it's gonna take some time for the general public to get accustomed to it. These people on this expert panel, we can right away. The general public probably can't. But there's definitely something not right about that Toys R Us ad versus the Soar music video where it's like artistic lens versus we're trying to sell you something and we're not being honest about it. And come, you know, coming from an agency like Summer and stuff as well, you know, we're, you know, we we're kind of used to kind of, you know, trying trying new things and trying, you know, trying to break it. Right? Or kind of combining different things together and stuff. Right? I've always found that, you know, don't try, don't know. Right? So it's really about, how do you kind of mix and match, you know, different use cases in a way that it could could be meaningful. And most importantly, it doesn't always necessarily need to be out there in, you know, the public facing world. Right? Test and learn. Go and release it internally and stuff like that. Get feedback. Build on it again. Add enough that, you know, you know, you, you know, you know, put it as a test project for a client internal kind of, town hall or whatever. Right? So there's, you know, many ways to do it in a safe responsible way, that, allows you to get the experience that you need as as a as a brand without having to necessarily, you know, kinda put yourself, in the line of fire, you know, for instances like this as well. Yeah, Danny. That's such a great point. I go ahead. Yeah. I definitely think it allows you the ability to, create, multiple versions of, you know, let's just say a trailer. Trailers have when they come out, you know, they have made three three to four trailers before we actually see the final one. So you imagine how expensive that is when you have to redo all of that work or or make, multiple versions of that. So I think what, we could do with AI is use it to better optimize a lot of the content by, you know, getting that user feedback. Yeah. And I don't know if we talked about personalization, but I think there's some examples, even like a year or two ago where there's, an Indian commercial where they personalized and change the mouth moving of the individual to speak locally to different stores throughout India. I think JLo also did something specifically where she called out specific radio channels. Do I have that right? Was that the Virgin one, Virgin Voyages? Yes. Yeah. Yes. Exactly. The Cadbury one that you're talking about, the Indian one with, Shah Rukh Khan, I think is a fan. That was that Yeah. That served, you know, to the point it served a business purpose because, you know, Cadbury as a brand wanted to get for a brand love and awareness. But yet on the other hand, you know, it it it was the the goal was to help small, medium enterprises, right, to to come up with, you know, kind of, you know, blockbuster ads without having to pay Shah Rukh Khan and stuff as well. You know? So it it had a social purpose behind it, and that's the reason why it did, you know, fantastically well in India. Yeah. So I think it's really interesting how it's not just necessarily about so so much innovation. It's about personalization. Right? So what if those commercials and those ads could speak specifically to a segment or a region or a person specifically if it's an ad that's delivered right to you? That's exciting. Exactly. Personalization at scale. I think there's, you know, there's there's clients that have come you know, kind of, come to us as well. Because, like, say, for example, the CEO. Right? It says, like, you know, they need to do some sort of personalized Christmas message. Right? But then there's so many different customers and stuff like that. Right? If they can record one, you know, kind of, one one fix, you know, kind of, video, you can actually edit out, you know, the certain parts like name, location, numbers, and stuff as well, using generative AI so that you all of a sudden, you know, now now a thousand people could get a personalized video from a CEO, and it feels, you know, it feels very authentic and it feel, without having to, you know, spend the the time to record a thousand times, basically. Yeah. And I wonder if that makes it up for the consumer. Where there's inauthenticity, there's personalization. So I wonder if there's some sort of, like, wash there. And that's what I'm hoping that we get more information on moving forward. Like I really hope that there are some studies done or AB testing from even individual marketing teams that get a pulse check on how their consumer base responds to generative AI in their campaigns, and how that actually translates to things like social engagement, you know, increased revenue, organic, you know, traffic to their website, whatever it might be. I think that's when we're gonna be able to also get a little more actionable with the implementation of this tech, that, you know, helps bridge the creative goal with the business goal. Right? And so I'm hoping we see more of that here in the future as the technology matures. But I think with that, we'll go ahead and wrap things up. We've touched on a ton today. Y'all have been great. Thank you for your analysis, your perspectives, and your hot takes here on generative AI video content. Clearly, it's still, in a lot of ways, in its infancy, even though we're seeing it mature so quickly. So I have a feeling we're gonna have some follow-up conversations here as we see some new use cases pop up. And I'm excited to see how you all continue to be at the forefront of this as well. But till then, thank you to the four of you for your perspectives today. Again, folks, we've been joined by Ray Smith, cofounder of Speakerbox Media. Danny Wong, VP of growth and innovation at Team Lewes. Summer DuBois, director of operations and agency innovation at public label. And Kent Kersey, CEO of Invoke. Thank you to the four of you, and I'm looking forward to the next Experts Talk with y'all. Thanks, Daniel. Take care. Thank you. And thank you everyone for tuning in to today's episode of Experts Talk. If you like what you heard and saw today and you wanna tap into other previous dynamic expert led conversations, or maybe you wanna get involved on a future one, make sure to head to market scale dot com. You can also ping me on LinkedIn. Shoot me an email, daniel dot litwin at market scale dot com, if maybe you're interested in joining one of our panels in the future. And make sure you don't miss out on future Experts Talk episodes. All right, folks. Signing off for the week. We'll be back next week, as well with the return of the road to the Dallas one hundred, our premier show that showcases the entrepreneurial leaders of the DFW Metroplex as we build up to our big Dallas one hundred celebration later in the year. So lots of juicy content next week, but we'll sign off for now. I'm your host, Daniel Litwin, the voice of b two b. We'll catch you on the next episode of Experts Talk.