Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made advertising and marketing more dynamic and interactive. Digital screens with AI technology can change advertisements in real-time based on weather, traffic, and even the time of day, ensuring more relevant and engaging ads, potentially increasing conversion rates.
Speaking about AI transforming the overall advertising strategy for marketers, Vineeth Viswambharan, Associate Vice President, Marketing & Sales, Adani Wilmar said, “We are using AI today as a brainstorming tool.” He highlighted that AI assists in discussions but faces challenges in generating the final consumer-facing creative piece due to complexities in emotional and rational decision-making for product purchases. Despite progress, AI is not deemed fully capable of creating the optimal stimulus.
Viswambharan stressed, “We are using AI as a partner in the journey, you may start with posing a problem to a language model. Sometimes you will be astonished by the kind of advice that you get. You can use AI as a way to facilitate strong triggers in the creative process.”
On the evolving nature of traditional advertising channels and strategies to embrace AI, Ashish Tewari, Associate Vice President, Digital Marketing, Lodha emphasised that AI enables a much faster throughput, many options and control. The technology enables tracking the progress of campaigns in real-time which enables much faster course correction.
He added, “You can identify what’s working and what’s not, it gives you a much stronger control over the process of your campaign and spending. It allows control over potential issues such as click frauds. Anything that comes across as an anomaly in the process would take a lot longer to catch earlier, by which time you’d already have spent a good chunk of your campaign spending. Now, you can identify this in real-time and respond to it accordingly.”
In a discussion about incorporating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into organisation's business strategy, Amit Sethiya, Head of Marketing, Syska Group sheds light on the significant role mass media plays in the fast-moving electrical goods category. He shared, “You must’ve seen Syska advertisements on the television, with Irrfan Khan or more recently, Rajkumar Rao. This is something that’s required to ensure that you are visible to the customers. When you look at the AI side of that, it will work only when you have the digital footprint of the customer.”
He further notes the challenges in obtaining organic digital footprints. In his perspective, the concept of AI encounters hurdles when customers are not naturally inclined to leave a digital trail. “Nobody is bothered to leave their digital footprint organically, for us, the concept of AI goes for a toss because there is nothing that I can use to start engaging and interacting with the customers. The majority of our business is done in the offline space, for us it is imperative to understand which part of the country is looking at what kind of demand, that’s a space where AI helps me”, remarked Sethiya.
The 18th edition of BW Marketing Whitebook Summit took place at Taj Santacruz on December 8, 2023 wherein industry experts engaged in insightful discussions covering around the theme, '#iammarketer: From Gen AI To Gen Z.'