Harnessing Creativity and Efficiency in the Digital Age

In the dynamic world of consumer packaged goods (CPG), my curiosity converged on brands, consumer behavior, behavioral economics, and the fascinating field of artificial intelligence. What excites me most about this landscape is AI’s ability to increase efficiency and spark creativity.

AI: an engine of creativity and efficiency

AI is not just a tool; it is a transformative force for creativity, augmenting human ingenuity rather than replacing it. AI will have a profound impact on the workplace and the roles of people working in the creative field. Many people I speak to talk about the limits or limitations of AI, pointing out where it falls short of expectations. This then justifies their lack of adoption.

I encourage everyone on my team to aggressively explore the potential of AI. I understand the apprehension, especially from creatives who fear that AI will encroach on their domain. However, I strongly believe that AI will be an integral part of jobs in the future and those who do not use it will be replaced by those who do.

Demystifying AI: filling the unknown

This is a wave of change, a tsunami, and we have a choice: do we let it wash over us, do we avoid it, or do we embrace it? I advocate that we all ride this wave by rolling up our sleeves, experimenting and adopting AI tools. Consider this: Virtually no creative working today does it in pencil; they use technology to elevate their work. AI is just the next phase of technological advancement.

I recognize that there is a significant challenge in managing change. Not only is this technology new, but it promises to do work that we are paid to do and consider ourselves qualified to do. Due to lingering doubts, I believe it is important to identify those who are exploring the capabilities of AI, celebrate their achievements, and inspire others to follow suit by encouraging early adopters.

AI applications today

In our marketing organization, we use AI in a variety of areas, including copywriting, image generation, ideation, mood boards, metadata tagging, and storyboards. Mood boards, for example, are visual collages essential for conveying the desired aesthetic and emotional tone of a marketing campaign. Before AI, their creation was a painstakingly manual process, involving extensive searches for relevant images, sorting through physical samples, and arranging them to convey a cohesive vision. Now, this process is streamlined, allowing for faster iteration and exploration of various creative directions.

Before AI, copywriting involved a long and tedious task of thinking and writing numerous drafts to find the most compelling copy. With AI-powered copywriting, we save time and generate numerous creative options, allowing us to select the most effective copy, suitable for different audiences and contexts.

Georgia Pacific’s AI initiatives span multiple brands and their impact is notable. The small team engaged in these tasks can now handle a much larger workload, contributing to a more agile and responsive marketing organization.

Objectives and challenges

Looking ahead, we are focused on adoption and experimentation. The tools are only getting more advanced and we need to learn and test. We have designed tools to evaluate our progress. We use software to track our usage, throughput and quality, measuring the timeliness and quality of content compared to the agencies our clients traditionally use. We focus on improving efficiency while improving creative quality. We seek tools to evaluate creative concepts quickly before they launch into the market, ensuring our message resonates personally and authentically.

The impact of AI on businesses and customers

AI is already reshaping our business and enriching the customer experience by personalizing interactions and anticipating customer needs more effectively. For example, we leverage tools to write search engine-optimized texts for the respective content platforms and use eye-tracking models to improve text salience, message hierarchy and brand consistency across our creations. This resulted in more engaging and targeted customer experiences.

We recognize that this is a journey and we are only at the starting line. While there are tools that can produce immediate results, the real value will come from empowered employees who adopt the tools and refine the processes over time. This shift in perspective emphasizes building a sustainable foundation for AI integration rather than simply chasing the newest and shiniest objects.

Over the next 12 months, our organization aims to further leverage AI in predictive analysis of market trends. We plan to gain insights into emerging trends, consumer preferences and market dynamics by leveraging its power to analyze large data sets, which will ultimately allow us to do more work in-house, reduce dependence on external partners, reduce costs and increase our efficiency.

The future of marketing: the role and challenges of AI

Over the next five years, AI will revolutionize the marketing industry, redefining the roles of many professionals. Some positions may disappear, while others will evolve to allow individuals to perform more innovative tasks. Rapidly evolving language models, surpassing human capabilities, will increase pressure to do more with less.

Creative AI, while somewhat gimmicky at present, will improve creativity and ideation. While the industry emphasizes the need for human creativity to explore the unknown, the average person should be concerned about the changing landscape.

Adapting to this transformative time is intriguing and challenging and offers limitless opportunities to those at the top of their creative game. The real challenge is harnessing the potential of AI and informing it effectively – an essential aspect of modern creative work.