AI ENTHUSIASM IS CREATING A STRATEGY CRISIS

LinkedIn is AI trigger-happy. There’s lots of talk about replacing art and marketing-focused jobs with AI, but we’re forgetting the point of the jobs in the first place.

Our excitement behind AI is often at the expense of strategy.

Here’s a LinkedIn post on the platform from January of 2024:

The post suggests that this AI photo (created in Midjourney, the leading text-to-image platform) is market-ready. It argues for the replacement of actual photoshoots for computer-generated imagery to cut costs and save time.

I’m 100% behind using new tools to generate inspiration, streamline workflows, and open new creative frontiers— but I don’t do so with reckless optimism.

The Conversation That Isn’t Happening

Notice online conversations around AI usually revolve around replacing artists and copywriters as if their sole outputs are a string of words or images. You never hear about an AI-replaced CEO. These jobs are discussed as if they’re expendable due to better technology and the desire to cut costs. Where’s the pitch for eliminating the highest-paid positions on top for an AI trained in C-suite functions? That sounds like a bigger cost-cutting move, no? If AI is powerful enough to eliminate or drastically cut entire departments, why is it never suggested as a way to thin down upper-level management with the highest salaries?

This line of thinking ignores the strategy and complex reasoning present in creative fields. Meanwhile, it spares the positions on top. This isn’t a new sentiment. Companies can slip into the line of thinking that a good product can sell itself and that marketing, advertising, and branding expenses are a “nice to have” instead of a “need to have”.

The Consequences of Downplaying Marketing Departments

Suggesting large parts of marketing departments are downsizeable has downstream effects.

It’s hard to argue that big cultural moments like the Barbie movie could’ve successfully nabbed the position of the 14th highest-grossing film of all time in less than a year if they’d gotten lazy with the marketing budget. The strength came from a smart marketing strategy that created cross-channel marketing materials that resonated around the globe, die-hard Barbie fan or not.

Another example in the world of CPG is Liquid Death, the bottled water company. The company's yearly revenue skyrocketed from $2.8M to $260M in four years. In 2021, 10% of revenue came from merchandise… for a brand that sells canned water. The company kills it with branding and advertising with messaging that’s completely differentiated from other bottled water brands.

Slashing the marketing department for a small team because of cost-cutting via AI-generated content can’t achieve these results. Implying that marketing departments are largely able to be downsized ignores other functions that these teams carry out. When marketing departments are discussed as a company’s pretty picture creator, it undercuts the arm that generates insights based on the strategy.

Undercutting marketing departments— the ultimate result of mass AI replacement proposals— sets brands up for disaster in the long run.

(Mis)alignment With Brand DNA

Back to the original post’s proposed fitness AI image created for a Nike Yoga ad. It’s very execution via AI completely misses the brand’s vision statement: “We see a world where everybody is an athlete — united in the joy of movement. Driven by our passion for sport and our instinct for innovation, we aim to bring inspiration to every athlete in the world and to make sport a daily habit.”

Brands play both inspirational and aspirational roles for consumers. AI images replacing real athletes for ads say that the brand is willing to cut costs and real fitness models and athletes who put in the work. It goes back to the Nike mission to “serve athletes” with the quick qualifier “If you have a body, you are an athlete.” The AI image doesn’t have a body and can never replace the essence of a living breathing brand ambassador.

Final Thoughts: Strategic Safeguards

This is why we have creative strategists. To push back against “let’s just replace it with AI” and strategically consider the implications of our art and design no matter the tools we use. We consider a brand’s core mission, vision, and purpose, keep us on-brief, and execute those across creative outputs. The image is cool, but a creative team isn’t just hired for a pretty picture.

Read my proposal for building a strategic and ethical AI department here.