AI is transforming the world of marketing from how consumers search to how marketing departments operate, said brand leaders during The Brand Innovators Marketing Leadership Summit during the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
“This is a major change for marketers,” said Rustom Dastoor, executive vice president, head of marketing and communications for the Americas, Mastercard. “Perhaps the last time we have seen this level of disruption, you’d have to go back to the nineties and the advent of the digital revolution. We are at the start of something exceptional, there is no question about that.”
Dastoor shared how he recently used ChatGPT to plan a family vacation to Chicago. He shared everyone in the family’s interests, duration and a budget and was given a perfect itinerary with a great flight, hotel, activities and even a backup plan for a rainy day. From a consumer standpoint it was awesome, he said, but there were no marketing messages.
“For a marketer, it was daunting because I wasn’t influenced by an airline or a hotel or restaurant,” said Dastoor. “So there is a real risk that my next consumer may never see a marketing message from me and that is something we’ve got to start preparing for and working towards.”
Mark Kirkham, chief marketing officer at PepsiCo
AI within the marketing department
Marketers also discussed the benefits of AI in the creation of marketing campaigns – which can offer efficiencies, cut down timelines and create dynamic creative at lower costs. While some people are worried about AI as a jobs killer, most executives expect a shift in jobs.
“I think human creativity, as it has in the past, just needs to adapt to new tools,” said Mark Kirkham, chief marketing officer at PepsiCo. “And we need to leverage AI and think about agentic marketing as an enabler, as a partner on the journey, as a way to be a little bit quicker, more efficient, as a way to create more dynamic creative and lower cost but ultimately creativity starts with a great idea and those come from people.”
Kirkham stressed that the key to embracing new technology is to do it responsibly.
From left to right: Cammy Keiler Bjorklund, vice president of marketing & brand at Alembic; Franziska Bell, chief AI, data & analytics officer at Ford
Franziska Bell, chief AI, data & analytics officer at Ford recommends being user centric and falling in love with the problem, not the tech, but using the tech to help solve the problem.
“It is really important to deeply understand the problem to solve,” she added “to maximize the benefits of it.”
For AI adoption and transformation to happen at scale within organizations, the tech, the culture and the leadership mindset all have to happen at the same time, said Bell.
“Given how quickly AI moves you cannot sequence these things, they all have to happen at the same time and really pick up the company where it is at,” said Bell, who also stressed the importance of “business process optimization.”
From left to right: Matthew Duncan, head of AI at Microsoft; Ashley Travis, Sr. director media, loyalty, digital merchandising, Pizza Hut
AI can be a powerful tool in business, and those people that think about AI as a teammate and have conversations with their AI platform will get the most benefit, said Matthew Duncan, head of AI at Microsoft. Ask it to help you prepare for a meeting and to find the weakness in your presentation and it can amplify your human assets and ability.
“If we think about this as just a technology, we are missing the boat,” said Duncan. “We need to think about it as a new way of working and yeah, who does not want to have a thought partner or a co-pilot or a companion to really figure out how to amplify the things that you’ve got to get done in a day and make you look better.”
From left to right: Derek Dabrowski, SVP, head of cold brand marketing, Keurig Dr Pepper; Rebecca Panico, vice president, global head of media, marketing and loyalty at Hilton
Social voices
As AI adoption grows and seeps into the world, it makes more decisions about what consumers see, giving more voice to social influencers and consumers talking about brands. This increases the importance of brands to let go of the reins and give the voice to others.
“There is a direct correlation between market share and conversation,” said Derek Dabrowski, SVP, head of cold brand marketing, Keurig Dr Pepper.
“What we are learning, especially in a world of AI and generative engines, those engines are prioritizing other people besides you as the brand talking about you and their engine,” said Rebecca Panico, vice president, global head of media, marketing and loyalty at Hilton.
“When people talk about you positively or negatively that is what is fueling these content engines and so we have to be comfortable as brands letting go of our narrative to let others talk about,” she said.
