AI is gradually transforming the future of digital marketing

In the age of short-term virality and data-driven marketing, brands and advertising creatives are turning to generative AI for a more focussed and efficient digital marketing strategy

Artificial Intelligence (AI), formerly relegated to the realm of sci-fi novels and movies, has finally emerged as a dominant capitalist tour de force with potential to alter or upend most industries around the globe. Everything from healthcare to banking, from finance to transportation, and even agriculture, stands to be transformed by what is broadly considered to be the next industrial revolution in the post-industrial era. 

This tectonic shift to an AI-centric approach is particularly evident in the world of digital marketing and advertising. For advertising firms, the use of generative AI is accompanied by the promise of shorter turnaround times and drastically lowered budgets. Just as the Industrial Revolution bypassed the constraints of muscular fatigue, AI is bypassing the constraints of creative fatigue. 

According to Nikhil Bose, CEO and co-founder of Dox, generative AI softwares like ChatGPT, Dall-E and Midjourney have enabled creative directors to create key art, mood boards, storyboards, and presentations for ad campaigns within seconds. “AI-generated voices are good place holders for scratch (concept) videos we show clients. The quality of the concept is very important to convey and sell our idea to them” says Bose, whose company is a part of the Creativeland Asia Group with a client roster that includes Netflix India and Godrej among others. 

The risk of being repetitive

From a purely creative perspective, recruiting AI to do all the legwork is akin to striking a Faustian bargain of sorts. For many advertising veterans, including ad filmmaker Prahlad Kakkar, generative AI is essentially a glorified form of creative theft. And we are yet to witness the full ramifications of generative AI’s wanton copyright violations. “AI can only conjure things up from the past, from what’s been fed to it. It can’t imagine a future” says Kakkar. “AI can do a cut-paste job. It can address a creative block in the short run, but without human inputs at a very early stage of ideation, AI is likely to get very repetitive. Think about it—all brands using the same softwares to create content are likely to find similar scripts” he adds. 

Targetting the right audience

Kakkar however, represents the old guard, and echoes the thoughts of legacy admakers who, arguably, haven’t grappled with the potential that AI holds, in a manner that young, up-and-coming agencies have. Young creative professionals like Bose remain gung-ho about the prospects of AI, especially when cost economics are taken into consideration. “New, digital-first ad agencies have embraced AI fully because they market on social media and Youtube, which means their budgets are smaller and, in most cases, their clients are smaller as well. We need to put up several posts on Instagram, so the per-post cost cannot be very high” he explains, adding that legacy ad agencies tend to have big companies or big start-ups which go for TVCs, billboard ads, and so on. “At a digital agency, with a team of a dozen people or so, it’s easier to educate people on AI tech and have everyone using it in a few hours”. acquemus

But some of India’s largest brands are wholly embracing AI, if not from the point of view of ad ideation, then from a broad-spectrum marketing perspective. According to Shashank Srivastava, executive director at Maruti Suzuki, “We are now using AI for our marketing campaigns for both spend and reach optimisation. Earlier we had adopted the ‘spray and pray’ method, where we used a lot of media and hoped that it would find the right consumer,” says Srivastava, who deals with the country’s largest car consumer base. Maruti Suzuki, India’s largest carmaker for decades, is no longer simply a maker of budget hatchbacks. For instance, its Nexa division caters to a more premium client base whose purchases can cost upwards of ₹20 lakh, on-road. Now, more than ever, it’s imperative that ads for mass mobilisers, such as the best-selling WagonR, don’t reach those looking for a midsize SUV or vice versa. 

AI to understand potential consumers 

AI is also helping the brand create a more detailed consumer profile. Tools can use a customer’s ownership history to determine not only their next purchase, but those of their family members who’ve come of age. But it’s not just about more effective reach and instant ideation. For brands like Maruti Suzuki, whose consumer count is in millions, AI chatbots are also utilised to address everyday consumer queries. “Ninety-seven per cent of our customers who’ve reached out to us with a service query have been addressed by chatbots. Handling the queries of such a wide consumer base is essential,” says Srivastava. 

Things are a bit different on the luxury end of the spectrum, where personalisation is key at every level. “When you’re dealing with lower volumes in the luxury segment, like us, we prefer a more personal approach,” says Santosh Iyer, managing director and CEO of Mercedes-Benz India. According to Iyer, Mercedes-Benz—which holds the largest market share in the luxury automobile segment—has already begun AI-based pilot programmes, which have shown promise. But when asked whether the brand can bypass marketing agencies in the future, Iyer says, “Automation of the marketing function takes away the soul of the marketeer, especially for luxury brands. If we are to use AI, it should be to improve the quality of the consumer digital experience. Just measuring clicks on banner ads doesn’t directly increase sales.” 

Iyer’s humanist approach is one that’s supported by veterans like Kakkar. “Ultimately an ad has to tell a story. If there’s no human element in the story, it won’t resonate with people. There will be no recall value, despite the repetition,” shares Kakkar.  

It can be argued that Maruti Suzuki’s sheer market dominance today exists in part due to the television commercials in the golden age of Indian advertising. Be it the dad who is more forgiving of his son’s grades as long as he’s driving the Esteem or the corporate executive who, unfazed by a cancelled flight, decides to drive for 350 kilometres in his Baleno, the ads forged a path every time the brand was moving into new territory. But there’s no unringing the AI bell. Not according to Srivastava, who does foresee content creation for the brand, using AI. “Even knowing the audience and their affinity is done on the basis of AI tools. So it helps us create more specific types of ads. We’re looking at vast possibilities of content creation using AI—it is going to be a very important part of our overall marketing campaigns”. 

However, Srivastava doesn’t see the brand bypassing the agency route anytime soon. “It’s going to be a mix for us. With AI, we can pursue an omni-channel marketing approach. We’ll know about the consumers’ driving patterns, purchasing patterns, and conduct preventive safety checks. We’ll also see greater returns on ad-spend. Our ability to predict the conversion rate of an inquiry turning into a sale, is much higher, all thanks to AI,” he concludes. 

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