Technologies such as artificial intelligence are transforming how marketers can steer the relationship between consumers and brands, from data mining to creating engagement, but humans still rule when it comes to making a consumer fall for a brand.
Building brand love has been upended by the expansion of AI, said speakers at the Brand Innovators Decoding Desire in the Age of AI Summit. Humans are still key players in the process, said speakers, but AI has changed the way consumers discover and engage with brands.
Many speakers noted that marketers are using AI to generate more content at scale, but that has led to the dreaded inflow of “slop” that consumers tune out. Many warned not to confuse attention with intention; being noticed is not the same as influencing consumer behavior.
“It’s not enough to be seen, you’ve got to be desired,” said Tracy Barber, global chief transformation officer of Havas. Recent research showed 84 percent of brands suffer from “indifference,” she said.
The industry needs to shift from chasing visibility to creating desire, said Sarah Collinson, CEO of Havas NY, which hosted the event. She said she was shocked by the 84% statistic and suggested marketers should write it on a Post-it and keep it stuck where they can see it all the time.
“Most brands are not doing anything wrong and are just meh,” said Marc Sinnock, chief digital officer of Havas. “A lot of marketing investment is going to chasing indifference.”
Havas ran a qualitative study with over 90,000 interviews with consumers around the world to explore how people relate to over 2,400 brands and developed a framework to “engineer desire in the way to engage with the audience,” Sinnock explained.
Consumers unconsciously filter out brands from consideration, so don’t sit in the middle, warned Sinnock. Brands need to find out how they can get “shortlisted,” he said.
Marketers need to find a new way to organize themselves to bring human motivation into optimizing their work, to develop a way to connect creativity, media and other practices under the banner of desire, said Sinnock. Younger generations are not easily moved by functional advertising, but need to become enthusiasts before they become loyal to a brand, he explained.
“Those brands that can break though drive fame, equity and demand,” said Sinnock. They build 87% more brand equity than average brands and those brands are four times more likely to be cited by AI, so the technology is reinforcing their relevance. Brand visibility in AI “ is basically the modern-day SEO,” said Mike Marcus, senior director of brand marketing at 1440 Foods.
Many speakers noted the expansion of agentic search means AI is increasingly a factor in the consideration of brands. Yuna Park, senior director of brand strategy & insights at haircare company Nutrafol forecasted that searches will evolve to be less verbal and more picture-based, and driven by consumers’ needs and feelings as agentic search takes hold. Rather than searching for hair care products, a consumer may query an agent on how to get a glow up after a breakup, for example, or ask an agent to search based on a picture of a hairstyle.
From left to right: Carly Crittenden, Chief Revenue Officer, Vidmob; Katie Walmsley, General Manager, Social Media & Creative, Microsoft; Victoria Katsarou, vice president of digital marketing and e-commerce at Ergobaby
“You lose the magic”
Knowing consumer behavior remains important, but gaining that knowledge has changed considerably, said speakers. With help from AI, marketers can process far more data, but the insights are not always useful, especially if the brand wants to home in on emotion.
The biggest mistake brands make when working with AI is to use it at scale, trying to find a one-size-fits-all solution, said Victoria Katsarou, vice president of digital marketing and e-commerce at Ergobaby. Marketers need to think more clearly about what is right for their audience, she said.
“We’ve been in this pursuit of boiling down people into data points” and putting them into spreadsheets “where insights go to die,” said Chad Reynolds, CEO of Vurvey Labs.
Too much focus on data creates a fixation on data points and “makes that the creative brief,” says Jackie Lyons, chief planning officer at Havas Media. “You lose the magic,” she said.
Testing and learning also has evolved with the growth of AI. For example, Vurvey is now creating “people models” to serve as synthetic focus groups, so AI can help analyze sentiment and test concepts at scale. Focus groups are too limited, with participants often holding back or tailoring their answers, said Reynolds.
“The best part of a focus group is walking someone to their car,” said Reynolds. Often, it is during those unguarded moments that their real feelings surface, he said.
Mike Marcus, senior director of brand marketing at 1440 Foods
“It’s not AI against humanity”
Many speakers also noted that ironically, AI has made creativity more important, now that data and targeting are more easily available.
“Creative is more important than ever,” said Marcus, of 1440 Foods. “That’s what’s going to make AI work.”
A number of marketers stressed they don’t rely on technology to generate creative, but mostly to free up resources and handle supportive tasks.
Katsarou said Ergobaby has never used AI to create a campaign and she doesn’t expect to, since the brand is dealing with babies and parents. People are suspicious of AI, she said.
“Everyone has to be extremely careful with AI generated creative,” said Katie Walmsley, general manager, social media & creative at Microsoft. “I don’t think I’ve seen AI-generated creative that featured a human being that I thought was a good idea.”
She noted she very rarely creates end-to-end content with just AI, but instead uses it in a few key places, such as creating mockups to sell an idea. The technology only works with human oversight, she said. Walmsley said the tools will get better to allow AI to scale human creativity, but she doesn’t see it replacing creatives
“All good creativity has at its center an insight that is so true to a human, no AI can approximate it,” she said.
AI makes it more important than ever that brands have a firm and clear brand promise, said Nicole Portwood, chief marketing officer of StyleLife. If it is connected with the core of the brand, it will stay firm over time, but the way it is communicated changes over time. Brands need to create more engaging creative assets as opposed to brand-driven push-messaging in order to create desire.
“Now that we have access to these targeting tools, the creative is more important than ever,” said Portwood. “We’ve come full circle.”
From left to right: Caitlin McGlynn, Head of Marketing, Drizzilicious; Taki Nakatani, global brand director of House of Suntory; Nate Ohl, Manager Paid Social Media & Youtube Activation, Bayer
AI can’t keep up with humans in creating desire for some experiences that require human senses, said speakers. Matters of taste still call for human input, they said.
Taki Nakatani, global brand director of House of Suntory, said AI has helped the Japanese liquor marketer, but there are limits to what it can do. AI can’t create flavors or tell what tastes good, he said.
“It’s not AI against humanity,” he said. “It’s about how we can live together.”
