The 5 Gen-AI Arenas Where Marketers Already Win

Where do you start when every feed screams: AI Agents, LLM and Gen-AI? And should you care?

First things first, future of management will move away from the current structure of CTO→VP/Director→everyone else and will be recast to CTO→GenAI Lead→GenAI enthusiasts in pods→everyone else. And the biggest hit is middle-management.

If this is true, this will have huge implications for the workforce. Both good and bad.

1. The current directors who are comfortable in their roles are about to be moved aside and replaced by genAI-leaders and enthusiasts who aren’t specifically trained or experienced in their role. They won’t replace someone with a title like Director of Technology or Director of Marketing. But they will make those roles obsolete. Stay with me. I’m getting there.

2. Young, smart, fearless grads are the perfect candidates for this role – they don’t need to experts but need to know how to translate what they heard their exec directed them to do. In fact, major industry leaders like WPP have developed specialty Coursera training for their employees to level up their technical and AI skills and promises to “smash through traditional siloes” in their manifesto on The AI-Empowered Agency.

3. This shake up, when it occurs, will hit all industries, this isn’t marketing specific. But marketing is known to be top-heavy, with a lot of “lifers” hanging on tooth and nail to their jobs and working hard to prove their value and worth. But they will sadly be automated-out unless they evolve. I’m looking at you, my middle-aged senior director. Oh, wait that just my reflection in the mirror…\

   
   

   

   (eMarketer, July 2024. https://content-na1.emarketer.com/unlocking-power-of-genai)

If this all started to feel a little dark, don’t worry. You’re not locked out. Let me help you dissect the top 5 Arenas where GenAI is making big wins!

Arena 1 - Creative

1. Why It Works, now - Text models are cheap, copyright risk is low(er)

2. High-Impact Easy Wins - Generate text & headlines, user-generated content boosters, workflow automation

3. What It Means, tomorrow - Beware sameness—GPT copy + stock art does not a brand make.

When we all value our time and the process, the last thing we want to do is to show the client how that ad will look with a white background vs light gray background or a light-egg-shell-yellow background. You get the point. Just click and AI has that done. All you need to do is get the client to approve them – because that’s not time consuming (lol). But just watch out – if you didn’t pay for the stock image before you changed, who owns the rights to it? And if you are using it and then see another brand, or worse of all, a competitor use the same image – who will you blame since there are no set copyright laws?

(eMarketer September 2024. https://content-na1.emarketer.com/generative-ai-ad-creative)

Arena 2 Strategy & Planning

1. Why It Works, now - Media APIs + LLMs = instant scenario testing

2. High-Impact Easy Wins - Campaign-level optimization, automated media plans

3. What It Means, tomorrow - Garbage in, garbage out: feed it stale assumptions, get stale forecasts.

The world I’ve lived in for 20 years. So much to optimize. So many lines of media to review. Now we can load the plans into a Media API and VOILA! A brand-spanking-new plan in minutes. As my professor recently called GIGO – or garbage in/garbage out. If you don’t have the right research, don’t have past scenarios or are working with outdated brand assumptions. As beautiful as your output will look, it will just be lies! And your client will know you didn’t do your homework. Yep, like the lawyer that tried to pass ChatGPT written court documents and got fired – so will you.

(eMarketer October 2024. https://content-na1.emarketer.com/generative-ai-advertising-media-strategy)

Arena 3 Targeting

1. Why It Works, now - First-party data + real-time look-alikes

2. High-Impact Easy Wins - Finding the right audience, platform performance tuning, message personalization

3. What It Means, tomorrow - Data privacy laws tighten the screws—stay compliant or pay.

You cannot have strategy or media without targeting. The machine-learned look-alikes have been around for well over a decade and they are getting smarter. But so are the privacy laws. You’ll either pay a lot to buy your target audience legitimately or pay even more if you get to them by cutting corners. Either way, the moral of this dilemma is called “expensive.”

(eMarketer October 2024. https://content-na1.emarketer.com/generative-ai-for-ad-targeting)

Arena 4 Retail Experience

1. Why It Works, now - Consumers reward frictionless curation

2. High-Impact Easy Wins - Product recommendations, shopping assistants

3. What It Means, tomorrow - Over-personalization can feel creepy; test sentiment.

As a consumer I love seeing the evolution of this space. It is so fun to see great customized recommendations just for me simply based on a small and honest survey. “But do I need that item customized” …I thought too late. They now have my data and where will that be stored, who will have it and what happens if its “leaked” or “stolen?” There is reciprocity to sharing my data (as Shonah Zuboff points out in her book on Age of Surveillance Capitalism). But is the tradeoff always fair? And who decides the metrics of fairness? That reciprocity calculus is now being decided—see California’s SB 362.

(eMarketer July 2024. https://content-na1.emarketer.com/generative-ai-personalization-retail)

Arena 5 B2B Growth

1. Why It Works, now - Long-tail search and ABM need constant content

2. High-Impact Easy Wins - Content creation/ideation, SEO keyword generation, personalized outreach

3. What It Means, tomorrow - Tone drift—LLMs can flatten niche expertise if unchecked.

This is my favorite beneficiary of gen-AI, along with SMBs. They have the least to spend and the most to lose if things go sideways. But they also have the most to gain if things go their way. What a “democratization” and “equalizer” that I small businesses have been looking for. They don’t need to hire a huge agency or pay an expensive consultant to get great results. The rules from the previous 4 Arenas being met they now have an opportunity to compete in a space with the biggest brands in natural search and organic and owned space. But make one wrong move and you’ll lose your identity and blend in with the rest.

(eMarketer October 2024. https://content-na1.emarketer.com/generative-ai-b2b-marketing)

If you haven’t caught it yet. There are 3 things hidden rules that string the 5 Arenas together.

1. Workflow efficiency improves ROI for you, your company, your client, and the customer. The simplified approach created by gen-AI, if implemented correctly will give everyone value back in time.

2. Low/no code beats deep code. We are all just trying to get things to work in basic language. Someone else already did the hard work we simply need to use the prompts to style it, design it, measure it and test it.

3. Personalization is authenticity. If it retains the brand voice. If it’s not too much “like” some other thing but has a strong backbone. It wins in every Arena it plays in.

If you follow these rules, you’ll be ready to move your practice and your business to the “blue boxes”. Remember, you don’t have to do it all at once. Start with one area where you can test your “big bet” and go for it. Dedicate yourself to it. Get others on board. Structure for it. You’ll likely hit some snags.

GenAI won’t replace marketers in this new format, it moves the busy-work out of the equation so you can explore.

Early in my career in digital, I was told – “if it doesn’t feel right, then it probably isn’t.” While charting the uncharted remember to check-in with your gut because if the tactic feels predatory, it probably is. Reroute!

Tell me which arena you’re piloting first.