Marketing Inspiration #21 - Fit chicks, keeping it simple, and harnessing AI as your PA

Welcome to your monthly dose of inspo to boost your marketing mojo

Here are some brand new insights from Automated Creative’s Shiny New Object podcast, where senior brand leaders share their vision for the future of marketing.

“Say it with one simple message and repeat it often” - Stephanie Bonnet, Head of Corporate Communications, EDF UK

Find the message that is true to your company’s authentic value proposition and stick with it, is Stephanie’s top marketing tip. Creating a recognisable language and set of messages around your brand will pay dividends for engagement and consideration. Too many marketers jump around from one campaign to another without sticking to one core message. This dilutes the impact of their creative and makes consumers less likely to create a strong association between their product and their campaigns.

Instead, say it simply and repeat it often to create instant brand recognition and better results.

“Great marketing should be a pleasurable experience” - Catriona Walkerden, VP, Global Marketing, Logicalis

Catriona’s Shiny New Object is sustainability in marketing. On the podcast, we talked about everything from when to take the initiative and when to put your hand up and ask for help, to how and why marketers need to be more sustainable regardless of their seniority.  

One of her top tips focuses on the consumer experience: rather than feeling like you’re being sold to, how about changing approaches so that marketing is enjoyable? As humans, we like to read interesting content that we don’t find every day, and we like to enjoy events for what they are rather than being propositioned constantly. So, Catriona’s advice is to keep networking events focused on the pleasurable aspect (knowledge sharing, or whatever else that may be) and to produce content that’s genuinely interesting. 

-

“ChatGPT is a great starting point, but it’s no substitute for the human side.” - Madlen Nicolaus, former VP Marketing EMEA, SAP Concur

Madlen has turned ChatGPT into a virtual assistant, experimenting with it to reduce time spent on admin. She will run emails through it to speed up summarising them or preparing a response. She also uses the AI language model to rephrase content whenever she wants a quick change or to get over the “blank page syndrome” when she doesn’t know where to start with an internal announcement or something similar.

No, ChatGPT is not at a level where it can take over from human creativity. Madlen would never rely on it to create advertising copy or design her marketing strategy. But, it’s a great first step to finding efficiencies through tech. For a busy executive who balances work with an even busier family life, it can be one of her many tools to optimise and make life easier overall.

Automated Creative Case Study - Jim Beam Orange

When Edrington UK launched a new flavour of Jim Beam, we created a campaign to support offline sales in Asda stores through Meta and YouTube ads. Through our work, we beat the benchmarks of Video Completion Rate and doubled media value by lowering the awareness CPM.

Thanks to using AC, Edrington could also gather important insights into the DNA of a top performing ad for their target audience.

Read more about this case study here.

AC in the Press

Dan Moseley, our MD of North America, shared his thoughts in Performance Marketing World on the AI arms race between the tech giants, like Alibaba. Dan reminds brands that they should remain excited and experimental in this space while keeping data as their north star.

This month’s ‘Best Marketing Tip’

“Everyone talks about things differently - if you forget that, your marketing campaign is for yourself.”

On Advertisers Watching Ads, we debated the merits of K-Lynn Lingerie’s changes to their website to support breast cancer self-checking awareness. Despite the brand having a noble goal, it’s not quite hitting the mark when the execution is not crystal clear.

As Tom Webster, EMEA Paid Social Media Manager at Cisco & Co-Owner and Communications Manager for DMC Brewery, put it, this is a trap that many tech companies fall into - thinking everyone will understand your language and your acronyms. K-Lynn also suffered from it when it came to creating simple and effective marketing.
Watch the episode here and see if you agree.

And there is more Marketing Inspiration this past month on Advertisers Watching Ads - our show where brands watch other brands’ ads and discuss their merits and failings, in partnership with Contagious.

This month, we watched a strange musical number with singing pints and debated whether Guinness should have played with a winning formula in their ad for non-alcoholic beer…

And we wondered whether counting hens’ steps is “a step too far” by Honest Eggs Co. with their FitChix ad:

Do you want to share your thoughts about these ads or suggest a new one for us to debate? Email us on hello@automatedcreative.net.

–

How to Make it in Marketing

“You either love marketing or you love a product. Decide which type of marketer you are.” - Talia Gerecitano, Film Marketing Lead at Apple

In “How to Make It in Marketing Vol. 1,” we’ve put together top advice from the marketing world’s leaders about how to lay your path to your dream career in the industry. Apple Film Marketing Lead Talia Gerecitano thinks you should find out whether you enjoy selling as an activity in itself (regardless of what your product is) or whether you’re the type of marketer who falls in love with their product.

Either approach works. For Talia, because she’s always loved entertainment, she’s chosen jobs that all have this in common. That passion then led to her learning the skills she needed to succeed in advertising and marketing. However, if you’re fascinated by how marketing works, how people react to various stimuli, or how data informs decision-making for campaigns, you can hone your skills in the activity you love the most. You’ll be in a good position to then apply those to any type of product.

This is just one tip among the 45 different pieces of advice waiting for you in our FREE e-book. Download it here now. 

—

Finally, here are some ads you should have seen - via our friends at Contagious:

If you want to receive this newsletter regularly, subscribe here.

 
Automated Creative