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How do luxury brands maximize experiences in sports events? I attended the 2025 Monte-Carlo Masters, which showed a strong presence of elite brands fighting for high-end customer engagement. Brands such as Rolex, Sergio Tacchini, and Replay can be found advertised almost everywhere at the famous tennis tournament. These brands use the values of this tennis tournament’s identity, which are class, prestige, excellence, and exclusivity, to reinforce their brand image. In this article we will be looking into the strategy behind premium companies and their connection to the Monte-Carlo Masters Tennis Tournament. 

Luxury Brands Maximize Experiences in Sports Events

This photo was made using Midjourney and Adobe Photoshop.

Sports Sponsorship in Luxury Branding

Luxury brands have had a history of gravitating towards sports such as tennis, golf and equestrian sports because these sports emphasized precision, elegance, and tradition. Brands saw that it seemed like a good fit for their deluxe identity due to the traditional affluent audiences that these sports offered.

Only the best of the best athletes competing at these events align with the values of the most luxurious brands that they are the best of what they do. These brands are able to prolong their exclusivity while opening up visibility to sports viewership.

As brands become bigger and sports viewership grows, stylish brands are opening up to collaborations with bigger sports that may not have as much class or prestige, such as football and basketball. 

Strategic Brand Positioning at the Monte-Carlo Masters

What once was known as the Monte-Carlo Masters is now known as the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters. Rolex has positioned themselves front and center at a prestige tournament. Not only are they in the title of the tournament, they are on the logo and can be found everywhere at the tournament itself.

Another brand that has strategically positioned itself is Sergio Tacchini. Being at the tournament itself, it is impossible to miss; every ball kid and many employees working for the tournament wear a piece of clothing from Sergio Tacchini. Just being at the tournament, you are constantly being advertised to, whether you realize it or not; everywhere you look, you are reading another brand name.

Other brands, such as Maserati and Emirates, help back the elitist and prestigious image of the tournament.

Monaco, home of the tournament, is known for its wealth as well as its opulent residents, one more reason to advertise an elegant brand, as the target market is mainly wealthy individuals. “According to the World Population Review, Monaco is the richest country in the world in terms of GDP per capita and is regarded as the “billionaires’ playground.”

Celebrities and top-level athletes being at the tournament make being at the event feel like it’s only for those of wealth, class, and elegance. 

This photo was made using Midjourney and Adobe Photoshop.

Brand and Customer Experiences 

Some of the most exclusive experiences at the Monte-Carlo Masters are sponsored by posh brands. VIP lounges and luxury suites are curated for high-end customers and guests.

Additionally, behind-the-scenes access, meet-and-greets with athletes, and fancy gifting moments allow brands to showcase their exclusivity even more to only those that can afford them. Hospitality packages include gifts, discounts, special access, and events made to feel extraordinarily classy. 

The Société des Bains de Mer (SBM), which is responsible for venues at the event, creates gourmet dining opportunities as well as private lounges mimicking luxury brands.

Customers at the Monte-Carlo Masters are rewarded just by being at the event itself. These rewards include access to limited edition merchandise, entries to giveaways or raffles, and the opportunity to use the VR Tennis simulator.

To further show status of class and order, boutiques at the event are limited to a certain amount of people at a time to prevent cluttering.

When a customer buys a ticket for the tennis match, they are not just coming to watch one game, they are spending practically the whole day there. Even in between matches there are activities to be done around the venue.

These activities include, finding something to eat (there are a lot of choices), VR tennis simulator, walking around and exploring the area, shopping in the countless boutiques and tennis stores.

Scarcity and “Limited Edition”

The value of going to a sports event comes from the electric anticipation of not knowing what will happen. Fans come to witness firsthand the action and to purchase limited edition products showing they were there. Rolex and other brands offer merchandise exclusive to the event itself, signifying someone was at the event.

A piece of limited edition merchandise to show you were at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters is also an advertisement every time you wear it in public.

Short-term promotions and exclusive collaborations build a sense of urgency used to encourage customers to buy their product. Brands use this to drive up their exclusivity, giving only people that were at the event a chance to purchase something that will remind them of how special that moment was. 

This photo was made using Midjourney.

Content and Social/Digital Media

Social media has completely changed this world as we know it, and that is not only limited to the social aspect, but it has changed the business world drastically. Content creation is a great way to gain publicity, and what better place than a sports event to promote your upscale brand? Brands such as Replay and Malongo took advantage of this event sponsorship and made social media promotions showing their collaboration with the renowned event.

Rolex and Tennis

Rolex has been partnering with tennis for 46 years, since 1978.

Made with Napkin AI.

Key Statistics about Luxury Brands in Sports Events

These statistics show that the tournament continues to improve their technology and assets. Furthermore increasing their brand identity relating to top class.

Maximizing luxury brands customer engagement in sports events: facts and figures about the 2025 Monte-Carlo Masters – infographic done with Canva

Conclusion

Classy, lavish brands strive to take advantage of events such as the Monte-Carlo Masters tournament to build brand identity and to increase publicity. The Monte-Carlo Masters serves as a sort of “playground” for luxurious brands to strategize, promote, and attach themselves to the values that the event portrays.

Brands that strive to align with excellence, class, prestige, and elitism promote themselves using the Monte-Carlo Masters to represent these traits. These companies take advantage of the tournament knowing that the audience is generally wealthier.

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If you are dying to understand the various GenAI prompting methods, how AI interacts with your prompt, and why this is key to optimising your results, this free prompting guide was made for you. This manual describes GenAI chatbots and the different methods of prompting. It was put forward by Frederic Cavazza, a digital transformation expert, consultant and speaker with over 25 years of experience.

A Free Prompting Guide for Aspiring GenAI Experts

This free GenAI prompting guide written by Frederic Cavazza was translated and adapted by yours truly.

I’ve known Frederic Cavazza for years and I’ve even had the pleasure of working on a few engagements with him. As we were on our way to a GenAI client workshop a few months ago, he showed me this guide and I thought to myself: “This is exactly what I’d like to share with my readers and students”.

Hence this translation and adaption of Frederic’s prompting guide, with his kind permission. I tried his tricks myself and I can guarantee that the mega prompt he describes at the end of the guide is really something you should test, copy, paste, adapt and keep in your own prompt library.

A GenAI Guide about the Art of Prompting

Artificial intelligence is booming, and chatbots like ChatGPT are radically transforming the way we interact with digital tools, changing the way we work. This guide aims to introduce you to the art of ‘prompting’, a key skill for engaging effectively with these artificial intelligence platforms and making the most of their potential.

If you’re researching a topic on the Web and you type in a simple key phrase, the result may not be very compelling. On the other hand, if you structure your search well, you’ll get more relevant answers. And so it goes with artificial intelligence tools like chatbots or digital assistants.

Frederic Cavazza is the author of this great prompting guide entitled the ABC of prompting – photo portrait by antimuseum.com

The more structured the prompt, the more relevant the outcome

GenAI Prompting?

The way you ask AI chatbots questions or give them instructions is conducive to more or less convincing results. This is what is called ‘prompting’, i.e., the art of formulating clear and precise instructions to guide the work of artificial intelligence models.

In essence, a well-structured prompt is like a well-formulated search query. When done properly, it shall provide relevant results.

There is no one-size-fits-all prompt methodology, as use cases differ from one user to another. However, we recommend you use one of these three methods based on your needs.

Three Recommended GenAI Prompting Methods

These three methods are entitled RTF (Role, task, format), CRAFT (Context, role, action, format, tone of voice) and COAT-SITES (context objective, acumen, task, specimen, impediments, tone of voice, encoding, scrutiny). Each technique works best depending on expected results. RTF was made for quick results, CRAFT, for simple questions with more accurate results and COAT-SITES, for clear cut questions and extensive results.

So, what are these methods about? Here they are in more detail.

1. RTF Method

With RTF, the prompts specify the role, task and format that AI should adhere to. It consists in a simple, “you are…, you must…, your answer must…” Role indicates who the AI bot should impersonate, providing a contextual framework. Task, gives AI the precise action or problem to be solved, guiding AI towards the expected objective. And Format specifies the type and structure of the outcome.

2. CRAFT Method

Should you be looking for more accurate results, it might then be a good idea to expand your prompt to incorporate more context. The CRAFT method is therefore what you would have to resort to. CRAFT implies providing specifics to the AI chatbot in your prompt such as, “I’m in charge of…, you are… you have to…, your answer should include…, choose the following tone of voice.”

With the CRAFT method, Context describes the overall situation or requirement. Role, tells AI the character it should enact. Action, specifies what AI must do, directing the LLM. Format, provides examples or details clarifying final expectations. Tone of voice, defines the expected style or category AI must follow, aligning your response with your objective and audience. Expanding your prompt to formulate a better structured and accurate result.

3. COAT-SITES Method

In the case of COAT-SITES technique, your prompt is not only expanding the context of the situation but giving AI strict guidelines to narrow the margin of misunderstanding. Allowing for your results to be more accurate and extensive. This includes Context, Task, Tone of voice, as in the previous methods but also includes Objective, Acumen, Specimen, Impediments, Encoding and Scrutiny.

Objective and Acumen, give AI the tools to reach your expected result with the correct level of expertise. Specimen and Impediments, provide clear examples and guidelines of what is wanted and what should be avoided. By providing models or illustrations, you clarify the expectations, just like defining what cannot be done narrows down your result. Lastly, COAT-SITES encompasses Encoding and Scrutiny. Encoding defines the output format syncing the results to your objective and scrutiny offers a final sanity check to ensure the results comply with your stated guidelines.

 Test Drive the Prompting Methods

Once you have familiarized yourself with these three prompting methodologies, give them a go. Here are some tips and tricks to keep in mind when navigating GenAI chatbots. Frederic details them all in the guide for you.

After you have signed in to a chatbot, enter a few questions into the prompt window to get a feel for how it replies. After you’ve done that, try testing out the suggested prompting methods, saving a specific topic or tricky task for COAT-SITES.

Tips and Tricks

When interacting with your favourite chatbot, remember to select relevant keywords, stick to one question at a time, test and tweak your prompts and follow up. Don’t settle for half-baked answers and consider asking a different chatbot to critique your results.

Lastly, remember at all times that the better formulated your prompt, the better AI can provide accurate and relevant results. So give these methods a test and see how your interaction with GenAI chatbots evolves.

Download for Free the ABC of Prompting for Aspiring GenAI Experts by Frédéric Cavazza

ABC-prompting english-V3

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The state of influencer marketing in Europe 2024 is a survey conducted by Kolsquare, a leading European influencer marketing agency. It provides a particularly interesting perspective on influencer marketing budgets, how influencer marketing is handled and its future trends. Besides, its comparison of Europe’s main markets for IM is clearly enlightening. It’s one of the first if not the first of its kind and it sheds light on the way that businesses are conducting marketing with Key Opinion Leaders, at least for business to consumers. One of the most striking takeaways from this study is the sheer size of the average European influencer marketing budget which is evaluated at a whacking €3.375 million annually. 

European Businesses Spend nearly €3.5m Annually on Influencer Marketing

The Kolsquare/NewtonX 2024 European survey shows that Influencer Marketing has clearly become pivotal in the B2C marketing mix.

Methodology of the 2024 Influencer Marketing Survey

This 2024 European Influencer Marketing (IM) survey was conducted by Kolsquare and NewtonX. It involved 385 decision makers representing medium to large organisations across various sectors (Beauty and fashion, IT, SaaS and Telecommunications, Retail food and beverages, entertainment …). All respondents had more than two years of experience in influencer marketing. The sample is relatively large for that kind of B2B survey with five countries surveyed (France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom) and approximately 80 respondents in each of these countries.

Influencer marketing 2024 survey methodology

The European influencer marketing landscape

Thanks to this survey, we now have evidence that the influencer market is really significant with €3.375 million spent on influencer marketing by European businesses annually, and Germany topping the list at €5.74 million per annum. Micro influencers (10,000 to 100,000 followers) being the most popular partners for the surveyed European businesses. Respondents’ expectations on growth are very optimistic with 54% of them expecting to increase their influencer marketing budget next year. Unsurprisingly, the influencer marketing landscape has shifted towards three main platforms: Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

More than ever, influencer marketing is here to stay with 27% of respondents saying that it will become more important in the marketing mix. And even 6% stating that it will become the most important part of the overall marketing spend.

UK marketers seem less prone to spend huge chunks of their budgets on influencer marketing with a yearly average of £848,000 (still a whopping €1.02 million!) Brands are also declaring that they will become more selective in the influencers with whom they work (56%). Ethics is topping the list of preoccupations in Italy and France, but less in the UK and not that much at all in Germany.

Indeed, Germany is described by Kolsquare as “the big spender”, but not very keen on ethical considerations. Unlike the French and Italians, who said to be prioritising corporate ethics when selecting influencers.

This emphasises a significant shift in the market, whereas four or five years ago we were stressing the fact that ethics weren’t really on French influencer marketing managers’ priority list.

Influencer marketing landscape

Social network usage by marketers and Key Opinion Leaders

When it comes to social network usage by influencer marketers, the shift towards Instagram, TikTok and YouTube is significant. However, Facebook has not disappeared from the IM landscape completely, as it is still the platform of choice in the UK.

X has slipped down the ladder and further down one can find niche platforms such as Twitch, Pinterest, Snapchat and a flurry of Chinese platforms that are clearly less attractive to European marketers. What is surprising, though is that LinkedIn is definitely not part of this list, meaning that the survey is mostly geared towards Business to Consumer marketing. For all intents and purposes, one should emphasise once more that Business to Business amounts to approximately 80% of the production of wealth worldwide.

When it comes to size, One can spot a good balance of macro, mega, micro and nano-influencers in marketers’ choices of partnerships. Whereas patterns are relatively similar across countries, micro influencers definitely top the list in almost all of them.

One-Shot Versus Long-term Influencer Marketing Collaborations

It seems that in Germany and France businesses prefer to work in the long-term with Key Opinion Leaders. However, the structure is rather similar in all countries with a three-tier pattern: approximately 30% of collaborations with long-term partners, 30% for a mix of new and existing influencers, and another 30% of new kids on the Instagram block. This pattern varies slightly according to countries.

Content Forms: How the Brands Collaborate With Opinion Leaders

The variety of content types that is offered by influencer marketing is noteworthy, with sponsored posts and influencer events as well as product reviews topping the list. However, there are differences according to countries with sponsored posts not being very popular in France (only 23% of respondents vs. 58% on average across all countries).

Approximately one third of businesses are keen on performing co-creation with influencers and even nearly 25% of respondents are conducting product creation with them.

In conclusion

This study is instrumental in showing how pivotal influencer marketing has become in B2C marketing. Barring a few variations, one can say that IM patterns are relatively similar across the five main European countries surveyed.

Spending levels are stellar, with German businesses being on a buying spree. One can only hope that IM will help them fight the current economic slump in Europe’s biggest economy. France and Italy are keen believers in IM too. The United Kingdom and Spain are lagging a bit behind, or can be considered more reasonable, it depends on the point of view.

The most important indicator (KPIs) for influencer marketers is not the number of followers but the quality of the engagement. And as it suits B2C, it’s even shifting towards sales and conversions.

Last but not least, there are a number of challenges to influencer marketing such as striking the right balance between influencer freedom and brand control. A major issue we have consistently highlighted for the past 20 years we have spent in that domain.

It’s a significant pain point in most European countries and especially in France, where brand control is tightening on influencers.

Measuring ROI and ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) is on top of Italy’s list of issues related to influencer marketing.

Apart from that, authenticity and the quality and tone of voice of influencer content is definitely what entices European brands to work with Key Opinion Leaders.

What is also most striking is the significance of ethics according to countries. The results seemed very counter-intuitive to me but reassuring, with Southern countries showing a lot of concern for ethics compared to Northern ones.

About KolSquare

Kolsquare is Europe’s leading Influencer Marketing platform, a data-driven solution that allows brands to scale their KOL Marketing strategies and implement authentic partnerships with KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders). Kolsquare’s technology enables marketing professionals to easily identify the best Content Creators’ profiles by filtering their content and audience, and to build and manage their campaigns from A to Z, including measuring results and benchmarking performance against competitors. Kolsquare was founded by Quentin Bordage in 2018. 

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The Cyber threat landscape in Europe is quite worrying. A recent survey by Cloudflare was conducted amongst 4,261 IT executives responsible for cybersecurity in Europe. 24% of the sample is made from small enterprises (150–999 employees), 24% from medium-sized businesses (1,000–2,500 employees) and 52% from large organisations (above 2,500 employees). All major European countries were surveyed by Cloudflare in their study entitled Shielding the future: Europe’s cyber threat landscape. The report paints a rather bleak picture but stresses that solutions exist… as long as leadership teams understand what new Cyber threat countermeasures like Zero Trust are about. All in all, this will require all management teams, not just IT, to better understand the ins and outs of such dangers.

European Cyber threat Landscape: a bleak picture but there is still hope

European Cyber threat Landscape: Cloudflare paints a very bleak picture but there is still hope

The sample of this survey is quite comprehensive given its high profile and B2B orientation.

The Sample of the 2024 Cyber threat survey by Cloudflare

Some of the takeaways from this report on the European Cyber threat landscape include:

– All kinds of businesses are impacted by cyber threats with 72% of respondents reporting at least one incident in the last 24 months,
– 84% of respondents reported more incidents compared to past years. With a staggering 43% of those organisations experiencing 10 or more attacks in the past 12 months,
– Attackers are resorting to a variety of methods, with phishing and Web attacks on top of the list,
– A remarkable low number of respondents (29%) state that they are well prepared for future incidents, therefore leaving 71% out of that picture,
– Over half of respondents anticipate that their organisation will dedicate more IT budget to cybersecurity,
– There is a growing concern that “adding numerous point solutions is not the answer“. With nearly half of respondents ranking “simplifying and consolidating their cybersecurity stack” as one of their top three priorities,
– Moving to zero trust security could help but 86% of respondents reported that their leadership teams do not yet fully understand this model.

Let’s face the music, How many IT execs are feeling comfortable with the understanding of how our complex online systems should be protected? Well, not that many. However much I hate the idea, it seems that too much openness of such systems isn’t making our lives easier.

It seems that an increasingly dangerous cybersecurity landscape is causing more and more aggravation within organisations. The growing complexity of open networks with access to increasing amounts of money is too big a temptation for most cybercrooks to resist. Besides, the staggering complexity of IT, networking and especially cybersecurity solutions such as zero trust explain why there are so few companies that are ready to implement such solutions. However much sense they may make.

However much I hate the idea, it seems that too much openness of such systems isn’t making our lives easier.

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Content creation with artificial intelligence is already old hat as it’s been going on for a few years and, unfortunately, slop is now populating the Internet at an increasing pace. Yet, when I received this message from a good friend of mine last week regarding Google’s new app entitled NotebookLM, I was shellshocked. I tried it and tested it and felt immediately overwhelmed. Having slept over it for a few days, I’m just recovering, so here are my impressions. 

NotebookLM by Google: Artificial Voices, Real Concerns

NotebookLM by Google: Artificial Voices, Real Concerns — an image produced with Midjourney and our own special personalised mode

The other day, a friend of mine sent me a message about Google’s new NotebookLM AI application. As I always do that kind of thing, I tried and tested it immediately. The catchphrase for NotebookLM is “Think Smarter, Not Harder” and Google presents it as “The ultimate tool for understanding the information that matters most to you, built with Gemini 1.5”.

NotebookLM: made to ‘understand’ information?

I wonder about that. Is it really a tool made to “understand information”? This sounds a bit dubious. 

The aim of NotebookLM is to turn a piece of text, a video, a web link into a conversational podcast. It is semi customisable and not quite finished. But it gives you an idea of what the future has in store for us, content creators. 

On the one hand, the technology is great and works fine, barring a few glitches, on the other hand, it’s a window on a very weird and dark future  (once again, it’s not the tool that is the problem but the people using the tool, as Bradbury remarked). 

For my initial test, I selected one of my English pieces about artificial intelligence (AGI). I copied and pasted my text into the window and hey presto! a few seconds later, a proper conversational podcast between an American man and woman was available. Here it is 

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/2024-10-21-raw-agi-ganascia-notebook-version.mp3

I must admit I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard this podcast generated from a mere piece of text. It was both brilliant and daunting. I immediately thought that anybody could produce an audio conversation out of anybody’s blog piece and I suppose that some of the laziest of content creators will do just that.

When I looked into the podcast in greater detail, I spotted that there were a few glitches here and there and especially the quote by Ray Bradbury which is definitely not taken from Fahrenheit 451. It’s clearly mentioned in my text. 

Man | 01:24.308
It’s like that line from Fahrenheit 451. I’m not afraid of robots. I’m afraid of people, people, people.

Woman | 01:28.691
Yeah.

Well… nope, sorry (and by the way, I hate your “yeahing” at me). This was taken from Bradbury’s 1974 letter to Brian Sibley. It’s clearly stated and the link to the source file is explicit. 

One more test

This very morning, I went back to the application and tried it once more. I inserted a YouTube video and it failed a couple of times. So I gave up and copied a web URL and it worked wonders. This time I used my fraud and AI piece with Fujitsu. 

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/fujitsu-fraud-in-retail.mp3

I tried to customise the podcast but I couldn’t change the American voices nor the tone of voice which isn’t consistent with mine. I tried to turn it into a more professional, less casual, tone of voice. This didn’t work as planned. But my instructions aimed at making the podcast more factual and to focus on the numbers were executed correctly by the AI. 

NotebookLM by Google lets you customise the result, well… almost

That said, when you listen to the entire podcast, especially towards the end you will realise that the AI is adding quite a lot of content to it and making its own commentary. 

A few worrying signs

This experiment raises quite a few questions.

1. To start with, a lazy content writer could start publishing its own podcast channel from scratch using other content creators’ content without even mentioning their names;
2. Second, hallucinations are still part of this equation and they are quite wicked and hidden and hard to track. Once again, if you are a lazy content writer, then it doesn’t matter at all. On the contrary, if you are a conscientious content creator then it all makes the difference. 
3. The fact that this AI app is adding content is another kind of hallucination even though the text is perfectly sensible compared to the original piece. But I didn’t write that, I didn’t think that and I’m not even sure I want to add it. This is not only annoying, but downright worrying.
4. Last but not least, the casual tone of voice used by the application and the voices and accents that aren’t customisable yet are a showstopper as far as I’m concerned. But I suspect that this can be easily corrected.

In conclusion

As I mentioned already, I find this kind of application a little worrying. On the one hand, it is great to be able to produce a conversational podcast which is very engaging, very quickly. In hindsight, this is probably conducive to producing even more slop on the Internet, which will probably end up collapsing in on itself. It’s a matter of years if no one stops this nonsense.

I’m not sure that Google will maintain this application nor that it will even let you use it for very long. They have a track record of crucifying innovations.

The KilledbyGoogle.com website. Please note that Google didn’t manage to kill Squarespace (yet). This is an add. Will Notebooklm be added to this list? Time will tell.

It could be quite tempting to use NoteboookLM to produce conversational podcasts without any efforts. But I will never use because we have this 100% human content commitment on visionary marketing. I may end up being the last of the Mohicans in that concern but I intend to keep the upper hand in this content creation process. I’m the one doing the thinking here, not the tool I’m using to write it.

Transcripts of both NotebookLM podcasts

2024-10-21-RAW-AGI Ganascia notebook version.pages Fujitsu – fraud in retail.pages

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Whereas Ed Zitron is castigating the major Tech players responsible for the peak of inflated expectations surrounding AI, many tech pundits are still touting that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is within reach. To find out if AGI is a myth or a reality, I interviewed J.G. Ganascia, a long-time AI researcher and philosopher. In the course of our discussion, I gathered that the singularity and AGI weren’t the same thing. This interview set a lot of the record straight, particularly regarding the notions of intelligence and sentience or consciousness. But its striking conclusion is undoubtedly that, like Ray Bradbury, we should certainly be less wary of pseudo-intelligent AIs, let alone AGI, than of the wily intelligent humans behind these technologies.

General Artificial Intelligence (AGI), Myth or Reality?

In J.G. Ganascia’s opinion, it is absolutely essential to retain control over the machine. And be wary not of artificial intelligence, but of the people behind it. An advice previously delivered by Ray Bradbury in his time – Image produced with Midjourney, whom I trained not to show robots. But in this instance, it was hard to avoid. At least this one is under human control, which is reassuring…

The Singularity, AGI and Superintelligence

J.G Ganascia. Transhumanism led to many projections about artificial intelligence, of which the technological singularity was one of the avatars. There are others today like Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence.

The singularity, AGI and Superintelligence are very different notions. Above, the cover of the book on Superintelligence by Swedish author Nick Bostrom

But these terms are not interchangeable.

The singularity, technological dream or nightmare

JGG. The technological singularity is an idea from the 1950s. It claimed that at some point machines would become as powerful as humans, causing a shift in human history.

This meant that at some point, machines would have taken over. Either they would overtake us completely, at which point humanity as we know it would disappear. Or humanity would submit to the power of machines, and humans would become their slaves.

J.G. Ganascia at an AI conference in Paris in March 202. AGI isn’t on the agenda according to him. But beware of those pulling the strings.

Another possibility was that we grafted ourselves onto machines and downloaded our consciousness onto computers, and that this consciousness could then be reincarnated onto robots. According to this theory, we could then continue to exist beyond our biological bodies. This is what I described in a novel written under the name Gabriel Naëj, this morning, Mum was uploaded (in French only).

This is the story of a young man whose mother decides, once deceased, one should download her consciousness and reincarnate her as a robot. What is very disconcerting for this young man is that she has chosen the most beautiful body possible, that of a sex robot!

AGI and superintelligence

JGG. What we call AGI, Artificial General Intelligence is a different kettle of fish. It’s the idea that, with current artificial intelligence techniques, there are specific human cognitive functions that can be mimicked by machines, and that one day we’ll be able to emulate them all.

It means there is a way of deciphering intelligence, and that once we find it, it opens up infinite possibilities. In essence it’s a gateway to superintelligence. The very principle of the technological singularity assumed that there was a general intelligence and that all cognitive capacities could be emulated by machines.

General intelligence isn’t quite on par with the technological singularity and at the same time suggests it’s the ultimate goal. AGI has nothing to do with downloading human consciousness, though. this is just the ability to build machines with very high intellectual power.

This ties in with Nick Bostrom’s plans for superintelligence, which focuses on the day when the intelligence of machines is greater than that of humans.

There are links between these concepts, but they’re not quite the same thing.

As of 2024, is the singularity still a myth?

JGG. The early science fiction writers who mentioned the technological singularity, including Vernor Vinge, predicted that it would happen in 2023. Now, clearly, it’s not here yet. Unless we’ve all already been downloaded onto machines without knowing…

And yet these AIs are amazing!

JGG. Artificial intelligence has made considerable headway. Machines are capable of mastering language to the point where, when asked a question, they generate texts that are well formulated, even though not always relevant.

We can also produce images of people that bear an uncanny resemblance to real humans. Videos too. It’s all very intriguing.

Until now, one thought that language was first and foremost a matter of grammar, then syntax and vocabulary. Now we are realising that these linguistic abilities can be reproduced with just a few probabilities.

It’s really exciting from an intellectual point of view.

But that doesn’t mean that the machine will suddenly take over, or that it will have a will of its own. It doesn’t even mean that it will tell the truth.

These AIs almost write like humans. Most of the time their content is based on common knowledge. But sometimes this “common knowledge” is a little absurd. And as soon as you shift the situation a little, they produce results that are completely wrong. I’m often playing tricks on them with logic puzzles and I’m having great fun as they fail.

It’s understandable , in fact, because that’s not what they were made for. They are just made of modules capable of selecting words based on probabilities.

Yann Le Cun is dead against GenAI, yet he believes in AGI. Are you prepared to change you mind about the subject?

JGG. Absolutely not! I think there’s a misunderstanding regarding the meaning of the term ‘intelligence’. Besides,  artificial intelligence is a scientific discipline.

What AI does is stimulate different cognitive functions. What are they? Perception, reasoning, memory (in the sense of processing information, not storing it) and communication. We have made considerable progress in these areas.

Take perception, for example. AI is capable of recognising an individual out of hundreds of thousands, whereas we ourselves can’t always remember the people we met a day before. These performances are extraordinary.

But where there is a misunderstanding when one states that the machine will be more intelligent than man. Intelligence is a set of cognitive abilities. It may well be that each cognitive capacity is better emulated by machines than by humans. Yet, that doesn’t mean that machines will be more intelligent than us, since they have no consciousness.

Machines do not “see” things nor have a will of their own. In any case, consciousness is the crux of the problem.

There’s another meaning for the word ‘intelligence’, which is related to ingenuity or inventiveness.

An ingenious or clever pupil is said to be ‘intelligent’ because he or she can solve everyday life or mathematical problems. Are machines more clever than we are, though? It depends. There are some cases, of course, where they outdo us. We’ve known for a very long time, 25 years now, that machines play better chess than we do. More recently so for the game of Go. Thus, from that point of view, of course, they are more intelligent, but that doesn’t mean they’re better than we are. In any case, they have no willpower per se.

Blaise Pascal, just over 400 years ago, explained that his calculating machine came closer to thinking than anything animals could do, but that there was a limit to it.

340. The arithmetical machine produces effects which approach nearer to thought than all the actions of animals. But it does nothing which would enable us to attribute will to it, as to the animals.
Blaise Pascal, Pensées (Musings)- page 69

As it happens, computers are like Blaise Pascal’s arithmetical machine. Their effects are closer to thought than anything done by any animal, including humans. But there’s nothing to say that they can have willpower like animals.

I think that’s where the misunderstanding really lies.

After that, of course, you can list all the performances of the machines, and you’d be right to label them as extraordinary. But it can’t be compared to man’s thinking.

When it comes to consciousness, we can dig a little further. One of the AI pioneers, Yoshua Bengio co-authored last August a long 88-page article in which he explained that machines today are showing signs of consciousness. He has taken up the work of neuroscientists on consciousness and declares that this is a possibility. Above all, he suggests that machines will soon have such sentience.

Once again, this is the result of a misunderstanding.

The term sentience, or consciousness, like the term intelligence, is one of many meanings.

First of all, we can say that a machine is sentient in the sense that we project an animal onto it. This is what happens with your mobile phone when you say “Siri is completely mistaken today” as if Siri were a real person. Or with a robot vacuum cleaner when you say “Well, he went there because he knows there’s dust out there”. One tends to assume these inanimate objects are like humans, but they aren’t.

This is called, in technical terms, a cognitive agent. An American philosopher, Daniel Dennett, calls it intentional systems. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

The second meaning of sentience or consciousness is that of ‘musing’ or ‘reflecting’. It’s sentience as self-knowledge as in “Know thyself!“.  In other words, we are in the process of becoming aware of ourselves and wondering, “I’m doing this, now is it the right thing to do?” That’s why we talk about moral awareness, where we can say to ourselves, “I’ve done this or that in the past, and I can do a lot better now”.

We can have machines, for example, that learn by looking at what they have done in the past, and then try to ensure that their future behaviour will be more effective moving forward.

If they have hesitated between different possible paths before, in a similar situation, they will no longer hesitate, but will only take the right path. The same applies to moral consciousness.

My team is working on computational ethics, which means that before acting, the machine tries to look at the consequences of its actions, and from that moment on, it will take the decisions that are most in line with the prescriptions given.

There is also a third meaning of sentience or consciousness, which is very likely to be the most important: that of emotion. Can a machine experience emotions? And what does that mean?

If a machine were to feel this way, it might think: “I want those good vibes!”, and if you ask it to do something at that moment, it won’t give in. So you ask an autonomous car, “I want to go to the beach” and it says, “No, because there’s too much sand over there. I’m going to take you to the pictures, to a place where there are very clean car parks.”

Such a machine would be a disaster. Fortunately, it doesn’t exist. It’s absolutely essential that machines don’t make decisions on their own; they must always be submitted to our will and control.

When major AI players like Sam Altman tell us that these machines are going to take over, we have to be wary. It’s a bit like them telling us

We’re the ones with the knowledge, because we’re the pundits of artificial intelligence, and you don’t know anything. So leave it all to us and we will help you!

Like many of the engineers working for major digital companies, Altman is fascinated by these machines. So he thinks there are no limits to what they will do in the future. He simply means that they will do all sorts of tasks better than we can.

An open letter was signed by some major Internet players over a year ago. Sam Altman was not a signatory. But this initiative did include Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, Elon Musk… They told us we had to stop Generative Artificial Intelligence because it’s a potential threat to us.

Should we develop non-human minds that could one day be more numerous, more intelligent, more obsolete and replace us? Should we risk losing control of our civilisation?
Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

I’m sorry, but I disagree strongly with this vision. I’ve been working on artificial intelligence for years on end. I have never seen a “non-human mind”. These machines are competing with us on high-level tasks. And more generally, cognitive science has been telling us for a long time, and Howard Gardner in particular, that there are multiple intelligences. There are as many kinds of intelligence as there are people.

Multiple intelligences according to Howard Gardner – source: Simply Psychology

Functional neuroimaging allows us to visualise the active areas of our brain according to the tasks we perform, and these areas vary according to each individual. Similarly, when we map them out, we realise that the areas of the brain are not developed in the same way for all individuals, depending on their upbringing, genetics and so on.

All this suggests that intelligence cannot be general, since it varies for each individual.

The machine could, however, reprogram itself or correct some of its errors

JGG. That’s exactly the definition of machine learning. It’s a machine that is capable of rewriting its own programme based on a certain number of observations, experiments. From that point of view, it’s nothing new.

The question is rather whether this machine has a will. That’s why Pascal poses the problem admirably.

Other philosophers like Daniel Andler aren’t sure that machines are not sentient, though

JGG. I think we also need to go back to the definition of the term sentience. Scientists have been musing about creative machines for a very long time. Alan Turing, in his 1950 article Computing Machinery and Intelligence, contradicted a number of objections to the idea that a machine could be intelligent. And among these objections was one that said “A machine cannot create”.

And his point was that a machine can very well create. But what is creation? It’s about producing something that will take us by surprise. But he added that he could easily devise a very short programme of just a few lines whose behaviour could not be anticipated. From that point of view, one can make machines that create.

The view that machines cannot give rise to surprises is due, I believe, to a fallacy to which philosophers and mathematicians are particularly subject. This is the assumption that as soon as a fact is presented to a mind all consequences of that fact spring into the mind simultaneously with it. It is a very useful assumption under many circumstances, but one too easily forgets that it is false.

Alan Turing, The Computing Machinery and Intelligence, 1950

There is a whole history of creativity in machines that predates generative AI.

The first poems, incidentally, date from 1957

JGG. In the musical composition programme Illiac Suite by Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Isaacson (1957), the final movement included elements of random programming and creativity. Indeed, the use of randomness in this context was seen as a means of producing something ‘new’ or unpredictable, emulating a form of creativity.

Some artists have also used computers. This is the case with Pierre Barbaud (1911-1990), who was a great pioneer in that field. Painters too, including Vera Molnar (1924-2023), who created some magnificent paintings with her machines.

One could debate about the quality of what is generated by AI. Just because I made a fake Van Gogh with AI doesn’t mean it has anything to do with Van Gogh or that it’s interesting.

But that’s beside the point.

Does this machine have a will of its own that would contradict ours? In other words, at a given moment, that it could decide to stop for no reason or to take you to a place that you hadn’t imagined and that doesn’t correspond to a given objective.

I don’t think we need to worry about that.

Machines are not going to become autonomous. But society is changing. And the major issues are political, and that’s what we need to be very aware of.

In particular, we should be wary of those who own these technologies. So it’s Mr Sam Altman we need to be wary of. He has a tendency to mesmerise us, to cast a kind of smokescreen behind his intentions.

Sam Altman, in fact, is the danger!

Similarly, when Elon Musk wants to protect us against artificial intelligence by enhancing our cognitive abilities and putting chips in our heads. If we go his way, it will be Mr Elon Musk who decides what will be in our heads.

And it will be the worst dictatorship we’ve ever imagined. That’s the danger for the future!

You have to be vigilant, but you have to know where to look and what to be wary of.

The pseudo-intelligence of AIs, less dangerous than the harmful intelligences of humans?

JGG. Absolutely! Ray Bradbury, the author of Fahrenheit 451 wrote this famous line:

“No, I’m not afraid of robots, I’m afraid of people, people, people!”
Letter to Brian Sibley, 1974

Quote to be found on azquotes

About Jean-Gabriel Ganascia

Jean-Gabriel Ganascia
Chairman of the CNRS Ethics Committee

A professor at the Paris-based Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC) and a member of the Institut Universitaire de France, Jean-Gabriel Ganascia was appointed chairman of the CNRS Ethics Committee in September 2016. An IT expert, holder of a PhD and doctoral thesis from the Université d’Orsay (Paris), he specializes in artificial intelligence. His current research work focuses on machine learning, text mining, the literary aspect of digital humanities and computational ethics. An IT professor at the UPMC since 1988, he heads the Cognitive Agents and Symbolic Machine Learning (ACASA) team at the LIP6 computer science research laboratory. He also set up and led the Sciences de la cognition (“cognitive science”) scientific interest group at the CNRS. Jean-Gabriel Ganascia is a member of the CERNA (ethics in digital science research commission) at the Digital Science and Technologies Alliance, Allistene.

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Our reporters attended the Paris Retail Week 2024 event, a trade show of which we are media partners, to take stock of fraud and the role of AI. We collected a lot of valuable feedback on threats (both in-store and e-commerce) and the countermeasures proposed by artificial intelligence. To do so, we interviewed Gilles Bijaoui, head of CX at Fujitsu (Customer Experience being the name of the retail division chosen by the Japanese company). During this discussion,  which took place at the opening of the show, he gave us a wealth of information on fraud and described the AI solutions designed to combat it. Such solutions have now been deployed for almost two years in retail chains of all sizes.

When AI fights fraud in-store and on websites

AI and fraud detection in retail: Fujitsu’s Gilles Bijaoui, Head of Customer Experience at Paris Retail Week on 17 September 2024 in Paris

Isn’t AI-driven fraud reduction deja vu?

Gilles Bijaoui. Indeed, this has been a recurring topic over the last five years, whether at NRF or Paris Retail Week. But it wasn’t really implemented in the field. But over the last two years or so, that has completely changed. Post Covid, we find these solutions in production in many retailers of all sizes.

There are several types of AI involved, including generative AI. This has been rolled out by several large retail chains and the feedback is fantastic. Be it regarding performance, reducing employee theft and shoplifting, whether for physical retail or e-commerce.

What kind of fraud are we talking about?

GB. There are two types of fraud in retail and e-commerce:

1. Firstly, in-store fraud, just over half of which is linked to theft in the shop and around 40% is due to shop assistants themselves.
2. When it comes to e-commerce, it’s more likely to be linked to electronic flows of information, either payment fraud or identity theft (or phishing). It’s more complex and also more damaging.

Fraud on e-commerce platforms accounts for almost 20% of e-commerce sales worldwide. That’s a huge amount! If you compare this figure with in-store theft or fraud, it’s down to only 2-3%.

We caught up with Gilles Bijaoui at Paris Retail Week to talk about AI and fraud detection.

We’re definitely on a different scale with e-commerce. It’s also linked to the volume of transactions, which soared during and after the Covid crisis.

But the good news is that, thanks to AI technologies, we’ve seen a reduction in the growth of these fraudulent activities over the last two years or so. Previously, electronic fraud was growing at a rate of around 20% a year, but thanks to AI we’re now down to less than 15% per annum. And it’s getting even better with the education of individuals and businesses.

Are there any regional variations regarding fraud in retail?

GB. Not in Europe, all countries are pretty much the same. Only one country is an exception, and that’s the UK, which has even more fraud, as in the US, whether it’s physical or e-commerce.

That’s a difference of around 10 points over France. What’s more, the figures are reversed. Physical retail theft in the United States and Great Britain is higher than in the rest of Europe. And conversely, e-commerce is better controlled there than on the continent. Most likely because they decided to deploy these solutions before other countries.

On the other hand, given the massive in-store fraud in the United States, many everyday consumer products are under lock and key.

Let’s now talk about combatting fraud with artificial intelligence

GB. For physical stores, there have been two eras, and two different systems.

Previously, artificial intelligence was based on data. The more data we had, the more artificial intelligence systems learned, and were able to identify recurring patterns. This has changed to the extent that now, we’re relying more on the definition and identification of behaviours and movements.

Some of these modern solutions have recorded hundreds of human behaviours that can help determine a person’s intentions. Based on what we call “patterns”, we are able to tell, with the in-store camera system and artificial intelligence, whether a person intends to buy, steal, or just potter around. This is a starting point for AI to trigger personalised in-store promotions.

Personalisation With AI

GB. For example, if you’re standing in front of the aisle dedicated to formula milk in a supermarket and you’re hesitating, artificial intelligence will advise you based on the information available. It can also provide you with recipes based on the food you are buying or suggest that you virtually try the garments you are about to purchase.

We can also offer promotions tailored to the person based on their loyalty cards, and instantly offer a coupon on an item a consumer is looking at.

These marketing and merchandising efforts are no longer restricted to online commerce. Now, they are also available at the point of sale. And all this, thanks to artificial intelligence.

How can one avoid hallucinations on such recommendations?

GB. We have to fight this idea that humans will be disappearing because of AI. These systems are not autonomous. They need to be controlled. Certain words must be banned, for example. The way we address people has to be calibrated so as not to offend or be too intrusive. All this has to be strictly supervised.

Marketing messages must be constantly calibrated, both by us and our customers.

Let’s take an example. We’re currently working on fitting rooms. A lot of fraud is happening there, both by consumers and shop assistants. And RFID doesn’t really help fight this issue.

We have therefore combined several solutions so that we can identify that if a person comes in wearing red and goes out wearing black, something is clearly wrong. Similarly, if that person goes in wearing a size 12 and comes out with size 24, something isn’t quite right either. Behaviours are also analysed, as I pointed out earlier. At the end of the day, though it’s always the customer who decides where to draw the line. There are also laws governing the use of these technologies. For example, one isn’t allowed to recognise faces in continental Europe.

Is there a good business case you implemented with a retail chain?

GB. We’ve worked with a well-known German hard discount chain for which we have deployed anti-theft solutions at the checkout. The solution makes it possible to identify fruit and vegetables in a relevant way. If you take a bottle of wine and you change the label or the barcode is not the right one, the system is able to detect it.

With this solution, we have succeeded in reducing thefts by 60%. Into the bargain, improving in-store communication, both towards shop assistants and customers, also helps to reduce thefts by around 20%.

How does it work in practice?

GB. For automatic checkouts, a camera is placed on top, coupled with sensors that can measure not only the weight, but the typology of the product, its firmness, size, colour and even its density. The progress made with cameras is considerable. We’re able to spot the right product with around 90% success rate.

And it’s the same at the physical checkout, in other words, it also prevents certain employees – let me remind you that this accounts for 40% of fraud – from passing the wrong products, or forgetting to pass a product. If this happens, an alarm rings.

And once a certain number of alarms have been triggered, human intervention is required. We also know that most checkout fraud occurs in the last two hours before closing time. The pace picks up enormously at that point, because there are longer queues and dishonest employees figure it’s going to be easier to get away with theft.

Yet it is precisely where controls will be tightened, alarms will be more frequent, there will be greater vigilance over data reconciliation and a speeding up of the process. What is very important to bear in mind at all times is that all these systems are controlled and validated by human beings.

In the event of a mistake or problem, human intervention will either trigger apologies or reverse an incorrect identification. Artificial intelligence is an ally of commerce, but it is not inhuman if it is properly implemented.

What about e-commerce?

GB. On the e-commerce systems that we deploy, we observe that fraud often comes from the same IP addresses and the same geographical areas. Fraud is often linked to an initial failure to enter a credit card number or make a payment. This triggers alerts accordingly.

In response, we will either block the payment or notify the end customer’s bank. The computing power is such that fraudsters can hardly get away with it. And banks have also made efforts in this direction, with 3D secure and dual authentication of purchases via mobile applications, email or text messages.

All online businesses, even the smallest merchant sites, are equipped with these solutions, which help to prevent attacks, the theft of customer files and phishing.

Could fraud ever disappear with AI?

GB. We’re not that far off. Especially as we develop new technologies, including fingerprinting, retinal scanning and even palm scanning. Probably a lot of e-commerce sites or personal computers will soon be equipped with them.

In partnership with Ingenico, we have developed a system that recognises only the palm of the hand. The venous system is unique to each individual. And you can’t reproduce it with a photograph. Add to this heat measurement and you have an ultra-secure system that will further reduce fraud.

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu is a company that is both well-known and little known. It is a large Japanese technology company that started out over 100 years ago with telecommunications and switched to services in the 2000s. It employs just over 130,000 people worldwide, and has a turnover of 33 billion dollars. Its retail division (aka Customer Experience) accounts for just over 20% of the Japanese company’s worldwide sales. Its activities are now focused on services and platforms for points of sale and e-commerce, not forgetting integration services, consulting and infrastructure for retailers. Fujitsu is even the 8th largest technology services company in the world.

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What is the likely impact of AI and GenAI in particular on jobs, especially in Europe? Two recent reports on the topic, one in the UK and another one in France shed light on this question. According to the French report, such impact could amount to 5%. Yet another case for precision vs accuracy. That figure seems counter-intuitive when so many self-proclaimed AI gurus, especially on LinkedIn, are hailing the GenAI “revolution“. Besides, the authors of the UK report don’t agree at all with that. As ChatGPT would have it, let’s “delve” into those reports and find out more.

GenAI impact on jobs: boon or doom?

What impact will GenAI have on jobs in Europe? The answer to that question unmistakeably depends on which job and which associated tasks you are talking about. The French Commission on AI reassures us on this point – photo: a tailor’s workshop in the 10th arrondissement of Paris – photo Yann Gourvennec antimuseum.com.

Our own empirical analysis suggests a positive effect of AI on employment in companies that adopt AI, because AI replaces tasks, not jobs. In 19 out of 20 jobs, there are tasks that AI cannot perform. Jobs that can be directly replaced by AI would therefore represent only 5% of jobs in a country like France. What’s more, the generalisation of AI will spur job creations, in new occupations as in old ones. To sum it all up, some industries or geographies could experience net job losses, therefore requiring Government support, but this does not mean that AI will have an overarching negative effect on national employment in France.

French Commission on Artificial Intelligence report, March 2024 – p. 41

Anxiety in the eyes of some of my younger students

I often talk to young students from all areas about the impact of GenAI on jobs and careers. I often sense a bit of reticence and even anxiety in them at a time when young adults are still asking themselves many questions about the future and aren’t necessarily clearly determined about what they want to do in the future. Beyond that, the current state of hype around GenAI further blurs these students’ vision by making them feel the weight of an uncertainty that is already difficult for some to stomach.

The impact of generative AI on employment is not easy to assess. And we’ve had to struggle with our image-generating AI tools to get them to avoid a doomsday view of the future of work with robots everywhere… What if, in the end, the future of work was a mere evolution of today’s work practices? Image generated with MidJourney

Recent reports have added fuel to the fire, such as this one from the IMF.

Almost 40 percent of global employment is exposed to AI, with advanced economies at greater risk but also better poised to exploit AI benefits than emerging market and developing economies. In advanced economies, about 60 percent of jobs are exposed to AI, due to prevalence of cognitive-task-oriented jobs. A new measure of potential AI complementarity suggests that, of these, about half may be negatively affected by AI, while the rest could benefit from enhanced productivity through AI integration.

IMF 2024 report on AI and the impact on employment and the future of work

The British government has also published a report on this subject. Its more task-oriented approach is a little more nuanced, but still fairly unappealing.

Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) are likely to have a profound and widespread effect on the UK economy and society, though the precise nature and speed of this effect is uncertain. It has been estimated that 10-30% of jobs are automatable with AI having the potential to increase productivity and create new high-value jobs in the UK.

Gov.uk report on the impact of AI on jobs, Nov 2023

It’s worthy of note, however, that the authors are resorting a great deal to the conditional tense. This undoubtedly urges us to interpret these results with caution.

A more nuanced report on the impact of AI on jobs

The French report is much more nuanced and refers to a large number of interesting studies, starting with the one by Antonin Bergeaud (an economist and professor at the Paris H. E. C. School of Management), from which I extracted an important schematic.

The approach of the French report makes a clear distinction between GenAI and AI, and even automation in the broad sense (i.e. aimed at the manufacturing industry). It’s a distinction that seems crucial to me, given the many misconceptions linked to the measuring of the impact of AI. Which AI? Generative AI? Machine Learning, deep learning, neural networks? Or even just plain good old IT, unless we are mentioning robotisation, automated supply chains…

In short, AI is everything and everything is AI. That seems to me a silver bullet for generating panic among the general public and especially young students who are trying to find their way in the future.

A More Thorough and Subtle Report

The French report is therefore more precise than the others I’ve read, in that it makes a clear distinction between GenAI and the others. It is also focusing on tasks rather than jobs. This approach has also been that of the British government.

Impact of AI on jobs: Antonin Bergeaud’s projections are extremely smart and way above my mathematical abilities. In the top left-hand corner one can see the jobs of accountants and telemarketers, professions of which I’ve been reading about the disappearance since the 1980s (accountants) and 1990s (telemarketers). It’s bound to happen one day, but is ChatGPT to blame? It’s doubtful, and you don’t need a PhD in Quantum physics for this – diagram taken and adapted from Antonin Bergeaud’s report.

The report is in disagreement with previous approaches, pitting them against each other and pointing out that, in the end, there may be no need to panic:

This approach using the exposure of tasks, vs jobs, to GenAI makes it possible to estimate aggregate effects at the level of the economy as a whole, and to allow comparisons between countries. However, it has several limitations. Here are the two main ones. On the one hand, it is a static approach: the studies are based on existing tasks and therefore do not take account those tasks that could be created as a result of the development of AI […] On the other hand, it is based on an estimate of the probability of different tasks being replaced by AI (see above diagram).

In short, even if you think it’s a better approach, thinking of the impact of AI in terms of tasks isn’t really possible. It’s like painting a picture of a landscape from the window of your intercity train at 100 miles per hour. On top of that the painter has left his glasses at home and is therefore making assumptions about whether he should add cows, or sheep, in the meadow in his painting.

[…] overall, the deployment of AI in the economy should have a positive effect on the number of jobs. Catastrophic predictions about the end of work are no more credible than similar predictions made in the past. Especially as even the task-based approach represents the upper limit for the impact of AI. Indeed, it makes the assumption that it is profitable to automate all the tasks that can be automated. But this assumption is far from being true today. The diminishing cost of AI systems and the possibility of distributing the same AI system to a very large number of users will be key factors in determining the impact of GenAI on tasks and jobs.

Antonin Bergeaud

In conclusion, if the result is not negative, it must be positive, even if it is undoubtedly just as difficult to prove as the opposite.

Five percent impact of GenAI on jobs… why not 5.2%?

As for the 5% figure announced in the French report (see the quote above), I suppose it should be taken as an order of magnitude. There is a nuance added to the report in that respect. The authors mention that these 5% may vary from one occupation to another. What I take from this is that for the vast majority of occupations, this figure of 5%, is probably not to be taken at face value. Some occupations will not be affected by artificial intelligence at all, especially generative artificial intelligence. This doesn’t come as a shock to us. It takes us back to our work on jobs in 2030, where we already showed the prevalence of non-automatable occupations (surface technicians and others) in the most sought-after professions.

Automation Is neither Easy Nor Happens Overnight

Occupations that are apparently easy to automate, such as bookkeeping, for example (if we fail to take its more consultancy-like aspects into account) have been on the chopping block for years. But despite the doomsday predictions, including our own, it has to be said today that the jobs of chartered accountants remain among the most in demand.

Yet all the technology is available to automate both bean counters’ tasks and data transmission. Nowadays, almost all invoices are dematerialised even though they are only unstructured PDF files. And yet most of the work of accountants remains manual whether we like it or not. Whether it’s ticking boxes between reconciliation systems or copying figures into a general ledger. The change lies mainly in the declining technical nature of the job.

Ditto for banking. Experts have been naming banks dinosaurs for years. Here again, we have to make amends. And yet there have been many restructurings, and they didn’t wait for OpenAI’s ChatGPT and its clones. But here’s the thing: changes don’t happen overnight. Besides innovation in organisations isn’t governed by wizardry but resistance to change.

Finally, let’s return to an occupation that was in the top left-hand corner of Antonin Bergeaud’s schematic. I mean that of secretaries. An occupation that has already been largely transformed since the 1990s. It has also been steadily declining to the point of disappearance at least in the United States (they only amount to a fraction of European employees now, i.e. a small proportion of 19% of all jobs). And yet, the impact of artificial intelligence between the 1980s and the year 2000 was bound to be close to zero. I should know, I was in charge of an AI project in those days. In that same period, though, I witnessed and even played an active role in the boom of the deployment of IT in businesses.

GenAI and jobs: looking at the big picture

We therefore need to get back to these forecasts with a critical look. Starting with those of the IMF. And this report by the French Committee on Artificial Intelligence deserves credit for playing down the most hairy-fairy statistics on this subject.

In conclusion, after reading all these reports, the future isn’t any more predictable than it was before that. We might even venture to say that we are even more confused. Admittedly, as the authors of the French report point out, we are already seeing, and will continue to see, employees that are made redundant in professions where business models are already being jeopardised by ICTs, such as journalism.

But is this sufficient for us to reckon that what we are going through today is a “revolution” in terms of employment? There are no indications on this. All we could surmise is that a minority of jobs will be hit — be it 5%, less or more.

Time will tell whether this figure or that of the International Monetary Fund was the right one, but I’m inclined to believe that the ballpark figure quoted by the French Artificial Intelligence Commission is closer to reality.

Predictions lie but figures don’t

Finally, to end on an intellectual note, let’s quote Vaclav Smil in his book Numbers don’t lie.

Being realistic about innovation

Modern societies are obsessed with innovation.

We are to believe that innovation will open every conceivable door: to life expectancies far beyond 100 years, to the merging of human and machine consciousness, to essentially free solar energy.

This uncritical genuflection before the altar of innovation is wrong on two counts: It ignores those big, fundamental quests that have failed after spending huge sums on research.

And it has little to say about why we so often stick to an inferior practice even when we know there’s a superior course of action.

Vaclav Smil, Numbers don’t lie

It’s this last sentence that I think is important. All forecasting exercises start from an assumption: that which state that when a technology improves our lives, it’s bound to be implemented.

It may seem like a no-brainer at first glance. What I have learned in the field throughout my career, however, is that when a solution is better, especially when it is better, resistance to change is all the greater. And it’s rarely the most obvious and cost-effective solutions that win. Especially because human decisions are seldom rational.

Thus, assuming that generative AI is without contest a boon to productivity gains, a theory I’m not at all sure I buy into, it would be wrong to believe that the mere fact that it exists guarantees its rapid and universal implementation.

Here again, time will be of the essence.

• download the 2024 IMF report on the impact of AI on jobs
• download the UK report Nov 2023 on the impact of AI on UK jobs
• download Antonin Bergeaud’s report [in French] from 2024 on the impact of AI on tasks and jobs
• download the 2024 artificial intelligence commission UK report
• donwload the 2024 report by the French commission on AI

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Whether it’s music and AI, or innovation in the broad sense of the term, at Visionary Marketing we like to look back in time. A few days ago, while doing the housekeeping of some of our 3,000 articles, we rediscovered this post by Mia Tawile written in July 2016. Eight years is the equivalent of 8 dog years on the Internet, to use that hackneyed motto from the early days of the Web. That is to say, 64 years and 3 months. And at a time when Suno is sending shivers down the spines of every musician on the planet wondering what will become of them, there are two lessons to be learned from this post that demonstrate that we don’t understand the history of innovation as Scott Berkun would have it. 

Music and AI: Back to the Future

What better than an image, reminiscent of the 1970s for this evocation of the first attempts to compose music with computers – music and AI nonetheless take us down a much more tortuous path. A real philosophical, artistic and economic challenge for creators – image produced with Midjourney and retouched and enhanced with Photoshop and Firefly Beta.

“Hello dear human friends” is the introduction to this striking video by Laurent Couson, a French composer who analysed the capabilities of Suno, a popular application that lets you compose music of almost any style in 30 seconds. “Before, you had to learn music theory, orchestration and instrumentation – at the very least, ten years of practice – to become an accomplished composer,” he continues. He could have added, “Provided you’re gifted.”

900,000 Pieces of Music per Day

This piece of software,” he went on, “generates 900,000 pieces of music a day, while no well-known composer, not even the most prolific, has 1,000 in his catalogue”. And it’s true that the results are amazing.

900 000 pieces of music being produced every day. Imagine that! Midjourney dit it for you (with our help)

We went there too, and as rumours of the death of cyberspace grow louder, we decided to launch Suno on this theme with a song entitled: The Dying Cyberspace.

[Verse]
In a world of bytes and tangled wires
The cyberspace that once glowed with fire (with fire)
Now fades away, its brilliance lost
As darkness falls, at such a cost

[Verse 2]
Once a realm of endless possibility
Now echoes silence and fragility
The Internet, a dying art
Fading now, tearing us apart

[Chorus]
Oh, the dying cyberspace (cyberspace)
Once so full of life and grace (life and grace)
Now it withers, slowly dies (slowly dies)
Leaving us with empty skies (empty skies)

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/the-dying-cyberspace.mp3

A very basic prompt

Admittedly, the lyrics are a bit cheesy, but considering the time spent (less than a minute), the result is more than satisfactory. All the more so as the prompt used was really minimal.

A song on the death of the cyberspace, neoclassical

The possibilities are endless with this tool, you can even invent Russian songs in Post-Punk mode. And if you ask Deepl to translate the lyrics, you’ll realise that they’re pretty creative. Maybe not on par with Pushkin, but certainly well above the average of what you hear on Spotify (well I can only surmise because I subscribed to Qobuz).

An enamelled vessel
A window, a bedside table, a bed
It is difficult and uncomfortable to live
But it’s more comfortable to die

Эмалированное судно
Окошко, тумбочка, кровать, –
Жить тяжело и неуютно
Зато уютно умирать

(I can’t guarantee the translation from Russian into English, so I’ll take deepl’s word for it).

According to popular belief, music is linked to mathematics, even if this interconnection is not completely proven. As a result, it’s not totally astounding that a computer manages to do this. In fact, computers have been making music since PopCorn (1969). Note that the dancers are slightly out of sync, no doubt baffled by the technological prowess of the end of that decade.

The First Computer-Generated song

I remember well, when I was 7, the announcement of this song on the radio: the first song produced by a computer. It was extraordinary, and way ahead of its time.

But AI in music also raises a whole range of questions:

1. First of all, the machine has virtually every style at its disposal. You can ask it to imitate one without having to master it and especially not by working for 10 years. This raises the question of the value of creation. How much could we pay Mr Couson to produce a song like this? We could even go further, and get Suno – or its clones – to compose a symphony or an opera. It might have to go through a few steps, but it’s a lot less tiring than inventing Einstein on the Beach or Die Zauberflöte from scratch.
2. And the associated question: if there is no longer any value in creating music, how many musicians will still have a go at it?
3. There also arises, and this is the third point, the question of creation itself. If it’s so easy to create music that isn’t all that bad, aren’t we in danger of going round in circles? Also, can we innovate, in content and form, if the basis is a collection of existing music data? Won’t the novelty wear off? Some would say that this is already the case to some extent, I suppose, but this will just finish the job.
4. The training data for these programmes is based on the work of hundreds of thousands of musicians over hundreds of years. It is – as with Midjourney – the plunder of our cultural heritage that raises the question of the protection of intellectual property. Or rather, it might make such IP redundant, unless legal proceedings are successful (but justice is slow, and AIs are fast).
5. It also raises the bar for tomorrow’s content creators who will want to show their creativity and beat the machines. This will really demand a lot of imagination.

Democratisation or the end of creation?

When everyone becomes a creator, does that mean that creation no longer exists or, on the contrary, that everyone has become a true creator, even without talent? And is pressing a button and waiting for a program to produce a result a creative act? Is “prompting” sufficient? Tomorrow, will humans become the blue collars of artistic creation whereas machines produce all the thinking?

There are many questions raised. And the undeniable fun that one can have when dealing with this type of programme should not allow us to forget about them. What’s more, it’s a guilty pleasure. If we are endowed with a conscience, it’s hard not to feel, as with tools like Midjourney, one feels as if one were faking artistry.

IA and music: a long-standing innovation

From Gershon Kingsley to Wally Badarou (who was composing on the Mac in the early 90s) to Klaus Schultze (and his fabulous Ludwig Zwei von Bayern with his fully synthesised string orchestra in 1978) or Zoe Keating, who records and plays her sound loops thanks to a pedal connected to a MacBook Pro, artists’ experiments with computer music have been numerous.

But producing music with AI goes a step further. However, here too, these attempts are not recent. Digging around on this site, we found an old article by Mia Tawile written in 2016 about a Google project named Magenta and of which there are still a few scattered traces on the Internet.

Interesting Examples

There’s also some pretty interesting music here, provided by artificial intelligence, the fruit of Google’s early work in this area. The results are promising but without a future, like so many aborted attempts by this Internet giant, which seems so focused on its business model. So much so that it may be suffering from the innovator’s dilemma.

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/magenta-mix.mp3

Example of chamber music produced by Magenta. Not quite Haydn, but it sounds a bit like it (Midi style).

My optimism leads me to believe that we will still need Mr Couson and his colleagues. If only to host concerts. Of course, in these artistic performances, it would not be surprising to find a few computers and loops invented by AI. In this respect, these artists will no doubt be the worthy heirs of the pioneers I mentioned earlier. After all, didn’t musicians like Wim Mertens and Philip Glass imitate repetitive computer music with real instruments? And more recently, haven’t Nils Frahm, Nicklas Paschburg or Grandbrothers included these technologies in their music to the point we end up forgetting about them?

Creators always find a way of circumventing issues like these.

The 2016 original post on AI and Music

Below is Mia’s post from 2016. My two cents about this with nearly 10 years of hindsight.

1. Innovation tales time. And no, it won’t happen overnight (lesson number one);
2. Google missed the boat (again I daresay), even though the transformer researchers were working for Alphabet at the time.

Enjoy the AI Time Machine.

We have all heard of Mozart, Chopin, and Beethoven, but not all of us know Google’s artificial intelligence and its ability to generate music with AI. Yes, a robot has joined the club. And yes, it plays music. (If the song We are the robots by Kraftwerk is playing in your head right now, it is completely normal, don’t worry.) This new robot/artist that creates a lot of debate is called Magenta. You might have seen in my previous article about Facebook’s artificial intelligence how machine learning works on images and videos. This article will describe a concept that is similar yet different. The main question here is: Can you use machine learning to create a music piece? That’s exactly what I will touch on in this article.

Google’s Magenta and its music band

AI music is on Google’s agenda

Magenta is Google’s Brain Team project that answers the question mentioned above: Can we use artificial intelligence and machine learning to play music?

Two goals

Google developed this project with two goals. The first is to explore machine learning even deeper and take this concept further. Indeed, this type of artificial intelligence has been used to recognise pictures, speech, and translate content. Facebook too has a similar algorithm that has been used to help blind people hear their newsfeed. This feature is called Facebook Read.

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/IMG_20160526_112832.jpgNo plans yet for Facebook on the AI music front but they are using AI so that blind

AI music according to Mia TawileFor Artificial Intelligence researchers, the sky is the limit. They always look for new features to develop, and new ways of developing machines.

So why not create algorithms and teach machines how to play the piano, for example? Robots are good students. Indeed, blind tests have shown that people have been fooled by machines: Peter Russel, who is a musicologist, listened to a music piece played by Iamus, a classical music robot.

Surprisingly enough, he did not know it was created by a machine.

The second objective of this Magenta project is to build a community with people interested in music and technology such as artists, coders and researchers.

Google is inviting people who are interested in this project to join the community. Actually, a part of the project is accessible to the general public, and is waiting for people’s input.

AI Music: Beyond Limits

A lot of people are scared of such technological growth. Well, they might be right. When machines start recognising pictures, and videos, and describe them to us, it means that technology is taking these robots beyond their limits.

The good news is that there is a use to this technology. It is not only developed to win a challenge, or defy the limits of research and technology. As I mentioned earlier, Facebook uses artificial intelligence to expand its community, without excluding anyone.

When it comes to artificial music, some applications identified this new trend and worked around it. There’s a mobile app called @life that plays music according to your state of mind and your mood. Y

ou might ask yourself, how does a machine know what one is feeling in real time? The machine gathers information about the person’s behaviour or their location and analyses their mood. Some data analysts use Instagram filters for example, to identify the user’s mood: dark colours reflect sadness, whereas bright colours represent happiness. This music mobile application is said to help people in pain by distracting them and using the popular benefits and virtues of music.

Maybe machines will help us create new music genres, by combining different algorithms. Or maybe this new invention will help people manage their stress or heal their pain, music being the cure to everything! We can see the bud of that technology today with Spotify that can detect your running speed and adapt the music type and tempo.

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Thomas Deneux is the founder of Learning Robots whose aim is to help pupils, students and businesses to learn AI, with the help of home-made self-driving gizmos. These little machines on two wheels are more serious than you’d think. They are all about the teaching of advanced computing. Thomas described his philosophy to me during this interview conducted at the heart of the Neuroscience Institute of the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research). In essence, a no-nonsense approach to teaching and learning AI. 

When AI and robots join forces to teach artificial intelligence

Behind Learning robots’ self-driving gizmos – seen on their training track here in Saclay – there is a teaching philosophy and a full-fledged training corpus.

Who are these friendly colourful robots?

We’re overwhelmed with social media posts and news about AI. Often, pundits will tell you that you need to know how to use ChatGPT and make prompts. That’s all very well, but we must free ourselves from the tech giants who build these models.

At Learning robots, we want to spark vocations among people who are interested in finding out how it works and want to use AI better.

What is artificial intelligence anyway? AI gave birth to these fantastic tools and programs. Yet, at the same time many people are scared. Our aim, with these user-trained robots, is to make AI accessible and friendly.

What’s behind these robots?

In our introductory activities, the user drives a robot as if it were a remote-controlled car. But behind this robot is an AI that will record all the necessary data. Next, the robot takes over from the user in autopilot mode and drives around the circuit.

Then we organise a race between the robots that have become autonomous in this way, and users may therefore observe that not all of them will perform equally well. It’s natural because performance depends on the quality of the training.

The aim is to make people understand that AI machines do not become “intelligent” out of the blue.

Behind AI, there are humans who have gathered data. And AI will only be as good as its data.

We’ve been training our Midjourney AI to produce an infographic based on Thomas’s interview and here’s how it came up with these AI self-driving car races…. This one isn’t as nicely organised as those by Learning Robots.

Today’s AI is still at the stage where it reproduces patterns. It’s a mere “stochastic parrot“.

The stochastic parrot as seen by Midjourney, who is definitely very creative.

In the early days of AI, there were expert systems, which worked with ever more sophisticated knowledge bases. Then we realised that rather than predicting all the potential situations, we could simply feed the AI with samples based on existing data sets and implement self-learning algorithms.

With large language models (LLMs), humongous quantities of text have become available. So much so that AI has become capable of generating text by itself. But the principle is the same: the basis is those samples provided by humans.

With AlphaAI, everything is very simple. A sensor will tell the machine what to do, for example turn left when there is light on the left. Or turn right when there is light on the right-hand side. This helps users understand the basics. After that, it’s just a matter of scaling up to more advanced AI.

What prospects can we expect from this kind of robot?

When you interact with a Large Language Model (LLM), you are essentially producing text, even though you could also generate images, music, videos, etc.

Robotics is the future of AI

But what I see emerging is that the future of AI is about robotics. The Figure start-up has just raised $675 million and has signed agreements with OpenAI, Microsoft and Nvidia to develop humanoid robots. It’s flavour of the month. Our role is not to enter this competition, however.

Small but powerful. The AI robots by Learning robots – source Leaning Robots

Our vocation is educational. We want everyone to be able to get to grips with these technologies.

Our aim is to enable people to train their own AI, so that they can easily develop their own ideas, such as home automation projects for instance. And also make AI accessible to SMEs. Our development plans could evolve in the future to move away from teaching and training, towards a plug and play solution for introducing AI and automation into the business world.

What is your philosophy behind all this?

I’m a technophile, yet I’m not at all a techno enthusiast. I think there are some really pertinent questions being asked. And that’s why I think we need to focus on training and education.

We need to keep as many people as possible informed, to debunk all the myths about AI.

• • On the one hand, AIs have their limits;
  • Secondly, users feel immediately more comfortable with a tool after getting to grips with it.

AI can be fun

Let me tell you about an anecdote.

We work with a well-known luxury goods company in Paris, France, for whom we run autonomous robot races. Their employees train their robots for the race. The first feedback from learners on these training courses is: “I’ve realised how much AI is fun!”

It’s true that digital tools also have their downsides, such as creating addictions. But if you get to grips with them, you can achieve great results.

We need to evangelise about AI adoption, there are so many exciting potential applications for it.

I’m involved in a number of AI think tanks and I’ve realised that what the general public expects from researchers is to be told what the future will be. In fact, it’s very hard to predict the future. Innovation is about trial and error. Sometimes its adoption is faster than we think, at other times it’s not.

Always the unexpected happens.

Can we imagine a world, where chores are all carried out by machines?

I think so. We’re already seeing it in the home construction business. Tomorrow, it’s very likely that AIs will be performing a certain number of tasks. However, I hope there will still be room for humans’ creative skills.

For instance, manmade products are highly valued by consumers these days. Mass-producing widgets is easy. But creating something unique is more rewarding.

There will always be room for human creativity.

Finally, there is hope for human beings

I think so. Some people are depressed because they think they are going to be dominated by AI. But look at self-driving cars: they were supposed to be ubiquitous by 2010, and it didn’t happen.

But we shouldn’t be wearing our rose-coloured spectacles either.

Both citizens and politicians need to get to grips with the issues related to AI. As far as I am concerned, I remain optimistic about what can be achieved with these tools.

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Walking down the roads of strategic thinking for professional networking or business building, most of us would agree to name LinkedIn as a well-built pathway to tread on. What’s better than understanding the dynamics of LinkedIn as a professional networking platform from someone who trains consultants and is an expert regarding that platform. Daniel Alfon from Tel Aviv wrote the book entitled, “How to Build a LinkedIn Profile for Business Success“. For most of us in the B2B marketing or consulting space, it’s a great read on what LinkedIn has become and where it’s going. I interviewed Daniel to find out about the future of LinkedIn, and of business networking at large.

Networking and Growing Your B2B Business with LinkedIn

Networking is the essence of Linkedin, so let’s get back to basics with Daniel Alfon, author of “How to Build a LinkedIn Profile for Business Success.” Note; this post was first published in October 2021.

Tell us about what LinkedIn really is for B2B business folks.

https://www.amazon.com/Build-LinkedIn-Profile-Business-Success-ebook/dp/B00N18B2RSLinkedIn networking

LinkedIn is what you want it to be for your business. If you’re a hypergrowth company and all, you’re interested in is finding talent, then you should focus on sharing jobs and ensuring that your existing employees are using their network to tap into candidates. If you are a content publisher or a marketer, then you should focus on the networking aspect of it.

The strength of LinkedIn simply comes from deciding what you would like to leverage the platform for.

This simple, straightforward question is one that a lot of LinkedIn users do not ask themselves. What is your top marketing priority: recruiting, publishing or getting more views? Or, do you need referrals?

Stop piling up content, think networking when publishing on LinkedIn!

It could be that you went there almost exclusively for publishing content, but now you could use it for networking. If your marketing department is producing high-quality content, then leveraging LinkedIn to get more exposure for it is a great idea. It requires some coordination, and it can’t be top down.

How do you establish business success in B2B, is it being able to sell more?

One way to look at it is at the top of the funnel. Transactions would not happen on LinkedIn. However, it could be the platform where more people are made aware of your solution via a webinar or a demo. Then, they get in touch or something else happens outside of LinkedIn.

You want people to find your solution, and within seconds understand that it is something interesting.

When I look at your profile and I see that we have a number of mutual connections, then what I think about those people will affect and influence the way I think of you. If I think highly of them, even if I don’t ask them about that at all, then something of some of the stardust would actually be above your head.

LinkedIn: a battle for visibility or a tool for B2B networking?

Lately, while I was doing a training session for KPMG, I had mentioned three key points which I think could be relevant. When an employee of your firm shares or likes or comments, there are three dimensions to it. One, he is about the way others perceive that action. Let’s say that we are connected, and I see that you like some content. In many cases, ‘liking’ is perceived to be the lowest trust characteristic of your engagement. It doesn’t mean that you even read it. It could simply be that you like the person who published that content.

Sharing is more valuable in the eyes of many people. But if an employee is doing it, then I would encourage her to not just share, but add something of her own. This could be a sentence with an explanation of why it’s so compelling or interesting or why you disagree with the author’s claim.

So if you decide to share someone else’s content, then that means you think highly of it. It makes sense to take a few more seconds and add your own perspective. Now, it becomes more genuine and interesting for the reader.

The third is the algorithm. Since it is the darkest secret of LinkedIn which it never shares, we are only left with the other two elements. Some inside information says that LinkedIn doesn’t think highly of shares because it considers it as duplicating content, not marketing. Re-shared published content by employees may get limited additional views, whereas if you only liked it or commented about it, LinkedIn will show it to more people.

Let’s say we have an employee who is happy only re-sharing stuff, and does nothing else. Then even in the eyes of the algorithm, it’s not worth showing to five hundred extra people. We would be better leveraging the actions that people are organically willing to do rather than trying to chase the algorithm. It is going to change anyway in the next few days or weeks.

POLLution? on Linkedin

[Visionary Marketing] David Hughes, who has a huge following on LinkedIn, posted something on LinkedIn about what he calls pollution polls. There are polls everywhere. Are we going to have to send polls all the time or are they going to change again? Tell us what does that mean?

It’s so nicely introduced that at one point people are going to be fed up with 99% of the polls. We may have already reached that point.

Let’s focus on being interesting for our B2B customers and audiences. Before we pull the trigger of a poll, we should ask ourselves, why are we sharing this? There could be a number of reasons for it.

Try and suggest a simple flowchart before sharing the poll. Is this content with the question so compelling that many of your connections will feel intrigued to go and see the answer in the vote? I am afraid that most people and content creators will not find it easy to produce such content on a daily or even weekly basis. So, one interesting poll a month or a quarter would give you more engagement than five polls every week.

Daniel’s Advice to Consultants for Business Networking

[VM] People like us put in all our efforts and create a 70-page white paper. But when we post it on LinkedIn, we can’t get a certain number of views unless we insert a poll. When experts are striving, what is your million dollar advice to the average consultant out there?

Let me try and give you a number of nuggets and maybe all of them together will form the million dollar answer. What you should post on LinkedIn is something reverse engineered. In other words, find a quote, highlight an image and you do something that’s more the user-friendly.

People are not necessarily going to consume the content as it is seventy pages. When you try out what I have suggested, you will see that half a dozen interesting quotes or figures or something else is going to fetch a lot more responses and engagement than say, page 43 in the white paper.

About ‘snackable’ content on LinkedIn

When you share a snack piece of content, the idea is not for people to consume it on LinkedIn, but for more people to discover the content itself. Let me suggest two other ways. The initial thought that all of us have is to go to LinkedIn home page and share our fresh content. But when you’ve spent so much time creating it, then there’s another place to house it.

If it is evergreen content, then it could be part made part of your profile – the consultant’s profile. This would ascertain that everyone who would visit your profile shall see that PDF or the cover of that PDF. That alone in the long run, will help you gain more downloads or views than trying to share it across the board. Lastly, if we don’t want to rely on our connections only, then there’s another feature LinkedIn offers: LinkedIn groups.

For every consultant or prospect you are connected with, there could be dozens of other interesting prospects you are not going to connect with, but who could consume that content. Here’s when groups come in handy. Use your profile and your staff’s to highlight evergreen content. Not next week’s webinar, but something that you’ve worked hard for. That could be a way to gain a lot of exposure.

The second idea would be to make sure that everyone in your team is sharing it. That too, should be done at different times.

Going back to the good old days of LinkedIn networking

Should an average consultant or salesperson, who doesn’t work in a team necessarily, go back to networking and square zero and start building a network or a community?

Yes, he should. One can try adopting LinkedIn creative mode, even though that has some problems, or have a connection strategy. Many people don’t have a connection strategy, they merely react. When you send them an invitation, they accept it or not by thinking about it in the short term. Because now I am doing this, so I would accept the invitation. But if six months ago I was into something else, I wouldn’t have.

It’s important to get back to the networking aspect of things. Networking is far more important than LinkedIn in my eyes.

LinkedIn is a formidable and powerful tool for sure. There is no silver bullet, though, no shortcut to run your networking. There’s no way anyone has found on LinkedIn or outside of LinkedIn to make it automated, easy, free and successful. The question about how an average person can differentiate his post from ten thousand other blogs was there before LinkedIn.

What makes a blog special?

So what makes their blog special in the first place? Finding that special niche would mean that the consultant only focuses on maybe one percent of his audience and still be able to make a living.

Everyone should think of themselves as at least a nano-influencer in their specific niche

[VM] So networking is the real issue for an average consultant. He has to realise that one needs to grow a community before he starts selling stuff. You spot an invitation on LinkedIn, and then the person tries to sell stuff immediately afterwards.

Consultants who are able to help or educate their audience are in a better position than others who don’t

I don’t think one should have a LinkedIn personality per se. After all, our personality in real life exists. LinkedIn can, however, reflect the better aspects of one’s professional identity.

But as the saying goes, you can’t fool everyone all the time. In other words, if your LinkedIn personality is all shining bright and people who meet you in a Zoom call or in person think you’re a jerk, then what wins is real life because they will tell everyone about it. When I see that you and I share a mutual connection, then both of us can actually reach out to him and ask pertinent questions about the other person.

If he tells me that I should speak to you, and if I trust him, then even if you LinkedIn profile is nowhere near good, I would still do it. I’m not interested in your LinkedIn presence. I’m interested in you or your business. This information can influence the way people think about you. Eventually, it dictates if they wish to do business with your company or not.

On this note, if I want to wrap up in a few words, at the end of the day, what matters is not how you master LinkedIn. What matters is how good a human being you are. For those of our readers who would like to read more about LinkedIn and succeeding in their business through it, can get their copy of Daniel’s book from Amazon. Happy networking!

The post Networking and Growing Your B2B Business with LinkedIn appeared first on Marketing and Innovation.

What are the most outstanding new features of LinkedIn in 2024? Reid Hoffmann’s professional network was created almost 21 years ago (in May 2003) and acquired by Microsoft in 2016. Visionary Marketing invited Bruno Fridlansky to talk about this platform, of which he is an expert. Together we were able to answer a few basic questions about using the tool and review some of its latest features. It’s worth noting that Bruno isn’t ecstatic about most of them.

The New Features of LinkedIn Under the Microscope

We’ve been using LinkedIn professionally for 20 years, a tiny bit less than the age of the application, which will celebrate its 21st birthday in May 2024. Nevertheless, this gives us a lot of hindsight on the use of the leading business-to-business application, which over time has managed to do away with all its competitors.

LinkedIn ‘s new features: working with our favourite AI tools, we headed for a benevolent illustration that describes an optimistic and innovative corporate world. At the end of the day, Midjourney (with a little help from ChatGPT) got it right. LinkedIn is a bit like a business district where you walk around and pick up information, but also where you meet people. All in all, even if we are fairly critical of some of LinkedIn’s new features, particularly those related to AI, on the whole we remain very keen on this platform, which has no competitors.

LinkedIn gone rich and the enemy of reach

As a key player in this sector, LinkedIn is a flourishing platform with annual revenues of more than $15 billion. What is particularly remarkable is the rapid growth in recent years of this turnover, which has even almost doubled since 2020.

A business volume that, compared to Microsoft’s total revenues is still small (around 7% of the Redmond firm’s $211 billion), but substantial in the world of social networks, even with a very business-to-business positioning. To give you an idea, it’s just over 10% of Meta’s turnover in 2023, but around 5 times as much as the advertising revenue generated by X in this period.

LinkedIn’s surprisingly expanding turnover probably has little to do with the advent if new features on the platform, but much more to do with a business model that has found its audience and the fact that there are no competitors today

But beyond these staggering figures, there are a number of questions to be asked.

First of all, there’s the recurring interrogation about “reach”. Many users are wondering how and when their publications will be seen and by whom…

LinkedIn is rich but its reach is poor

A question that is increasingly hard to answer. So much so that the platform seems to be playing a game of cat and mouse with its content creators.

Recently, a large number of the latter has opted for content creation techniques favoured by B2C influencers. Selfies flourished but have been heavily criticised on the B2B network. This trend seems to have been halted, Bruno Fridlansky confirms. Some of us continue to complain that many self-focused publications are still populating their feeds, however. Perhaps the measures put in place by LinkedIn are not being deployed in the same way or at the same time for all users, which seems to be customary according to Bruno.

But that’s not the most important philosophical question: what is a tool made for, and ultimately, in this platform economy, are these social tools at our disposal, or have we become their slaves? Bruno’s answer to this question struck me as particularly apt:

It’s a platform that was originally made available to us but now we are the ones feeding the beast.

Beyond these considerations, most readers are interested in the tool’s new features. No matter how hard we try, repeating over and over again that a tool is just a tool, we might as well bite the bullet. Hence our review with Bruno of the various LinkedIn features that have been added to the tool recently.

Bells for a Better View of Content on Your Network

LinkedIn added a feature some time ago, a bell icon, that you can activate if you don’t want to miss anything posted by someone you follow. But things aren’t quite as simple as that. First of all, try and click on your 25,000 followers’ bells! Good luck with it. But that’s not all.

The bell is one of LinkedIn’s new features, but not everything works exactly as it seems.

The bell doesn’t always work as planned. It’s just supposed to send a notification about a publication. And I’ve seen comments that, when you exceed 20 or 25 bell activations, it grinds to a halt.

The bell won’t solve our reach issue it seems.

LinkedIn expert Bruno Fridlansky gave us his thoughts on LinkedIn’s new features – Photo by Yann Gourvennec antimuseum.com

New LinkedIn Features: Certified Profiles

Recently, LinkedIn introduced user verification via third party to its users. Bruno, as well as yours truly, has a verified account. This feature, according to Bruno, has not been fully deployed across Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_SecureClear Secure is the US company used by LinkedIn to establish identity verification. Its presentation on its website is not the clearest or most transparent. To find out more go to good old Wikipedia which tells us, I don’t know if it’s reassuring that this company first went bankrupt six years after it was founded.

To validate one’s account, one has to enrol with an American-based service that certifies one’s identity. This entity is based outside our European countries. Above all it is vulnerable, like all technological activities, to cyber attacks that could make our confidential information and personal identities visible. It should be noted that this observation applies, and perhaps even more so, to European-based identify verification services such as the Gov.UK ID check app or France Connect + in France and other European equivalents. Just because these services are based in the UK or Europe is no guarantee that they will ever be targeted.

Maybe we could have thought about that before getting our accounts validated. Clicking before thinking is never a good idea and we all fell for it. It doesn’t take much stretch of the imagination to wonder how a cybercriminal could use our identities and steal them to commit a crime.

If I had to do it again, I’m not sure I would. Especially as it is not certain that this functionality will be maintained given the extreme volatility of LinkedIn’s features overtime. However, if the platform decided to link the ability to add contacts to one’s network with this certification (to avoid fake accounts), this would change the overall picture. Nevertheless, one should be able to choose one’s provider and switch to Gov.UK or France connect + or whatever tool promoted by one’s country’s government.

Have We Become Slaves to AI?

Another feature discussed with Bruno was the ability to reply to collaborative or supposedly collaborative articles. Bruno was very critical of this feature. The questions posed by LinkedIn, which are pushed to users in order to make them believe they could be granted a hypothetical “expert” badge and status, are in fact produced with generative AI.

Bruno even pointed out that some of these questions sometimes missed the point, and especially the rules for using the service. Asking, for example, “How do you ‘scrape’ data from LinkedIn?”

This expert status, while relative, is only temporary, Bruno explains. In short, it’s best to avoid wasting your time. This exercise involves providing content to the platform free of charge and becoming a slave to the social platform, for the benefit of an algorithm. It’s likely that no one will read your publications, which even you will find hard to recover. (Bruno provided a tip to explain how to recover them by logging out, but it was a trifle complicated…)

If I don’t recover the content, I produce so that it is at least visible on my profile, what’s the purpose? At the end of the day, if a subject uncovered in a collaborative article appeals to you, take up the question and deal with it in a post on your profile independently of the “collaborative” article.

Writing Posts With Artificial Intelligence

A feature not yet deployed in all languages (for instance, it’s not available to French-speaking audiences as we are writing these lines), is the possibility of writing articles or correcting them rather, using artificial intelligence in LinkedIn. Bruno doesn’t see much point in it.

In his opinion, there are enough text-generating AIs here and there to allow you to compose a post without having to resort to a wonky feature inside LinkedIn. But Bruno went on.

If it’s a question of using AI to write something that you will copy and paste into a publication, I consider that to be shooting yourself in the foot. Assuming that the AI makes you a superb publication based on a prompt, what’s going to happen the day we meet in real life?

As a result, you had better waste five minutes of your precious time, so you avoid looking silly later on.

Reacting to Publications with AI

A new feature offered by LinkedIn, is the ability to react to a publication, directly using suggestions offered by artificial intelligence: “Very good comment!”, “I fully agree with you”… Etc. Here again, Bruno’s reaction is rather lukewarm, if not downright negative.

It’s a downward spiral. I agree that LinkedIn members sometimes need encouragement to speak up and post comments, but providing such ready-made answers is bad. It reminds me of “LinkedIn pods at their worst”.

LinkedIn Not So New Feature: Newsletters

The ability to write newsletters directly in LinkedIn has been available for a few years. It has had its ups and downs, with the platform bringing it forward, then withdrawing it, then putting it back, and so on. A rather erratic practice of innovation, yet not unusual when it comes to Internet giants.

This is an interesting feature, but Bruno advises us to use it in copy-paste mode. Our own content should always remain ours, he added.

It should be considered as ancillary content, and your newsletter should not be based on LinkedIn. They decide at will whether your content should be shown or hidden. Yet this content is yours, the benefit should be too. It should be up to us to decide who we want to show it to.

Insofar as the platform decides and has the right of life and death over our publications, it’s about time content creators took back control of their work.

This newsletter feature on LinkedIn is interesting. However, if we put all our eggs into one basket, the day LinkedIn decides that everything has to be paid for, how will we manage?

Videos and LinkedIn: A Love-Hate Relationship!

This isn’t a new feature as such, but the question regularly arises as to whether putting a video in a LinkedIn post improves its visibility or reduces it. Unfortunately, there is no absolute answer to this question. But Bruno’s makes perfect sense.

Are videos a plus or minus on LinkedIn? I republished a video recently and it “hit the bull’s-eye” compared to other publications. And yet I’ve often been told that you shouldn’t republish a post! Was it the video that gave the post more impact? I think it’s mainly the message you’re putting across that counts, the quality of your content and who you’re addressing.

In conclusion,

It doesn’t matter what content mode you use. What’s important is that you have an important message to get across. Interesting and enriching content. Here’s Bruno’s conclusion.

Let’s make videos and see how our audience reacts. Let’s do carousels otherwise. And if we want to do text, let’s do text! The idea is to get a message across to our fellow human beings, rather than wondering whether a particular format will clinch it better than another. At the end of the day, what does “reach” mean? Is it about our customers? The people we find interesting, those who will read our stuff, watch our videos, read our content or our carousels? And anyway, the algorithm keeps changing. Native video posting used to do the job, and later it didn’t because the algorithm had changed. At one point surveys were a big thing and LinkedIn was pushing them. We then had surveys about this and that and the other. Most were completely inane. I created one that made no sense just for fun. And it ended up being a big hit! Then it stopped working. The algorithm had changed again. In my mind, you have to use a humane tone of voice then favour one format over all else and stick with it.

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How is AI Search changing the Internet and what role are we playing in this transformation? In this article, I discuss the current state of adoption of AI-powered search engines. By reflecting on the perspectives of Kevin Roose, Matteo Wong and Joanna Stern, this piece explores what we gain—faster, more organized access to information—and what we risk losing—the diversity of sources, depth of content and our curiosity to go beyond a single answer.

Breaking Up With Your Traditional Search Engine

How is AI Search changing the Internet and what role are we playing in it? — image generated with Canva and ChatGPT

Is it time to ditch Google and your other favorite search engines? In the past few years, AI has disrupted numerous industries in the digital sector, but arguably one of the most noteworthy shifts has been in the online search market. Think of the last time you searched the internet for information—did you sift through pages of websites, or did AI place the answer at your feet? 

The decades-long reign of Google might just be challenged by this new age of conversational and contextually aware search power. 

Three Voices on AI Search: Roose, Wong and Stern

To examine this idea more deeply, this piece will consider three different articles written by Kevin Roose, Matteo Wong and Joanna Stern. As the conversation surrounding AI evolves, their observations offer unique points, from skepticism to adoption, reflecting the considerable development of AI capabilities and increasing adoption by users. 

By breaking down their findings and looking at the numbers of adoption, I will explore the current and future landscape of AI-powered search. So whether you’ve already hitched your ride to the AI bandwagon or are still clinging to your Google tabs, here’s a glance at where our process of search, the internet, and information is headed. 

AI-Search at the speed of light — Photography by antimuseum.com

Kevin Roose: Continuing with Caution

In February 2024, Kevin Roose wrote an article for The New York Times titled “Can This A.I.-Powered Search Engine Replace Google? It Has for Me.” As you might have guessed from the title, Roose’s experience was a positive one, but not without some hesitation.

To test his theory, Roose gave up Google, instead opting for Perplexity, an AI search engine founded by former OpenAI and Meta researchers. Roose’s several-week adoption of Perplexity left him sufficiently convinced AI search engines were a valid competitor against traditional web browsers, but adjustments were needed if they are going to win the race. 

The information retrieval and contextual understanding offered by AI proved more useful for the majority of his work. However, due to AI’s limitations, Google was not obsolete. Acknowledging the absence of credible sources, real-time updates, and the occasional lack of truth AI provided, Roose found his usage of AI had certainly become more prominent, but most successful when used alongside Google.

The article suggests the adoption of AI will not be a bold movement, but a gradual and natural shift in user behavior. Still indecisive on the effects AI will have on journalists, publishers and others who create the internet landscape, Roose stated, “I’ll have to weigh the convenience of using Perplexity against the worry that, by using it, I’m contributing to my own doom.” 

Matteo Wong: Exploratory Search

Roose is far from the only one to have concerns about the growing popularity of AI. The Atlantic’s Matteo Wong placed a heavy critique on AI in his article “The Death of Search.” Wong’s piece focused less on the way in which a person uses AI and more on the way that AI changes our relationship with information.

Should you cross traditional Internet Search off the list? Stern’s answer is a resounding YES ! – image generated with ChatGPT

 

In his view, the concern is not AI’s credibility or factuality—those issues could be fixed as systems evolve—but the loss of an exploratory model of search. When people stop engaging critically with information, they lose the ability to evaluate and explore their own curiosity. 

He states, “It could completely reorient our relationship to knowledge, prioritizing rapid, detailed, abridged answers over a deep understanding and the consideration of varied sources and viewpoints.” The indication of Wong’s argument is that by extinguishing that exploratory model of search and making information “too” accessible, it dismantles the fundamental idea of the web. 

Joanna Stern: Embracing Convenience 

In opposition to Wong’s take on the adoption of AI-powered search engines is Joanna Stern, who shared her full support in her New York Times article, “I Quit Google for ChatGPT—and I’m Not Going Back.” Stern’s piece rings similarly to Roose’s in that once she made the switch, the probability of going back was unlikely.

Trying a variety of AI platforms, Stern found the ease and refinement of AI a refreshing break from sponsored links and promoted products offered by Google. Only in searching for a known product, website or article did Google still prove useful. 

While she noted AI is consistent with the limitations of poor sourcing and inaccurate information, Stern’s main concern was the loss of visibility and traffic for the information’s original source. 

What’s to keep AI from making these websites and publications obsolete, and who do you credit for the information you got? Stern wraps her argument into a neat bow by saying, “So, yes, I’ll encourage you to try AI for search, as long as you promise to click a link when you can.”

My Experience with AI Search

While I have familiarized myself with the platforms ChatGPT and Perplexity, my experience with AI-powered search engines is still limited. However, from what I have seen, I am impressed. The concise, summarized answers leave me satisfied and often without lingering questions. Still, despite the efficiency, I have found I do not stray far from Google. I am not sure if it is a habit or precaution.

Looking to the Future 

So where do you stand? Are you ready to commit to AI, or is apprehension holding you back? As each article shows us, the level of adoption is varying, and chances are you’re somewhere in the middle.

But there’s no doubt the way we access and receive information is changing. The worldwide market size of AI jumped from approximately $50 billion to $184 billion in just one year.

Additionally, a survey by Activate tells us the number of adults in the United States using AI first for their online search was around 13 million just two years ago and is projected to reach 90 million by 2027.

The growth is telling, and it’s not limited to one platform. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Claude—even Google is trying to reinvent itself with Gemini.

So whether you’re a curious newcomer, cautious observer or full-on convert, it’s clear we are stepping into a new age of internet.

Moving forward we will have to decide if the gains outweigh the losses and with continual adoption, new questions arise. Will AI search enhance or limit access to diverse perspectives? How much of a role will it play in our daily lives? I guess we will have to wait and see.

AI search is taking Internet search a level higher — photo by antimuseum.com

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What if hiring luxury venues during the 2024 Olympics were a good opportunity for brands, even small ones?  The Olympic Games are only six months away from now and I was wondering how much of an opportunity it was for brands and which ones. To find out I invited Tanya Bencheva, the CEO and founder of Native Spaces, to share her reflections on that subject. Little did I imagine, when I first contacted Tanya, that there were so many options for smaller brands. It’s certainly up for grabs and our readers should definitely give it a thought. 

2024 Olympic Games in Paris: Luxury Venues are a Good Bargain for Smaller Brands

Olympic Games – Luxury Venues Paris are certainly a much better bargain than I originally thought when I interviewed Tanya Bencheva

What are the expectations six months ahead of the Games

Tanya Bencheva. It’s certainly a very exciting event. I really hope for everybody and for the world that it’s going to be as big as we expect it to be because we are all in need of a reminder of the values brought together by the 2024 Olympic Games.

How successful do you think will it be from a business point of view?

It would be a no-brainer not to use that event to get more visibility.

Now how big it will be, I couldn’t say precisely but there are a lot of expectations and buzz. What we know for sure is that a lot of property owners are increasingly coming to us to try and monetise their buildings and venues via this big happening.

Why should a brand bother about luxury venues and the Olympic Games at all?

There are many, reasons for this. There will be millions of people from all over the world and with a high level of income who will be staying in Paris during the Olympic Games. Hence it’s an excellent opportunity for visibility. On top of that, these people will share content with their communities, and that adds other millions of viewers to the lot. And then obviously the games are televised, therefore generating more listeners. So it’s an incredible possibility to build brand awareness. And beyond that, engagement.

I think it’s a no-brainer.

Luxury venues are up for grabs. Be it a yacht on the river Seine, a homey place in a luxury loft at the heart of Paris or the lavish reception hall of second empire monument, there are plenty of opportunities for brands to surprise their clients and organise memorable events — image taken from the native-spaces.com website.

Is it just for big, renowned brands?

I think they can all benefit in different ways. That’s a unique opportunity to advertise internationally. Established brands can bring together their fans, they will already be in town for the Olympics, so they can increase customer engagement.

There are particular sectors that would be more prone to profit from this visibility, though. Anything that has to do with sports and also maybe apparel and consumer brands. But that being said, the Olympic Games are about much more than just sport. It’s a huge event that is based on positive values that any marque may want to be associated with. So, I think any label may try to find creative ways to align itself with the Olympic spirit.

If I were selling plastic tarpaulins, could I jump on the bandwagon too?

You could! There are always creative ways to grab the public’s attention. The Paris Olympic Games have a special focus on sustainability. This could trigger an idea for you, but you’d have to do that with authenticity, though. If you don’t live and breathe such values, it would be more difficult to align your brand with them.

Are such luxury venues only for B2C businesses?

Of course not! B2B companies can also resort to these kinds of events not only for visibility but mostly to show special attention to their larger clients. For instance, inviting key customers to join them in their private lounges. They can invite them to outstanding locations overlooking some of the sports venues or lavish apartments overlooking the river Seine. Or inviting their clients to watch the opening ceremony in a specially branded environment.

How do brands, and especially lesser-known ones stand out from the crowd?

You don’t need to spend billions to engage your, audiences because there are many creative ways to build personalised experiences.

Younger people feel more comfortable in small groups and very niche communities. And brands are more and more inclined to acknowledge this. Intimate spaces, remarkable spaces for those events or experiences that will suit smaller groups. That requires preparation and the greater the surprise, the more unique the experience, the bigger the impact.

For a very small business wanting to attract people’s attention, what kind of venue would you choose?

I would select a venue whose authenticity is suited to my brand values. Is my brand very digital or experiential? What is my audience like? I would choose the venue that reflects the personality of my audience. So it might be a homey place if this is a small brand where the community spirit is very important, or something completely out of the ordinary. For example, a brand like Jacquemus that will set up events in vast natural spaces.

The buzz created before, during and after the event also enables the brand to extend its visibility.

It’s not always a good idea to throw a lot of money at exceptional venues overlooking the Eiffel Tower. There are other ways and means.

What about online and hybrid events?

I think one doesn’t quite realise how much hybrid events have become. By the way, we don’t call them hybrid events anymore. Businesses have realised that, in essence, the audience for an event is bound to be hybrid.

I think one doesn’t quite realise how much hybrid events have become.

Hybrid events are no longer the same, though. In the beginning, we were trying to push the same content in the same format to our online audiences, for example, streaming conferences. That really didn’t resonate well with our audiences. Online audiences will consume content differently. They are different people, they belong to different segments from those that will be present on location.

Maybe both populations were mixed during those Covid years because they had no choice but to be online. But those audiences’ expectations are very different now. Often, those who attend online are those who wouldn’t have been there in person. So you need to think about them in a different manner.

We have also witnessed a significant change in event management platforms. It’s incredible what you can do online nowadays and how you can deliver that hybrid content. Besides, even those people who are physically there are experiencing a hybrid event. They are attending the event on location and are connected at the same time. They are engaging with brands and other users on their phones. It’s an omnichannel experience.

Could you give us some examples?

Recently I was attending a big tech conference for start-ups and investors in Helsinki. They did an amazing job of bringing the virtual and physical worlds together. Delegates were able to organise their meetings on the fly with the app wherever they were and on location. Meeting places were geolocated with the app and so on. Digital really was instrumental in making such a big event more successful.

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Just like the Trojan war, the AI “revolution” will not take place*. Today’s topic is the inevitable generative AI. This is the perfect opportunity for us to discuss what a technological revolution is or isn’t. Here are our thoughts, and we might as well warn you that we are putting our trotters in the trough in a very counter-intuitive way. Admittedly, we’re taking a bit of a risk here, but keeping up with the Joneses isn’t a valid option for Visionary Marketers. As we know the subject well from having trained and certified a thousand students, we are also well aware of the limitations of GenAI tools.

The AI “Revolution” Will Not Take Place

It’s an AI ‘revolution?’ How many times have we heard pundits say that? But what is a revolution and is it true? – The above touched up and cropped photo taken from an old PWC advert. Note that the agency mistook the Chateau of Fontainebleau for Versailles. It’s true that seen from afar all chateaux are more or less alike.

* this is a literary reference to Jean Giraudoux

“Generative AI” has been buzzword of the year in 2023 for better or worse. I have wanted to dig somewhat deeper, though. So, what is and isn’t a technological ‘revolution,’ and is AI one of them? That is the question. A few days ago, I came across a LinkedIn post that argued, through a widely shared video, that “nothing was like ever before.” It showed a large crowd filming the 2023 fireworks on the Champs-Élysées with their mobile phones.

A technological “revolution”… really?

In addition to the ubiquitous mobile screens, there were giant LCD displays on the sides and the Arc de Triomphe itself was turned into a mammoth screen. Similar pictures could have been taken in London, New York or Ulan Bator. In a nutshell, what’s new in 2024 is that everyone owns a screen.

The mobile technological revolution is nothing new. In a sense, neither is the AI “revolution.” Probably even less since the first poem generated by a computer dates from 1956.

It’s laughable in more than many ways. It reminds me of my 2013 presentations on social media. I was already showing the same photo (above, taken from an NBC broadcast), which was supposed to prove a change in society.

Enough of that, let’s get back to our main topic, i.e., generative AI. The 2023 obligatory buzzword has undoubtedly been “revolution” as in “GenAI is a technological revolution.”

This term is ambiguous, though. As Merriam Webster state, a revolution’s first meaning is that of a planet turning on itself, a kind of standstill in fact. A revolution’s first meaning is “back to square zero.” In other words, as Alphonse Karr would have it, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” On the other hand, it’s a term so widely used in innovation that it’s almost embarrassing.

1 (a) 1 Revolution the action by a celestial body of going round in an orbit or elliptical course. also: apparent movement of such a body round the earth [Merriam-Webster]

Mobile revolution: the 2024 version according to the Huffington Post. A recurring theme

Try to play down this ‘revolution’ business and people will mock you. It has happened to me. However, one should wonder what, in our daily lives, is bound to change so radically in the coming years.

Fear Is Irrational

Firstly, fear is everywhere, but is it justified? Should we consider AI is a ‘revolution’ merely because we fear we might lose our jobs. What are the facts that substantiate that feeling?

Secondly, uncertainty, or rather a feeling of uncertainty is ubiquitous. One hears of a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world as if it were new. Yet, the concept was coined in 1987. I also wonder what the people of the late 18th century or the first industrial revolution might have thought of that.

These feelings are shared by many, as this recent anecdote shows.

Some time ago I hosted a webinar on the subject of AI-assisted development. It’s a fairly technical subject and certainly not revolutionary. It reminds me of my Unisys days 40 years ago and the Xerox CASE systems. Right after that event, I received a number of phone calls and messages from people who were experts in certain areas of IT, but who were panicking when thinking of this Sci-Fi-like, “dehumanised” view of our future.

But beyond these irrational fears, is what we are experiencing today really a “revolution”? In the sense that everything is changing radically.

No one understands innovation (Berkun)

I don’t think anyone in 2021 understands anything about innovation, an observation that was already made by Scott Berkun over 10 years ago, and which, in my opinion, remains entirely valid. So much the better, as it gives us work to do for many years to come, this is reassuring. After all, not everything is bound to disappear.

Over the last few months, as I’ve been delving into the subject of AI and generative AI, I came across a programme on France Culture (Science Chrono, 21 October 2023 in French) in which Antoine Beauchamp described the first attempts to generate text using artificial intelligence. It wasn’t in 2023, nor 2010, but… 1956! Granted, the texts it produced were gibberish. Those written by the surrealists too.

The buried figure exterminates the terrible dreams, the abysses and the solitary reapers are never a fierce anvil, crumpling with difficulty an ordinary sickle with the gleam, a blood mutilates the false twilight by a fertile sword.

Computer-generated text based on the lexicon of Victor Hugo – 1956

The generation of text, and poetry in particular, was one of the first playgrounds for artificial intelligence and mathematicians. Not all that revolutionary. What’s more, the presenter pointed out that the human brain is designed in such a way that when confronted with an incomprehensible text, it adapts to try and make sense of it. We certainly do the same when looking at the results delivered by ChatGPT and its competitors.

AI, Stochastic Approaches and The Surrealists

Many artists of past centuries have experimented with methods similar to the stochastic approaches of generative AI. These include Stéphane Mallarmé, whose texts are often hermetic, the precursors of the surrealists, Georges Perec, the other members of the Oulipo (literally, the “opener of potential literature), and their master Raymond Queneau (also a mathematician, his books were sometimes the result of what might be described as algorithms, as in the case of the skin of dreams aka loin de Rueil – 1944) and, of course, the surrealists with their infamous “exquisite corpses” (a century ago).

An Exquisite Corpse by André Breton. I wonder what Breton would have thought of this AI ‘revolution’?!

So what can we derive from all this?

Generative artificial intelligence has been so successful in the eyes of the general public since the end of 2022 (and longer as far as we are concerned), it would be silly not to admit that this is a technological breakthrough for computing. No one could buy into that. But is it a mere step forward or a “revolution”?

I’m leaning towards the step forward, even if it’s hard to substantiate this conclusion with facts. Readers versed in French are kindly advised to get to grips with Philosopher, Mathematician and IT expert Daniel Andler’s book, “Intelligence artificielle, intelligence humaine, la double énigme (Nrf, 2023).” Here is an excerpt.

But what kind of enigma is it? Here is what I think: the target of AI is an artificial intelligence that is on par with human intelligence. But this target never seems to get any closer, even though AI is constantly progressing. Here are the two explanations I propose to solve this enigma. […] The first is that the pursuit of an artificial intelligence endowed with human intelligence is pointless: according to the conception of intelligence that I defend, intelligence in the human sense can only be attached to a human being. Artificial intelligence, in whatever form and at whatever level of development, is designed to solve problems, which is only a secondary task for human intelligence. The second conclusion concerns the efforts that AI is devoting, with a tenfold increase in energy, to designing ever more intelligent systems, that is, in its view, ever closer to human intelligence. It also aims to give these systems as much autonomy as possible, and ultimately total autonomy. This dual objective is incoherent, dangerous and pointless.

We will only truly understand the changes brought about by these technologies in a few years’ time, and with the benefit of hindsight. In the meantime, untimely enthusiasm about technological ‘revolutions’ should be taken with a pinch of salt.

We are told that white-collar jobs, and mostly copywriters and even developers will disappear. Time will tell. I have my doubts. Jobs disappear and are replaced all the time anyway. There is nothing new in that.

The Booker Prize Awarded to ChatGPT?

Of course, ChatGPT and its clones know how to produce mathematically plausible texts. But will we be seeing the Booker Prize awarded to Bard, BingAI or ChatGPT in five or ten years’ time? I doubt it very much. On the contrary, some authors will make fun of these machines, hijack them and use them as creative material. This will last for a while, and then we’ll move on to something else.

Recently, I was looking back on more than a year and a half of using generative AI to create images for this website. I realised that my own perception of the pictures that were generated was evolving over time. Initially, rather like children, we played with these tools (Midjourney and others) in an irrational way. We started producing images all over the place.

Many users are still doing that today. LinkedIn is awash with these plastic images made by AI. Half-scary, half-demonstrative, they come in garish, stereotypical colours and are instantly recognisable by anyone with even the slightest training.

AI revolution : over time, perceptions change.

What used to be a game has become boring. Repetition even triggers fierce reactions from readers. Over time, you learn to abstain from using AI. I’m at this stage now. You then use this tool as one of the sources for producing images, mixed with stock photos and also more personal images, and to avoid using them systematically.

Of course, this won’t stop billions of users producing these gaudy, horrific images. But a more reasoned use of the machine can free us from these atrocities, and by rediscovering our technical skills and mixing several tools, we can find true creativity (combining, tearing apart, recombining, etc.).

All this to say that the ‘revolution’ will not take place, or rather that it will take place, but certainly not to the extent that we imagine today, and provided we wait (10, 15 or 20 years) and live long enough to witness the impact and true use of these platforms. Such impact will be undeniable for some uses — like picture generation — and much more debatable for others, in particular the generation of stochastic texts.

I know that some people will be disgruntled and will dismiss my predictions. Most of them will. Year after year Internet and social media pundits predict new technical revolutions. Our History of technology books are full of the stories depicting these failed technological upheavals.

I apologise for this, sincerely. But I’m not going to indulge in this exercise, which makes no sense whatsoever. I realise; however, that truth is less spectacular than fiction. People love their own dreams, this is precisely one of the things what will make humans better than machines.

In the meantime, I’m willing to bet that the digital word of the year 2024 won’t be “generative AI.”

 

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How can a responsible marketer survive when the world around us is crumbling? Or at least when experts are telling you that it is. Three years to the day, the French association of marketers Adetem asked Visionary Marketing to join its CSR responsible marketing initiative, and naturally we welcomed the opportunity. That almost seemed natural to us. However, things aren’t that simple and many questions remain. Here are our thoughts on the subject even though there are more questions than answers. Our underlying goal is to encourage marketers (and salespeople) to question and reflect on their practices and how they should behave professionally at a time when society as a whole is torn on these issues, particularly environmental ones. It seems to us more suitable than developing an ideological pitch and demanding that facts match reality.

Tips for the Depressed Responsible Marketer

The responsible marketer is sure of his commitment, but is it effective? The key is not to get depressed and to stay the course – image made with Midjourney.

This survival guide for depressed responsible marketers was written for some reason. Let me tell you an anecdote

Anecdote: An Eco-Distressed Responsible Marketer

One day, I met a colleague and friend who is a digital marketing expert. He was deeply concerned by recent developments in climate change (not to be confused with global warming). His wife had just given birth to a baby and he was devastated by “the world we would be leaving behind to our children”. I sensed that he was about to snap, so I reassured him and advised him to take the edge off. His eco-anxiety (the word hadn’t been invented back then) was probably not going to do much good, and even less so for his child, who would probably be in need of trust, encouragement and a positive outlook.

And yet, six or seven years later, I’m reminded of this anecdote as a COP28 conference, led by an oil tycoon and carrying the hopes of many, has just drawn to a close. Same old song and dance, the following IPCC get-together will take place in Azerbaijan and will be led by an ex-marketeer from the oil industry! Worse still, I learned recently that one of the flagship organisations that gave birth to the IPCC was also founded and run by a Canadian oil investor (check Maurice Strong’s bio).

Eco-responsibility in marketing is a bit like the rearrangement of deck chairs on the Titanic — image produced with Midjourney

More depressing news for you

To this one could add many other depressing events or books (from Vaclav Smil to James Hansen and Antoine Bueno [Fr] through to Jean-Baptiste Fressoz [Fr]). All that shows we might well hit the wall of climate change soon. French Energy expert Fressoz states, there is no such thing as energy transitions for instance. Smil had highlighted the energy transition issue as early as 2010. To top it all, there is no such thing as “peak oil”. Two mining experts from France, warned us about the surfeit of oil reserves on the planet [Fr]. There is no dearth of oil sorry, we’re in for trouble for very much longer I’m afraid.

Worse still, there was this talk we gave in Tunisia. While around a hundred marketers flocked to the workshops dedicated to AI, digital marketing or agility in product marketing, the breakout session dedicated to responsible marketing was attended by two participants, one of which was a student.

(Ir) responsible salespeople and marketers

We could add to the list. There are many examples of irresponsible marketers and salespeople, such as door-to-door sellers who try to take advantage of the elderly by getting them to sign contracts when they don’t even realise it (real-life experience), or phone spammers, email or LinkedIn scammers. All those people are determined to make you like hellish. Laws and regulations are piling up but to no avail. Complaints and technical devices aimed at protecting you don’t seem to have that much of an effect either. Marketing and sales professionals have always been familiar with these fishy practices. Those who behave in this way are a disgrace to our profession and, sadly, they are often held up as an example of ‘success’. Think about growth hackers for instance. Nauseating.

My Brompton P series above the Sea, a stone’s throw from Sword Beach where British forces first landed 80 years ago. I ride 3,000 miles per annum and I’ve covered at least 20,000 miles in the past six years inclusive of client visits et al. But is it sufficient? I doubt it. In the background, a Brittany Ferries ship on its way to Portsmouth. Brittany Ferries was founded by Alexis Gourvennec whose Father was an Onion Johnny

Questions responsible marketers may have

All this leads sincere responsible marketers to ask many questions at a time when societal and environmental issues can no longer be ignored.

Am I setting an example? How can I contribute to improving things? Above all, how can I avoid working to make them worse than they already are? Is a responsible marketing framework sufficient? Should I sell or ask people not to buy any more or rather, not so much? Fight against Primark, Shein and Temu? And if so, how can I do so when the basics of sales and marketing are advocating the opposite? Will I, as a responsible marketer who sells less, be promoted or demoted? Answering these questions is probably not that simple. But we may still surmise, perhaps rightfully, that making efforts, however small, is better than doing nothing.

Should a responsible marketer give up hope?

But let’s return to the anecdote I quoted above. Should a responsible marketer – or one on the way to becoming one – despair?

Should she be overwhelmed by this seemingly unattainable goal? Must she fight greenwashing and illusory transitions? Should she avoid working with unethical companies, those from the coal, oil, tobacco and alcohol and spirits sectors, those promoting addictive substances or contributing to the destruction of natural resources, that resort to modern slavery, that sell you nitrites or make you drink plastic waste, eat pesticides or contribute to the growth of green algae to the point of suffocating the beautiful shores of Brittany…? The list is almost endless, and it’s getting longer every day.

The responsible marketer, however, has no right to be depressed.

• Firstly, because it’s pointless.
• Then, because while she may be “responsible”, she may not necessarily be guilty. She must constantly question her practices and make efforts not to take the easy way out. She must also try and convince those around her.
• Thirdly, because she must not waste time trying to convert zealots. Let them surrender or commit suicide when they will be surrounded (as at Masada).
• Finally, because it’s not possible to think that you can be held accountable for all the world’s misfortunes if you can’t solve them. That’s putting too much pressure on yourself. At the end of the day, a depressed marketer will never be able to improve the situation.

A weak but necessary survival guide

Such is my survival guide. It’s very weak, I readily admit to it. But at the same time it will allow you to live better and at peace with yourself. It will also enable us to try and improve things as we best can. No more, no less. It’s easier when you are a content marketer than a marketer for the Royal Dutch-Shell company, though, I’m aware of these limitations. There aren’t many chances of result either, I know that too.

On the environmental front, the situation seems, if not hopeless, at least quite serious. So let’s hope, with Smil that there is no guarantee that this will be the end of the world and that humans are incapable of predicting the future. Both statements are probably both right.

Assuming Smil is right, whatever good practices responsible marketers have put in place will always be a means to change the world for the better. We can live with that.

The post CSR: a survival guide for the depressed responsible marketer appeared first on Marketing and Innovation.

Will marketers survive the content shock in the age of AI? The Omnes Education Group launched a cross-organisational programme in English called “Content creation in the age of AI” to help its students better understand GenAI. Close to 1,000 students will be certified in this program by early February 2024. As part of the program, Visionary Marketing interviewed Mark Schaefer, one of the world’s most renowned marketing bloggers, to gain insights on how marketers should approach the new content shock caused by AI. Schaefer’s answers were thought-provoking and valuable for both established and aspiring content creators.

Surviving the Content Shock in the Age of AI

How can marketers survive the content shock in the age of ChatGPT and GenAI? To find out Visionary Marketing asked Mark Schaefer — visual by Omnes Education Group. The Shift programme is a cross organisational education programme aimed at all the schools within the group. In 2024, nearly 1,000 students will be certified within the Content creation in the age of GenAI programme.

Understanding Before Idealising

Understanding GenAI in 2024 is a must, regardless of the fact that you like it or not. By that I not only mean how it works, but how it must be used, when it must and must not be used, what its limitations are, and the societal questions its implementation raise.

My stance on this is very straightforward:

What one gets to grips with (rationally), one never fears nor idealises

Banning GenAI in schools will serve no purpose

I am convinced that merely banning the usage of GenAI, as I see it done in many US universities now, isn’t a good idea. For one, it will not stop students from wielding those tools. There is always a workaround. Besides, it will not help them develop a critical eye towards technology and its — inevitable — limitations.

For this reason, the Omnes Education Group, one of the largest in Europe, launched a very ambitious cross organisational programme in English for all its students. I was very lucky to work with them on that project. I wasn’t alone. Bénédicte, Julie and Fanny are part of an amazing team with whom I really enjoyed working.

GenAI: approx. 1,000 students will be certified

At the end of the process, in early February 2024, close to 1,000 students will be certified within this “Content creation in the age of AI” programme.

Given the subject, it made perfect sense for me to interview one of the world’s best marketing bloggers, Mark Schaefer, whose work has inspired us at Visionary Marketing for the past ten years at least. I interviewed Mark as part of this lecture, so that he could tell us how marketers should tackle this new content shock.

As always, his answers were thought-provoking. They are a lesson for all established and would-be content creators who want to know the way ahead.

This exchange is one of many that we recorded for our students and cannot be disclosed. The school representatives were kind enough to let me publish Mark’s interview publicly, though. This is a condensed version of our exchange.

The content shock, 10 years later: an arms race of content

 

In 2013, Mark issued a warning. Too much content will kill content marketing and content marketing is not a sustainable strategy, he contended.

“The thesis behind the content shock article is that, in an economic system, a natural system, or a human system, if there’s too much of something, there has to be an adjustment.”

This is true of water, snow, pollution, heat… and there are no reasons why content creation wouldn’t be following that rule either, Mark explained.

“You’re going to have a flood and you will need to adjust,” he went on. “This pattern repeats in every channel where there’s a need for content. When a new channel becomes popular, the amount of content in the channel goes up, up, up, up, up. And so, it becomes an arms race. And it’s a never-ending competition.”

As always, Mark is hitting the nail on the head. All content creators have been through this before. Those who published monthly in the 1990s, started publishing weekly 10 years later, then daily and finally, several times a day. The “Publish or perish” adage has never been so true. And so it goes with social platforms too. Publishing once a month on LinkedIn isn’t going to make you very popular. After a while, one can wonder whether publishing ever more content still makes sense.

Either you create better content or promote it better (or both).

“And you only have two choices,” Mark went on. “You must create better and better content. And there’s a price to that. Or you must promote it better and better and there’s a cost to that too.”

This is something that happens with every social media channel, old and new. “Now we have threads and everybody — in the States — says, ‘go on threads! It’s easy to find an audience.’” But it never lasts for long. By the time the platform has become popular and everyone has migrated to it, it has become a lot more difficult to find one’s audience.

This is “a repeating pattern”, Mark explains.

Mark Schaefer coined the content-shock phrase, a very useful concept in this age of GenAI — Photo by Mark Shaefer

What of Generative AI?

Thus, “how does generative AI impact content creation?” Things, as usual, aren’t black or white.

1. On the one hand, “There’s a wonderful benefit of this. It unleashes creativity and productivity in wonderful new ways.”
2. On the flip side, it floods, and will increasingly flood the market with content.

Let’s start with the positive side, increased creativity, and productivity. Mark comes up with an anecdote about that: “I have a friend who is, by her own admission, a terrible writer. Enters ChatGPT. She says, ‘Now, I can blog every day. I might even be able to write a book.’ That’s wonderful! ChatGPT to writing is like a calculator to math. It makes everyone a competent writer, that’s wonderful.”

On the other hand, flooding the market with a lot of new content may not be such a good idea. “It makes the whole content shock problem a lot more severe,” Mark added. “There are a lot of unethical (black hat) things going on. The system can’t survive in the long term.”

Taken at face value, all this doesn’t bode well for content marketing. Yet, there is another way of looking at it and Mark remains, overall, rather optimistic. I think he is right. A large system like the Internet will almost always purge itself automatically. If the content is poor, users will leave eventually and that will force platforms and search engines to clean up their act.

GenAI and the content shock: not so serious

Indeed, Mark thinks that things will improve over time. “Those people will end up being penalised and they will go away and eventually, the system will work itself out. I’m not so much worried about the short term.

I think we need to stay focused on doing good work, doing exceptional work.”

Being known is what will save us

Mark, as the author of the best-selling opus “Known,” believes that “only our personal brands will save us. Being known and beloved will enable us to earn our own audiences,” he added.

This reminds me of my advice in this PushEngage webinar about GenAI in 2020. Since bad content will be plentiful, those in search of valuable information will have to focus on recognised, trustworthy sources. Not just mainstream media, but bloggers, renowned professionals, and influencers. People they can trust.

For those who have worked on their reputation, Mark says, there is no real issue with the excess of content.

AI-driven Content-Shock: A threat for tomorrow, not so much for today

In fact, the sheer volume of content produced has no impact.

“Let’s say we are a blogger trying to compete in a world where there are millions of other blog posts. Whether it’s 1 million or 1 billion, doesn’t really matter. Regardless, we will have to earn our way. And as you have suggested, a lot of this AI generated content isn’t very good. Yet, it’s going to get better. I think the most significant thing about generative content is not really the threat it provides now, but the threat it provides tomorrow because it’s getting so much better so fast.

I think that in the next 18 months, we will be able to create a full-motion picture from our room, our kitchen table, with almost no money. And that’s why a lot of the writers and actors were on strike in Hollywood.”

ChatGPT mimics Shelly Palmer in just five seconds

To wrap up this interview, Mark told us an anecdote. “When ChatGPT was introduced, I immediately went to a friend of mine, Shelly Palmer, who is a very well-known technology analyst in America. I asked him what he thought of it. He said, ‘it’s terrifying. I’ve asked this thing to create a blog post in the voice of Shelly Palmer. And it did a magnificent job in five seconds. I’m 80% replaced.’”

Once again, on the face of it, one could think that this is the end of content marketing. Mostly on technology topics that are so well covered on the Internet.

“But let’s look at it more closely,” Mark concluded. “What is the 20% made of? What will not be replaced?”

The answer to this question is simpler than you think. “Shelly is known, he is trusted,” Mark explains, “he is beloved. And that is something that ChatGPT can never take away from him.”

It is clear, from what Mark and Shelly expressed, that the students who want to thrive tomorrow will have to up their game significantly. Let’s hope that this education programme and certificate by Omnes will help them achieve this very goal.

The Omnes Education Group team developed this beautiful and inspiring trailer based on my introductory text for this programme. It was sent to all students within the group to inform them and encourage them to enrol. Click the button to discover the Omnes Education Group.

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According to a recent Forrester report (How Generative AI Will Transform CRM), GenAI may have significant and beneficial impacts on Customer Relationship Management systems and practices. The real question is, however, how effective GenAI could be when it comes to handling various customer-facing tasks? And how easily could it adapt to specific CX applications? Forrester’s analysts surmise that using massive bodies of data and large language models (LLMs), one could achieve better interactions with customers, therefore elevating customer experiences, and contributing to growth. That is to say, as long as certain conditions are met. Besides, when mentioning GenAI and CRM, the analyst group warns that ChatGPT might not be the ideal solution. 

GenAI Could Enhance CRM… Under Certain Conditions

Forrester’s analysts think that GenAI may have significant impacts on CRM systems and practices. But there are a few provisos—image by Midjourney describing customer journeys and CRM processes automated with IT and GenAI.

Providing Better and Quicker Responses to Customer Inquiries

In this report entitled How Generative AI Will Transform CRM, a group of Forrester analysts discusses how CRM could use GenAI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants to provide quicker responses to customer inquiries. Therefore improving response time and overall CX. By analyzing data from customer interactions, including emails, meeting transcripts, and phone conversations, GenAI could apply its ability to surface, summarize, and interpret key consumer insights. This would enhance CRM’s strategic importance by providing more complete data sets and streamlining  processes.

Implementing GenAI could possibly change the way CRM agents and sellers engage with customers through CRM systems, the analysts contend. In this manner, CRM agents would have more time on their hands for the more creative and strategic parts of their tasks. Thus, increasing CRM’s strategic footprint could make marketers more innovative. In addition, sellers would also be able to address buyers’ requests for information more accurately. The bottom line is that all that would lead to more customer satisfaction and better Customer Relationship Management, Forrester’s analysts assert. In other words, GenAI would not threaten CX, it could well enhance it.

GenAI Will Revolutionize CRM, Not Erode It
Forrrester 

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/genai-info.pngCommon GenAI features in Customer Relationship Management platforms according to TechTarget

The Role of GenAI and its effect on CX and CRM

According to the analyst group, Generative AI’s role is to reshape and elevate customer experiences. Extracting crucial information from Customer Relationship Management records. Providing real-time news feeds, assisting users to prepare for meetings and making effective decisions increasing customers’ trust. By understanding customers’ preferences, companies could therefore create unique experiences across different touch points, from website interactions to targeted marketing campaigns, leading to a more positive customer journey. 

AI algorithms can assess leads based on different criteria, making the sales process easier. They can analyze past customer actions to predict future movements. Helping businesses be ready for customer needs and desires. One key application is in chatbots and virtual assistants, the analysts describe, where generative AI can understand and respond to a wide range of user inputs, providing more humanlike interactions and creating a more engaging and satisfying experience for customers.

That being said, Forrester provides a useful comparison table of various LLM models and deliver recommendations accordingly. Thus, while advocating GenAI inclusion within CRM systems and processes, the analyst group also draws our attention to the fact that GenAI isn’t limited to ChatGPT.

https://www.forrester.com/report/how-generative-ai-will-transform-crm/RES138044Forrester described the differences amongst various generative AI models—image by Forrester Research, Inc.

Evaluating the Risks of using GenAI within CRM processes and systems

As a matter of fact, one should take notice of the risks associated with the use of GenAI and take Forrester’s recommendations into consideration.

A significant concern is the potential for bias in the content, as it may unintentionally learn and replicate biases present in the training data. This could lead to a negative impact on customer perception and ruin a company’s reputation. As a result, one should address biases in training data and potential copyright violations.

The best way to do that is for businesses to assess AI foundations, prepare data, and adopt a human-in-the-loop approach to ensure accuracy, completeness, and ethical considerations in the content produced by Generative AI, the analysts advise.

Organizations looking to implement Generative AI need to make sure they have a data center of excellence. In essence this is no different from any other information system implementation. One could even add that AI, rather than obliterating data quality issues, is making data integrity even more pivotal. 

Training LLMS on Proper CRM data

LLMs need to be prepared on CRM data properly to improve the accuracy of analysis and responses to customers. The data needs to comply with privacy regulations. And its history has to be auditable so that it can be tracked in case of issues. The tracking and monitoring of the content automatically generated is a must-have, the analyst group suggests in their report. Ongoing monitoring and regular updates are therefore needed to evolve customer preferences and ensure the system’s accuracy. 

We suspect that this will have a substantial impact on the amount of effort put in place in these processes and systems implementation. What will be the outcome on actual productivity gains remain to be seen. Such productivity gains may also depend on the level of knowledge of the CRM agents or sellers concerned. Whereas a beginner might find a copilot to be helpful when it comes to providing faster and more accurate responses, a seasoned CRM agent may be able to deliver better and faster information to her clients due to her field experience that makes cross and double-checking redundant.

In conclusion, GenAI could indeed help organizations navigate the complexities of customer relations in a world where customers are ever more demanding and impatient. Yet, many doubts and risks are paving this way and businesses should tread this new ground carefully while taking into account all ethical, privacy, and communication challenges.

Businesses that want to successfully integrate GenAI within CRM should mitigate such risks deftly and promptly.

About the study 

This report “How Generative AI Will Transform CRM” was written by Forrester‘s analysts Kate Leggett and Rowan Curran with contributions from Linda Ivy-Rosser, Zeid Khater, Seth Marrs, Christina McAllister, Katie Linford, Hannah Murphy. 

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What are the applications of geographic information systems? Following our discussion with Catherine Crook, we asked Floyd Bull to answer that question for us.

Geographic information systems and their applications

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/interurban-trail.pngVisionary Marketing was interested to know more about the applications of Geographic information systems – image taken by Gaurav Jindal and touched up with Adobe Photoshop.

How did you get started with GIS?

During college, I saw geographic information systems as an opportunity that would lead to jobs after my studies. Throughout the first years, I began seeing all the applications that can be used and fell in love with GIS. 

My favorite part as a GIS analyst is working with different teams and with our customers. Each time they come to us with a project, there are different aspects to it. Each market requires critical thinking. This leads to what I love the most about geographic informational systems, which is how they impact your everyday lives. It is amazing how they can be applied to everything even when it is not expected.

There is a spatial component to the majority of our lives.

How do you solve real-life problems with GIS?

I worked for the city of Kirkland in Washington State. Their planning department wanted to know how the shadows on the interurban trail would be affected if they were to increase the heights of buildings. The trail is a walking and biking path through the city, which they hold very dear to them. I performed a shade analysis to see how much shade would go onto the trail during the year. In my report, I provided the city council with a full analysis and a YouTube video showing them hour-by-hour where the shade would be along the path. With this, they were able to see the impact of raising the buildings by ten feet and make a decision based on that analysis.

geographic information systems and video games

In video games, there is a spatial component too, since characters are moving along a given path. This is the case with games such as League of Legends, which is a MOBA – Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. With this application, you can see the optimal build while playing as well as see what others are using to counter your build.

GIS and the issue of climate change

Since climate change is a major problem impacting us all, one could use geographic information systems to help solve it. A lot of people getting into GIS work on the rise of seawater and how it can affect different areas. Sometimes people think of GIS as paper maps – we’ve moved past that. That was 90s GIS. Now we can do geographic information systems where we’re adding a Z-coordinate to it. We are looking at it in 3D, not just down on a map.

https://gisgeography.com/what-is-gis/Geographic information systems definition by gisgeographic.com

Where do you see GIS in the next 5 to 10 years?

Mobile applications use real-time data to feed applications and show end users what’s going on. This makes it possible for maps to update instantly. I see it going in a data science route – looking at the data more and analyzing it. We as GIS analysts can get very much into the weeds of data – end users don’t care as much as we do about the nitty-gritty. But we can use geographic information systems to tell them a story that they can ingest in a much easier way. It has an impact on how we see climate change, hiking, golf, video games, baseball, or any other application. 

 

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Visionary Marketing spoke with Catherine Crook ­– senior GIS program manager for Hexvarium – to discuss the use of geographic information systems or GIS and its impact on communication networks and the world. We touch on her day-to-day obligations as a senior gas program manager. The software is used for tracking systems, the issue of climate change, and more. Catherine provides a very insightful view on the emerging GIS that is becoming an autonomous type of tracking space. However, there is a need for students to understand and find an interest in what GIS really is.

A day in the life of a GIS program manager

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/gis-image-1.pngVisionary Marketing wanted to know more about the job of GIS program manager. We asked Catherine Crook to talk about her experience – image produced with Midjourney and Photoshop

Could you describe your day-to-day obligations as a senior gas program manager?

Hexvarium is a startup that is pushing GIS into a broadband space. As a program manager, my job is to interface with clients. Manage a team of analysts who must get the deliverables to where they need to be. I also must make sure our development team is involved in all the nuances that are happening in what the customers are requesting. Because it’s a new way of looking at and navigating the broadband space, a lot of customers have never seen this type of application.

Most of my time is spent training as well as making sure all components are where they need to be. The purpose of my job is to be the glue. To make sure that when we deploy something, everyone really understands the reason why we are deploying it the way we are.

Which skills do you regularly use for your job?

Things have changed a lot as I have navigated through my career. My job is now to implement systems that correlate directly and involve the GIS space. My background was mostly in the GIS analyst component, but my skill set would be more of a project manager.

As a start-up, we were tracking hardly anything. I’ve implemented a lot of work-order tracking, systems tracking, and a JIRA ticketing system. There are all these different things in place now that we’re able to go back and grab. We can compare today to six months ago, and today to last week. That helps us navigate changes moving forward. I think understanding the GIS space is my regular skill. At the same time being able to project manage that GIS space seems to be the most dominant skill in these early stages of a startup.

Which software do you use to implement those tracking systems?

Previously, I’ve made my own tracking system. I’ve coded and made my own, and that’s been in SharePoint. That was a tracking system where if anybody wanted anything, it would come in as a ticket and then we would deploy it after it came in and there were criteria you had to follow. In the startup world, we don’t necessarily use SharePoint. I’ve then developed a work-order system so that a template environment must be adhered to for asks, and then that gets placed in a Slack channel. It’s like we’re building the plane while flying it.

Most days if I have some time, I build a documentation or tracking system while I’m still in the air. It’s way better than it was six months ago. We can now grab things and understand landscapes better than we ever could before, but it’s going to take another year or so for us to be standardized in the ticketing and tracking space.

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/post-fullmlabmaxasnstate.pngCatherine Crook is a GIS program manager at Hexvarium, a broadband service provider using proprietary Data Science to accurately identify, deliver, and connect profitable networks across all geographies – image by Hexvarium

How does the use of GIS influence fiber-optic communication networks?

When we come to the broadband space, an Internet space that is not on the landscape. It’s considered a newer utility. If you don’t have electricity or water, those are life-changing spaces. If you don’t have broadband, they don’t really consider that life-changing. It’s changing more as we navigate through this because is the only way I can speak to you in France. We are heavily dependent on broadband, for me and you to have this conversation with no squiggly line saying that there’s a problem in the flow of information between us and that’s going through a cable that’s underneath the Atlantic Ocean. So, GIS is emerging in this space where we are tracking it, and we are looking at fiber builds and fiber locations.

In the same matter, it is becoming an emerging GIS world as more states need to grab their grant funds and they don’t know where to go. GIS allows them to look at different areas and their populations. They might have low upload speeds and download speeds, where we can take over 200 datasets to look at where those people are. We can do a site suitability analysis and look at the location where those groups of people live that are not being connected. We know there is a large population. Especially in the United States and Canada. We spoke to the provincial Ontario Infrastructure Ministry at the conference. They came to us and said, “Wow, we just don’t know where these people are, and we need somebody to find them.” So, it’s becoming quite a coupled space with GIS and broadband.

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/ygourven-a-google-map-with-3d-buildings-and-landmarks-paris-fra-39185da4-7401-4aca-8479-4fa13ccdfcb1.jpgWe asked Midjourney to imagine Paris through the eyes of GIS program manager.

How has GIS been applied – or how could it be applied – to the issue of climate change?

GIS is a database of information. Currently, we are barely scratching the surface of GIS and how it can help the climate issues. We have collected lots of different datasets, such as temperatures, and storms. We look at sea levels, and we have bathymetry data. Which is the topography on the ocean floor so that we can look at the various changes there. Many people could use the data in more predictive ways and look at historical events versus what’s happening currently.

Sometimes we get overwhelmed by the amount of data, and we can’t possibly look at it all. I once had a student look at the effects of displacement of water and debris onto the Gulf of Mexico. It was amazing how he could use LIDAR. Which is sensory imaging on the Earth’s surface to do an analysis and tell us how much debris was removed from the ocean and placed on the land from the hurricane. Another example was at a meeting. I was listening to the recollection of how GIS was used for the Katrina environment after that hurricane occurred and FEMA uses GIS too.

How did you get started with GIS?

Nobody thinks of becoming a GIS person. I really wanted to do epidemiology, which was the study of viruses. Unfortunately, I couldn’t be away from the house for the long term that an epidemiology career would need. In 2001, one of my professors told me there was an emerging technology called GIS, and if I could learn it, he would take me to Costa Rica and map the rainforest.

The GPS Trimble unit that he gave me was a unit that gives a satellite connection, it takes your position, and when you move, it drops points behind you, and those become lines. Once I took the data – I had to transform it and make it visible on the screen. Later on, I went to the University of Washington and took a certification and ended up being quite enthralled by it because it allowed me to take my data and visualize it myself. And because at the time my degree was a bachelor’s in environmental science, I could work in that space by collecting and deploying the data myself.

Looking for a Job as a GIS program manager

It was very difficult to find a job at that time because the population just didn’t understand GIS. I went on to write out my resume and a letter. I had seven letters that I sent out to jurisdictions. A response came from a tiny town in the mountains of Mount Rainier called Eatonville, Washington. With a population of 3,000 people, their goal was to expand their boundaries. At the same time, look at their internal infrastructure for grant funding. From there, it just kind of grew into the space where I was an “analyst one” and then “analyst two.” And I kept going until I ended up being a supervisor, then a manager, and so on.

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/gis-image-4.jpgGIS program manager, a day in Paris.

How do you anticipate GIS evolving over the next 5 to 10 years?

I was in a meeting last year and Dr. Michael Goodchild, who was spearheading this workshop was there. He was the person who pushed GIS in academia. And I told him – it’s really intimidating to tell the person that almost created all this that things aren’t the way they were. If it were the case that GIS is just geographic information systems now, that would be a disservice to what we are looking at. It is combined with data science now. Spatial locations are all embedded in the same world. Everything we have done since the satellites opened. Now we have a point to always attach to our body as we’re carrying our phones. We were tracking people, as in we knew their information, but their movements, location and what were they doing. More of an autonomous type of tracking space.

I mentioned that GIS needed a change in name so that we could sell it better. He was very interested and posed a lot of good questions about how can we get high schoolers interested in GIS. The problem we encounter is all the data can be overwhelming and we also need more people in this profession so we can manage better. A lot of my students at Seattle University will tell me, “I’m here because it’s required.” But then once they start learning, they start to realize that they are part of it. Unfortunately – younger generations – don’t know they’re in this space. So, I think in five years we need to change our views on it and make it more of a standard understanding.

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Product Information Management (PIM) systems are a driving force behind a good customer experience. A 2023 survey entitled “Elevating customer experiences with product experiences”, sheds light on how product information can greatly enhance CX. Virginie Blot, Product Experience Management evangelist at Akeneo, gave us her point of view and analysis on that survey.

Place a Product Information Management System at the heart of your Customer Experience

Product Information Management (PIM) systems are one of the driving forces behind a good customer experience. A study by Akeneo portrays this with figures – images produced by Visionary Marketing with Adobe Illustrator and Firefly.

Web-rooming/Showrooming: What are the trends?

Let’s start with Webrooming and Showrooming.

Akeneo’s 2023 B2C study (see methodological note at the end) shows that about 90% of consumers research products online before buying, especially, in-store. Webrooming has been a strong trend for many years and continues to grow.

On the other hand, Showrooming is less common than Webrooming: only 77% of consumers have been to the store to complete their online purchase. Eighty-five percent carry on to do their research online before making their final decisions.

Worthy of note: 71% of consumers order online first and then pick up their product from the store, this is what is called click and collect.

Customers love this ability to switch from one channel to another.

https://www.akeneo.com/fr/press-release/etude-consommateurs-akeneo-2023/Download the 2023 Akeneo consumer study

Is Showrooming a risk or an opportunity for brands?

The strongest brands are distributed on many channels, both physical and digital. This reinforces their brand image. Consumers will see and try out products in one physical store, but then purchase them online. Either way, the brand wins.

For retailers, it’s a different story. If they haven’t opted for an omnichannel strategy (online, in-store, and on social networks), it will become more complicated for them as time goes by.

How is physical retail holding up in the ROBO/ROPO era?

In recent times, we have heard a lot about store closures, the reason behind this is that humans are more attracted to bad news. Nonetheless, there is good news too.

For example, DNVBs (Digital Native Virtual Brands), are brands that were directly created as digital, usually on Instagram. Once they have been successful, they will tend to open a pop-up store.

Physical locations are best for building relationships with consumers and sharing more than just products, as well as offering an experience.

On the Champs-Élysées in Paris, I noticed that L’Occitane en Provence had opened at the same time as Pierre Hermé (macaroons, chocolates, and pastry shop). Now consumers are able to come to the store and have a great time tasting macaroons while shopping. It’s a unique experience and a perfect example of how physical stores are reinventing themselves.

https://www.sortiraparis.com/hotel-restaurant/cafe-tea-time/articles/157106-86-champs-le-salon-de-the-de-pierre-herme-sur-les-champs-elyseesCheck out Sortir à Paris’ report on the L’Occitane Pierre Hermé store – Photo L’Occitane P Hermé by Sortir à Paris

L’Occitane has 3,500 points of sale worldwide, it only makes 16% of its sales through digital channels. Therefore, we must not forget that not everything is digital. It’s a great image booster as it attracts people to the store, but stores remain essential.

Retail: will laggards disappear?

The sooner retailers jump on the customer experience bandwagon, the better. It’s never too late to do it the right way. That’s why it’s crucial for distributors to manage their product information to better deploy their omnichannel strategy. By the way, working on one’s data quality is most time-consuming. This is what makes it possible to add new channels. It’s not about technicality, it’s about strategy.

Product Information Management and CX expectations?

We’ve been talking about CRM for over 30 years. Today, customer experience is the priority. PIMs have followed the same route. The PIM trend only began ten years ago.

These days, the hot topic is product experience, because marketers have clearly understood that while technical product information is mandatory, it’s not sufficient.

Beyond product features, there is a requirement to display information about the content and all other information enhancing the product experience depending on the customers’ preferred channels.

This requires data engineering.

Even though around 80% of your product’s data is already available, you will still need to adapt the data to each channel so that it meets your customers’ expectations. To that end, the teams in charge of the marketplace, social networks, or W eb channels will need a hand.

What do consumers expect from the customer experience?

CX begins with the customer’s first interaction with the brand and ends with customer support. Consumers expect more than just a good product.

Our survey asked the question, “Are you sensitive to environmentally friendly values in brands?” The answer from consumers was loud and clear. Over 70% of them answered that they are sensitive to these values, while 40% are willing to pay up to 10% more for environmentally friendly products.

70% of consumers are sensitive to environmentally friendly brands and 40% are willing to pay up to 10% more for them

Nowadays, an “about us” page on your website is no longer sufficient. Many of our corporate customers are already putting their money into “behind the scenes” product information. Real-time calculation of its carbon impact, researching the factories where it was made, and its traceability, to name a few.

If you buy coffee from some of our customers, you’ll be informed about the history of the producer in the coffee’s country of origin and how direct-to-consumer distribution channels work.

Transparency and traceability are on the agenda. They are what’s going to make a product experience successful and the customer engaged with the brand.

What does product transparency entail?

In Europe, an application like Yuka, has had a big impact on how and what consumers buy. Without extensive and up-to-date product information, one cannot meet new consumer demands.

Transparency is a big issue in the cosmetics and food industries as they must follow standards and regulations, and must provide vital information. For such industries, transparency is a big part of the customer experience.

PIMs are changing to offer our customers’ customers better experiences as well as better product experiences, with a focus on transparency.

What’s the current state of Product Information Management use in B2B?

We work a lot with B2B businesses. They aren’t like B2C retailers and brands. B2B companies are highly innovative and are eager to provide their distributors with customised digital catalogues. They are very demanding when it comes to new products, and are keen to provide a unique product experience.

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/pim-english-diagram.pngVisionary Marketing has designed a dossier on Product Information Management on behalf of Capterra – in this panel, Akeneo’s solution is featured – find out more.

Regarding the study

The study by Akeneo (an international PIM publisher) named “Elevating customer experiences with products experiences” was performed by 3Gem Research. This is the third study of its kind since 2021. Akeneo surveyed 1,800 consumers in eight different countries in 2023. From Australia to Canada, through China, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the USA. The sample was for people over the age of 18, representative of the populations of these countries.

 

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A recent study on behavioral targeting demonstrates the evolution of consumer behavior and its impact on segmentation in consumer marketing. While criticisms of profile-based segmentations are nothing new, the study in question provides a quantified demonstration of the extent of change in this area. It also provides figures and details on the various so-called “Behavioral situation-based” targeting in the UK. However, despite marketers’ awareness of the weakness of profile-based targeting, the old segmentation methods are still the most widely used.

Behavioral situation-based targeting, an alternative to conventional segmentation

The fact that marketing is so fond of war metaphors is fascinating. Targets, campaigns… Beyond that, selecting the right target is always important – image produced with Midjourney and Adobe Illustrator.

This study on behavioral targeting brings many insights, as it demonstrates how fluctuating consumer behaviors are, due to the evolving economic situation.

Targeting by behavioral situation to better track changes

What we find most interesting, is what the authors call “situation-based targeting”. As Murielle de Boisseson, Marketing Manager France at Treasure Data, explains:

The results of this study confirm that hackneyed segmentation models that lock consumers into rigid, permanent groups simply no longer work

This study provides a useful, in-depth complement to a previous survey on customer experience stereotypes conducted by Adobe and analyzed in our columns.

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/behavioral-targeting-1.pngMarketers are aware that traditional profiling-based targeting tools are no longer valid… but they continue to use them, nonetheless.

But this study provides even more insights.

It proposes a useful alternative to these traditional segmentation methods through what Treasure Data calls situation-based targeting. For the sake of clarity, we have formatted the study data into an infographic. We have included the characteristics of each of the main situations identified by the American software vendor’s study.

Behavioral situation-based targeting in the UK (vs.US)

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/artboard-1.pngBehavioral Situation based targeting by the numbers – Click picture to enlarge 

This new, more behavioral segmentation reveals some particularly interesting points. The segmentation carried out by the study’s authors shows that different consumer groups are sensitive to different arguments. What’s more, the groups are fairly similar in size, demonstrating a real variety in behavior.

This study also tells us that certain groups (practical consumers 26% and Generation C 18%) are more sensitive to customer experience (CX) than others. At the same time, the figures demonstrate the importance of experience.

This underlines, that marketing generalizations are of little use. As in matter of fact, these groups are highly unstable, requiring the fine-tuning of the various segmentations over time.

However, the authors of the study point out that in France, marketers are less inclined to review these targeting methods than in the UK and USA. Furthermore, even if marketers in France, the UK, the USA and elsewhere are aware of the weaknesses of old segmentation models, the techniques they use remain traditional. Changing one’s habits is not as easy as it seems.

Many other interesting findings from this study can be found in the press release or eBook below.

About the methodology of this study

This behavioral targeting study is based on two surveys conducted by Opinium on behalf of Treasure Data. The first surveyed nationally representative samples in the UK and USA – 2,000 adults per country, for a total of 6,000 respondents – between July 3 and 6, 2023. The second surveyed 500 marketing decision-makers in B2C companies with more than 2 employees in France, the USA and the UK – 1,500 respondents in total – between July 3 and 13, 2023.

Download the Treasure Data study

Download the press release.

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The green market revolution (impacts, how to adapt and change retail business models and organisations) was the title of Forrester‘s Thomas Husson’s Keynote at the Paris Retail Week 2023 Trade Show. A topic of vital interest to our readers and ourselves. We interviewed Thomas to better understand how urgent the situation is, and how consumers and retailers are reacting. Thomas named a few best practices in this area. Not everything is perfect in that unfolding “green market revolution”, of course. Yet, a few businesses are making efforts, and they should be encouraged.

The Green Market Revolution Is Underway

We’ve had the Industrial Revolution, here comes the green market revolution. Change won’t be easy, though.

Green market revolution, isn’t that an overstatement?

This term is a reference to the industrial revolutions of past centuries. Environmental issues will force us to rethink a lot of things, including our business and organisational models and how we get around. As with the industrial revolutions, a great deal of innovation and investment in infrastructure are taking place.

As with the railways during the Industrial Revolution, governments and regulatory changes are driving change. And this is just the beginning. We don’t quite realise it, but it’s happening. At Forrester we had rather talk about a green market revolution than CSR. Even though CSR is flavour of the month. Revolution is a more striking concept. It’s also closer to what’s really going to unfold before our eyes. Whether we like it or not, we’re heading straight for it.

Yet you say businesses aren’t doing enough. Is it the economy, stupid?

It’s a bit like what happened with digital. Initially, it’s an investment. And then, unlike digital, we have to measure the financials. And that’s not easy when the metrics aren’t in place. But things are changing. Costs are rising because of energy prices. And revenues can increase if you have the right positioning and consumers are prepared to pay a premium for greener products. As for those who can’t afford them, they may be frustrated and expect businesses to offer more environmental value for the same price.

Thomas Husson at Paris Retail Week 2023

The basis of your thinking is the need to look at things positively

Exactly! Opportunities exist, but they are not necessarily for everyone. But if we look at the triangle of inaction between consumers, governmental or local authority initiatives and businesses, everyone is waiting for everybody else. But at the end of the day, there will be companies that will turn this revolution into a competitive advantage. What’s more, when it comes to recruiting younger employees, getting one’s act together will be a must.

What about the green market revolution in the United States?

Traditionally, in the US one favours self-initiative and philanthropy. This green market revolution is less directly rooted in the heart of their business models. But things are changing. Above all, there is the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act), which has little to do with inflation, but allows companies to invest in innovation, in so-called battery gigafactories, solar panels and in renewable energies.

Is this green market revolution reflected in consumer perception?

If I take France as an example, around a quarter of French people are committed to changing their habits. They are very careful about what they buy, they research the topic a lot and they make a fair amount of effort. Yet, there’s also a good proportion of them who would like to do more but can’t because they can’t afford it or because changing one’s way of life is too difficult.

Awareness is on the rise. That said, it’s difficult with double-digit inflation at the grocery store. A third of households are tightening their belts. Reducing the use of fossil fuels isn’t their main priority.

Six of the nine planetary boundaries have been crossed. Will it speed up the green market revolution?

I think that very little is known today about these nine planetary boundaries and that the focus is very much on carbon emissions and climate change. And that’s fine, because we’re now beginning to measure these indicators, but it’s difficult to keep track of the other issues. What’s important, I think, is to make people aware, particularly managers, that all the boundaries are linked with one another. These issues are extremely complex and technical and should not be taken lightly. Because resources are in short supply. Ultimately, there is a lack of education and knowledge on these subjects.

On the management side how is this green market revolution perceived?

Let’s face the music, things aren’t going so smoothly. We’re faced with short-termism and profitability issues, with soaring costs, inflation and a number of crises on top of each other. Getting to grips with the fact that all factors are linked with one another can help you grasp how strategic these issues are. But change will not happen overnight. I believe a minority of businesses manage to change their models and yet remain profitable. They will be the winners, ultimately and they will increase their market share.

Who are the best practices?

Albert Heijn is one of the traditional retailers in the Netherlands with the most ambitious scope 3 reduction targets.

Albert Heijn has set his sights high as the Dutch company aims to become B Corp™

This is important because Scope 3 is the impact of carbon emissions linked to the company’s value chain, its consumers, the purchase of goods and services and haulage. So this is where it all happens.

For major brands like Dannon, above all, it takes place in the agricultural and production value chain. As a result, their targets are among the most ambitious of all. Dannon has been granted the B Corp™ certification label. It means something about their commitment and that they are going to set up processes and audits to meet a certain number of fairly strict criteria. And the beauty of this label is that businesses must recertify every three years.

Green market revolution: the B Corp label is more than a certification Danone says on its website.

L’Occitane en Provence has also become a B Corp™ across several countries and brands. This takes time, and employees have to commit too. The upside is that it also has an impact on talent acquisition and retention. One must understand it’s not just consumers who suffer from cognitive dissonance. When you work for Total Energy, Shell, BP or other polluting companies, you may not feel very comfortable in your job at all times.

Decathlon Is Also Among the Leaders of the Green Revolution

You can feel that this group has a real wish and vision. It is a totally different ballgame. They also use this approach to differentiate themselves. It’s the third-largest sports company after Nike and Adidas. They also market their products under their own private labels and are streamlining their brand names at the moment. Of course, nobody is perfect. But we can see that they are making significant efforts.

Second-hand Shopping Is Booming, Too

The fashion industry is a complex one, and many have gone out of business. Most players have launched initiatives in the direction of second-hand shopping. There is also a huge demand for low prices. They have created shelf-edge programs for second-hand products. Yet second-hand shopping is challenging what with product returns and logistics. And it causes issues in terms of scalability. In France, Kiabi is one of the few retailers that are really scaling up and rolling out second-hand shopping throughout a large number of stores.

A Framework for a Green Market Revolution

It’s a framework for the marketing, strategic marketing, innovation and product departments. Our approach is holistic and cross-functional.

Forrester’s framework around the green market revolution.

The idea is to align the company’s value proposition with its purpose, so that it goes beyond lip service. There must be an impact on business models, on the offering and products. Then we add ecodesign, cocreation and consumer support. This makes up for a more positive story for consumers. Beyond storymaking it also enables them to become change agents.

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Let AI handle the chores, and humans do the thinking: such should be the future of content marketing. In this piece, I try and debunk a few myths. Firstly, generative AI  can be creative — and often is. Secondly, AI doesn’t necessarily make us stupid; we don’t need it for that. And thirdly, becoming a prompting Guru isn’t necessarily the key to producing great content. The question of AI’s role in content marketing is actually more strategic than technical: it’s about why and for whom we create content. This is the major issue at stake for today’s and tomorrow’s marketers. In this presentation, I urge readers not to outsource their thinking to AI, and rather offload the chores of low-value tasks to machines. Unfortunately, it should be noted that they aren’t always doing a good job with that.

Chores to AI, Ideas to Humans

Since the machines started thinking, we’ve had more time to do the dishes, wrote Joanna Maciejewska. Like her, I’d rather it were the other way round.

TL; DR

• Ms Bernard is an SEO agency avatar who adds links to Visionary Marketing on “her” website. Her “work” raises some fundamental questions. 
• Criticisms aimed at AI often miss the mark and overlook fundamental issues: why we write, for whom, for what purpose…
• We also dismiss a few myths such as ‘AI can’t be creative’, ‘AI makes us stupid’, and ‘mastering prompting is a silver bullet’.
• Hence, the question of AI’s role in content marketing is more about strategy than it is about tech.
• In this presentation, I urge content creators (and readers alike) not to outsource their reasoning and to leave the chores to AI.

This piece owes a lot to Ms Joanna Maciejewska

AI and Marie Bernard, the e-commerce Queen

Ms Benard is adding links to Visionary Marketing. She is very nice but unfortunately she isn’t a real person.

Let me introduce you to Ms Marie Bernard. This pretty young woman, somewhat artificial in appearance, exists only in Midjourney’s archives and on the website of “her” SEO agency. This supposed e-commerce expert found herself embroiled in a semantic mix-up that was both amusing and revealing.

Taking inspiration from one of my articles, this visionary author mixed up ‘snow globe’, an expression used by one of my expert interviewees as a metaphor, and ‘snowball effect’. Thank God, she inserted a link to Visionary Marketing so that I could correct that fatal mistake. Far from being trivial, this anecdote raises a few fundamental questions. Who is writing? For whom? How? And for what purpose? In fact, it even poses bigger questions such as “what is humans’ place in society, and what sort of society do we want for our children and children’s children?”

AI Information Overload 

Content about generative AI is so ubiquitous that we have gone past information overload. AI content analysts are skirmishing via X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn posts, mainly on the technical front (this AI is better than that one), creativity (AI produces interesting ideas or rather, is dull and inferior to humans), and usage (“download my ultimate prompting guide!”). Yet all these debates (and sadly others that are less prevalent, like the poorly documented issue of energy consumption) fail to address other key questions: who are we creating for, why, and for whom do we work — or more broadly, what kind of society do we want in the future? 

Generative AI at the Heart of the World’s Issues 

AI, and in particular generative AI, have generated most of the noise on social media, blogs, newsletters, and chat around the pub. Traditional economy seems to be ignoring the phenomenon or treating it as incidental — a recurring habit when it comes to digital innovations, but online debates live on unabated.  

Whether and how we should use generative artificial intelligence is now a central question in our modern societies, and that’s understandable. Machines have been able to play around with text since the 1950s, but computing power and large-scale training on such a vast and decent dataset — despite criticisms — have never been so strong. In recent weeks, engineers in London have even shown how two AI bots can talk to one another. Even if it’s only a demo, we’ve known since the early 2000s that machines can buy and sell stock (algorithmic trading roughly amounts to 60-75% of total trading in the most developed markets, and this was already true back in 2006 when I worked in that field). So, why shouldn’t an AI known as “agentic” buy train tickets? 

Hence these legitimate questions. 

A machine capable of writing “like” humans?

The fact that a programme — literally a “machine” in the sense of a computer — is capable of writing like humans, or nearly, is disconcerting. 

*[Machine] A mechanically, electrically, or electronically operated device for performing a task

first entry from Merriam-Webster

What’s even more unsettling is that humans often write more poorly than machines. This is what Loubna Ben Allal, a researcher at Huggingface and an expert in training generative AIs, describes in a video on the underscore channel, which is worth watching.

She explains how content is filtered during training sequences and, surprise, surprise, she says that good Ai-generated content is often better than bad human content. Sadly, poor human content is everywhere. 

Note that there are also texts, 100% AI-generated, aimed at proving that Loubna is right. 

A text designed to show that separating the wheat from the chaff in content creation is a non-issue. Unfortunately, it was written by an LLM.

Language, an operating system?! 

If these mock texts are so disconcerting, it’s because language and the written word are indeed some of the fundamental characteristics of the human species. 

In the beginning was the word. Language is the operating system of human culture.

Yuval Harari — NYT March 2023

Yuval Harari, with a kind of reverse anthropomorphic twist, even calls it the “operating system of human culture”. Despite this idiosyncrasy, Harari is zeroing in on the real issue.

The real core problem isn’t technical, but deeply philosophical, especially when the most famous generative AI tools are led by a maverick who’s trying all he can to put us in a Spike Jonze film. Ultimately, philosophy could or should redefine how AI is trained, explain Michael Schrage and David Kiron of MIT Sloan Management Review.

The Real Problem With So-called Generative Tools

The real problem with these generative tools isn’t technical, nor is it about creativity or even how well one uses the tool. It’s more fundamental, relating to the very essence of work and, more broadly, of human societies. Whatever human shortcomings and flaws there may be, and they are indeed numerous. 

This is all the more important, given discussions about new tools such as Manus, which promise even more autonomous intelligence capable of “agenticity”, a direction that appears to be a goal for many of the creators of these programmes.   

Generative AI is going to vanish? Really…

There’s no point in playing down generative AI, as I saw here and there, by predicting their demise (you don’t just eliminate tools that the whole world has made their own, no matter how imperfect), nor in overestimating their potential (there are simply too many tools and possible uses). 

Denying how astonishing these tools are is pointless.

Likewise, describing LLMs as “stochastic parrots”, is no longer relevant. It used to be apt, barely two years ago. Yet, that’s no longer the case. Safety nets exist, the biggest pitfalls (such as asking ChatGPT to prove that the Earth is flat) as former Apple Siri cofounder Luc Julia claimed recently in a Swiss daily are old hat. The right way forward is hybrid systems combining the power of LLMs with more conventional computing. It’s a matter of time before this merger is done and it might not even take too long. Whoever has witnessed the development of IT and the Web over the past 40 years knows it takes time to innovate. Time is of the essence.

Hence, even though the results we get today are still often disappointing, patchy, or downright wrong, GenAI models of 2025 hallucinate far less than they used to, provided you pay and pick your model carefully.

You may check for yourself with Perplexity.ai, which will answer your question on this subject while delivering links (sometimes off-target, so you’ll still have to cross-check that information). 

In short, four breakthroughs occurred from 2024 to 2025 in this field: 

1. Reduced error rates from 1 to 3% thanks to techniques like Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), drawing on existing documents. 
2. Model improvements including the inevitable OpenAI, with its GPT-4.5 model, and others (I particularly recommend Claude.ai).
3. Innovative methods like “deep research” or “chain of thought”, often flawed and slow, but give them time and they will improve dramatically. 
4. Checks and adjustments: Tools like “Automated Reasoning Checks” introduced by AWS have been designed to detect and correct hallucinations before production use.

Still, hallucinations remain common and won’t vanish soon. Again, it will take time before all control mechanisms are in place. Chain-of-thought is one example: it’s still a bit awkward, but it gives a flavour of future possibilities.

That said, even if I’m not a big fan of AGI (see the following article), generative AI challenges human skills and abilities and as a consequence of that, our very place within society. 

Three directions for deeper exploration

Essentially, there are three areas that need to be investigated. First, our capacity to be truly creative. Second, AI’s impact on our cognitive and intellectual abilities and finally, there’s the question of usage.

1. Let’s start with creativity

Obviously, one could wonder whether GenAI is creative or not. But above all, this very question challenges us, humans. Thus, the real question should read: are humans any more creative than GenAI?

The answer isn’t straightforward, even if that may come as a surprise. One could argue that GenAI texts are good or bad, depending on one’s point of view. Yet, one shouldn’t discount that texts produced by humans aren’t always better. And that’s what’s disturbing. As we mentioned above, Loubna Ben Allal calls into question the notion that “human = good, synthetic = bad”. 

The same applies to creativity. Alan Turing, in his 1950 piece Computing Machinery and Intelligence, had already invalidated a number of objections to the idea that a machine could be innovative. One of these objections claimed: “A machine can’t create.”

Creativity is also, and above all, about combinations, de-combinations and recombination. A bit like a puzzle if you wish. One cherry picks from others’, or even one’s work, sometimes unconsciously, and recombine from this to build a new story, a new blog, a new project. Even artists aren’t necessarily all that ‘creative’ in the sense of making something new entirely from scratch. They often rely on self-references. Tinguely with his zanyish machines aka antimuseums, Monet and his views of Rouen and his infinite variations on water lilies, Soulages with his black paintings, Rothko with his ubiquitous RED. Series are an integral part of Art, and one of the main creative mechanisms. 

Jonathan Gibbs in Randall even states that Young British Artists, as all artists, can at best come up with four genuinely original ideas in their entire career, the ones we’ll remember them for. 

‘The way it works is that you’re only going to be remembered for four things.’

Gibbs, Jonathan. Randall or The Painted Grape

And Gibbs is right. If artists give in to reproducing their own ideas, that’s also because it’s what people are asking for. That’s why, for instance, minimal music these days — once dubbed repetitive and lately rebranded ‘neoclassical’ (Max Richter, Nils Frahm, Nicklas Paschburg, GrandBrothers…) — is so successful. It’s principally because it’s based on a never-ending repetition of fairly similar musical patterns. And I won’t even mention popular — as in ‘pop’ inclusive of jazz — music, which is even more standardised (check rhythm changes if you don’t believe me). 

Thus, the question of whether machines are more or less creative than humans is anything but trivial.

2. Is AI making us stupid?

The next question is whether we end up being stupid from the misuse of these thinking machines (as one of my friends put it to me, “These tools are extremely addictive”). This question echoes what Nicholas Carr wrote a few years ago in The Atlantic: “Is Google Making Us Stupid”?

In that piece**, he argued that even though he wasn’t raised in the digital age and learned to read “normally” in books, he ended up using search engines and found that they made him lazy, encouraging minimal effort rather than combing through documents for hours before forming an opinion.

** yet another AI-written piece, by the way. I only inserted the link out of mischief. Our dear readers will find the Atlantic link by themselves using old-fashioned search engines or Perplexity.ai. 

With generative AI, all that Carr described is blown out of proportion. Perplexity.ai is the epitome of this issue. Instead of using search engines, one enters a prompt, and hey presto! Perplexity will gather the answers, summarise them and provide a list of links. The latter are not always relevant, but on average, they’re not that bad either. This process isn’t really less effective than wading through a so-called SERP (Search Engine Results Page) of questionable relevance or provenance, many of which results were written by ‘SEO experts’ to trick the very same search engine (i.e. Google, see this post for details).

Some years ago, those SEO experts had such low quality texts made by hand, often in low-wage countries, and now they create them almost entirely with LLMs (it’s estimated that about 19% of Google’s top 20 results are AI-generated). By the way, those people in low-wage countries must have been made redundant but who cares about poor people struggling to make a living. This is a dog-eat-dog kind of world, is it not?

As to the question of whether generative AI is making us stupid, it’s a bit disingenuous, just as it was for Google. But what’s certain is it could be making us lazy (again, just like Google, especially since they introduced position zero). 

Getting direct answers to our questions means we lose the habit of digging for them ourselves, and above all, we lose your critical thinking abilities. But it’s not that simple. 

Concluding that AI alone is responsible for dumbing down the world — assuming that’s even happening — would be going a bit far. Intellectual laziness and lack of critical thinking aren’t new, and if you want to see evidence of that, I recommend you browse the site of the Reboot Foundation.

3. Prompting wizards

Our third angle is usage quality of AI tools. Is it a real problem?

There’s indeed a misconception about the usage of these tools by the population. Their usage is certainly widespread and it happened in a flash. That’s for certain. Now, whether most users are wielding these tools properly is another kettle of fish. Believing we’ve all become prompt experts overnight is spurious. I’m not seeing that happening in the field. 

For starters, we have a massive digital skills deficit. How can people who struggle to remember a password or sign a PDF form could instantly be able to use generative AI effectively?

I see far too much straightforward copy-pasting in class and elsewhere. Also, few people, as I noticed in the course of my training sessions (thousands of people and students), are able to take the necessary step back to refine the content produced by these algorithms — even when encouraged to do so.

However much I regret this isn’t relevant. That’s why Steve Yegge is right: generative AI won’t help beginners nor average employees become brilliant, but it will help experts get rid of them altogether. Getting started in business won’t be easy in the coming years.

Moreover, the generative AI scene is so hectic and unstable that even experts are losing track of which model is most effective. Almost every day, there’s some headline-grabbing announcement overshadowing yesterday’s. 

And the ‘experts’ keep dishing out their analyses and forecasts. Some foresee the demise of generative AI (but that’s total nonsense), while others predict that GenAI will on the contrary be an all-out revolution (which is equally silly). 

The technology digestion curve is our own special way of highlighting the hype surrounding innovations.

The truth is, as we can see in the field, that we are in a learning curve, which isn’t too different from what we’ve been through with other digital innovations in the past.

Caption: Kathy Sierra once put forward the notion of “feature-itis”, which was spot on.

As a system grows more complex, Kathy Sierra showed, you end up losing your grip, and a user who once felt in full control of the tool finds he or she loses that control and is going backward dramatically.

More recently, Maurizio Bisogni described the fluctuation of knowledge in ChatGPT over time in relation to what he calls the Dunning-Kruger effect, a psychological phenomenon identified by David Dunning and Justin Kruger in 1999 in their paper: “We lack competence and we don’t know it: how difficulties in recognising our own incompetence can lead us to overestimate our abilities.” 

This shows we have a tendency to overrate our abilities when we have too little information. A warning we might well direct at many of the analysts clogging up our social timelines with their views on the subject.

Conversely, the most expert people tend to underestimate their competence. This is something we also know as the ‘impostor syndrome’. Perhaps I suffer from the latter myself, because I hate the term ‘expert’. Even though I’ve been working in digital marketing for over 30 years, started my career in AI nearly 40 years ago, and have been documenting these topics for decades, I still feel I don’t know much. It seems only natural and necessary, given how volatile and complex this environment is.

Yet I see too many experts, some of whom are even behind some of these discoveries, such as Jeffrey Hinton, one of the discoverers of neural networks and winner of a Nobel Prize, who understand nothing about generative artificial intelligence, despite the fact that it is based on these very neural networks. In a BBC video, Hinton looks at ChatGPT and concludes that these machines can reprogramme themselves. In the long term, this is undoubtedly true. But it is not yet the case. I’ll come back to that later. So we need to have a certain humility when it comes to these subjects.

With all due respect for Hinton’s outstanding achievements in machine learning, he shows a nearly childlike ignorance when he claims neural networks can feel emotions. […] Emotions are so complex, a bridge between thought and will, a gateway to shared understanding between people and the world. By saying the machine can experience feelings, Hinton shows that he doesn’t understand what he’s built.

Robert M. Burnside – Robo Robert on Substack (2024)

I’m not writing this to diminish the great talents of the renowned British-Canadian scientist, Jeffrey Hinton, a Nobel Prize winner in the field of neural networks, but to illustrate how siloed these areas can be and how no one can honestly claim complete understanding of the field of AI, if there is any such thing. As for LinkedIn influencers’ rush opinions…

Truth be told, regarding usage, I don’t believe that a science of prompting — which I see more as a practice of common sense, trial and error — is essential. What I find vital, rather, is taking a step back, thinking carefully, applying reason, and sharpening one’s critical thinking skills. 

Besides, returning to prompts, I had already guessed we’d see prompt generators appear. And here they are, because that kind of interface is cumbersome and awkward. Prompting is powerful, but lengthy and tedious, requiring voice dictation abilities (which most people don’t have) or quick and accurate touch-typing, which is basically only for those who learned on an uncompromising typewriter, and/or how to touch-type without looking at the keys, like yours truly. 

To be honest, I create all my Midjourney prompts on Claude or ChatGPT because I find the exercise quite tedious and slow, and LLMs are best placed to tailor a prompt for another generative AI in the required style. 

Some folks even bet that chatbots will chat to each other in a language only they can understand (see this video. Careful! It’s not a product but a demo made during a hackathon). 

In short, usage doesn’t strike me as a major problem, even if most users’ results are far from great — even when guided. 

So, what’s the problem with generative AI?

Let’s rule out a couple of areas at once. Ecological issues to start with. Apart from a few ritualistic mentions and greenwashing initiatives, not much appears to be on the menu in that area. As someone who’s been strongly committed to environmental concerns for ages, I’m deeply saddened about that. I will have to bite the bullet, nobody cares about that. And the current T**mpmania isn’t going to help.

Bubble threats are real too, as Ed Zitron keeps hammering. Yet, the history of innovation has always shown that when some tech stuff is needed and the whole world is using it, money will always be found and invested. When there’s a will…

The Web’s “enshittification”

Web rot is probably a good avenue for our quest. I predicted it as soon as generative AI first emerged and GPT-3 was launched in 2020. Back then, I forecasted during a Pushengage webinar that the Web would be flooded with SEO content no longer created by humans but by machines. The latter deliver both quantitatively and qualitatively better (according to the standards of these ‘SEO experts’) than the armies of content creators from low-wage countries paid to boost webpage rankings through back-linking. 

Five years later — a lifetime in Internet terms — what do we see?

As it happened link-building requests died out instantly in 2023 and were replaced by proposals for AI-generated content creation. I saw them crop up on Visionary Marketing immediately, and the change was savage. SEO content became more professionalised and multiplied at a frantic pace, as The Verge showed in its 2023 investigation of synthetic content farms. 

The result today is conspicuous. 

What was foreseeable has indeed happened. It took five years. So much for those who talk about an overnight revolution. Even for something as simple as replacing human content writers in low-wage countries with LLMs that churn out copy at high speed with a few basic instructions, it still took five years. As for the rest, we may have to wait a bit. By the way, we’ve laid off hundreds of impoverished people unless they’ve retrained for AI-based content, which is likely but not proven.

That’s the genuine underlying problem. And it’s why I created humansubstance.com with some friends.

A group of stubborn bloggers who decided to write with their hands and their brains, not with machines. Like this 4,000-plus-word article that I could very well have churned out in three seconds using ChatGPT — assuming ChatGPT can count words and by Jove it can’t.

Because there’s the hitch: we do need artificial intelligence to take out the rubbish and count words, fix our grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes. 

But we don’t need it to think in our place. And if the Web is rotting, or ‘enshittifying’, to borrow Cory Doctorow’s term, that doesn’t necessarily mean the end of real content marketing (genuine content, not SEO fodder).

It may not happen on the Web and this is sad news for Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Quality content will always find a way to be shared. If not on the Web, then somewhere else. Perhaps my vision is somewhat naïve, but I’ll own that. I’m inclined to believe good things can still and always happen. Let’s assume I’m wrong; at least I will die happy.  

What’s the point of generative AI if it doesn’t relieve us of chores?

If Gemini can’t deduplicate data, what’s it for? Examples posted by a LinkedIn user

I also see plenty of players, analysts, and professionals around me who think, search, dig deep, and document beyond the surface. They don’t buy into the big headlines from generative AI evangelists, who increasingly come across like transhumanists, to quote Jean-Gabriel Ganascia. 

Chores to AI

Make no mistake, I have nothing against generative AI. I just want it to take out the bins instead of trying to think in my place. And when I see some of the results from these tools, I’m not convinced the game is over yet. 

If ChatGPT can’t read an Apple Pages file and orders me around to switch to Word format, what’s the point?

I use them a lot for preparing my lectures (most of which aimed at training students to keep enough distance to interpret these tools’ results rationally rather than emotionally), to summarise my articles for my students’ presentations. 

But I’m always the one doing the thinking, and all I want from these tools is to take out the bins and turn my most relevant punchlines into PowerPoint. 

Why? Because copying out your own words into PowerPoint is basically a chore. And that’s why, for my keynotes I refrain from using slides. Those addicted to PowerPoint can still download the slides from my blog if they wish.

Finally, at the heart of this debate about AI’s role in content marketing lies a big confusion about the automation of creative processes, which aren’t continuous. It’s an illusion to think you can simply press a button to get a result. Sure, you get some sort of result, but which one and what value does it have? For an SEO content producer (I can’t get down to call them ‘authors’, sorry) it’s probably a thousand times better and faster than what a human being could write. But automating such tasks for true authors, those who write with their brains and for their readers, not a Google bot, gives you the impression you’re saving time, whereas reality is often radically different. Randall Munroe illustrates this brilliantly in his schematic about coding. And it’s even more apt for content marketing. 

And all that AI SEO copy for what outcome? More efficiency? Neil Patel shows otherwise in the following chart. 

So, to wrap up this article, I urge you never to relinquish your capacity to ponder nor your critical thinking skills. Certainly, humans are prone to error. Sometimes they’re even worse than LLMs, as Kevin Roose demonstrated in the New York Times. And that’s the real tragedy. 

Even if general artificial intelligence is probably an overstatement (we can’t define it anyway), insisting the opposite — that all humans are brilliant — is an even bigger mistake.

But despite these flaws, it was us, humans, who built these machines. It’s our job to use them for the better, not for the worse. It’s up to you to do the thinking and let AI do the chores. That’s what ought to be.

The post Chores to AI, Thinking to Humans appeared first on Marketing and Innovation.

The learning curve that governs qualitative marketing studies is pivotal if you want to avoid ending up with mountains of useless data. What’s more, the kind of data produced by marketing studies is unstructured and complex. Gathering too much of it will also inevitably lead to soaring costs. Our simple methodology based on the experience curve of qualitative studies is a good starting point for making the most of these studies. What’s more, it’s a good means of improving effectiveness.

The Learning Curve of Qualitative Studies

After 10 to 12 interviews, insights derived from your interviews will plateau. This is when the qualitative marketing studies experience curve has been reached.

This method is straightforward. I owe it to my erstwhile marketing teacher, Pierre-Louis Dubois, a reference in the field of market research and the author of many marketing books. This methodology is all about effectuation.

Qualitative Studies and the Effectuation Principle

Be it for qualitative marketing studies, or in business in general, one must become familiar with the principle of effectuation. One could sum this notion up in just a few words: “The right effort for the right result, no more, no less.”

Common Sense and Qualitative Marketing Research

First of all, one must point out that the literature in this field is fairly confusing. Some authors recommend sampling strategies very similar to quantitative sampling strategies (Frisch, 1999), others aren’t quite sure and will tell you “it depends” (Quinn Patton, 2002, Qualitative research evaluation & methods), and others avoid answering the question altogether (Giannelloni and Vernette 2017).

It would seem that there is a space here for some down-to-earth commonsense for professionals wishing to do things right without giving in to hyperbolic methodological madness.

Because of the learning curve, we always aim for 12 interviews (10 when that’s not possible), dividing up the audience for our qualitative study to maximise our results. No need to organise hundreds of interviews, despite what some marketing pundits are suggesting.

Step one in qualitative studies

The first thing that strikes me when I see the work of students (but also that of some professionals) is that most of the time, they are off to a very bad and uncertain start. 

More often than not, they fail to understand the requirement for an initial level of investigation that could save them time and effort. Expert interviews, for instance. Be they internal or external SMEs, or both). No need to talk about sampling at this stage. The aim is different. You’re merely trying to make sense of a very fuzzy picture.

A good starting point for qualitative studies is to start with expert interview. What about starting with those who have written books on whatever subject you are researching?

Phase one of a qualitative study consists in a non-directive survey. You’ll start with a few assumptions and a list of questions that you’ll refine as you go along. This is not an in-depth questionnaire per se. 

By definition, you’re not an expert in the field that you are researching and you need to understand it beforehand. Desk research and expert interviews  are a sound starting point. This will help you polish your recommendations to your clients or your business partners. The more diverse these experts, the more valuable their insights.

Insights derived from such expert interviews will help you improve your understanding of the field of your research. Such insights will also help you hone your assumptions before you launch your qualitative study. Knowing what to search makes up for 50% of the success of your survey. 

Too many professionals ignore that first stage. It’s a shame because it’s also one of the most rewarding. It will, eventually, ensure you save time and effort and will yield better results.

By the way, with this initial phase, you will be in touch with various experts. These connections might prove useful in the future, you never know.

In-depth Qualitative Studies 

Time and time again, I was able to verify in the field what I’d learned from my time in business school. Studies always follow more or less the same pattern. This isn’t rocket science, it’s merely what I derived from experience. 

After the initial desk research and expert interview stages, you can then go out and interview larger samples. It’s not necessary to interview more than 10 to 12 people. You may interview more if you wish, but be aware that this will not yield many more insights. 

The Learning Curve in Qualitative Research

This is known as the “learning curve”. I haven’t found any scientific evidence for it, apart from the lectures I attended when I was at school, but I’ve been able to confirm these figures almost every time I’ve had to carry out an in-depth interview guide in the field. It always worked for me. Whatever the subject. The learning curve always peaks after 10 interviews, sometimes 11 or 12. Most of the time after the 12th interview. Beyond that, there’s no point in contacting more interviewees.

There is one proviso to that, though. Your interview guide must be well written and you must listen carefully to your interviewees. What this means is that your interview guide must be the same for all. That there is no bias in this guide. Lastly, it implies that your questions must be consistent throughout your interviews.

Beyond this qualitative study process, you will have to resort to a quantitative phase to gain a deeper understanding of your subject.

Sampling interviewees

I recommend you divide the number of people surveyed (let’s assume there are 12 of them) into as many subsets as possible in order to draw conclusions for each small subset. You will be able to quantify each of these subsets with your subsequent quantitative survey. You don’t need to make these subsets representative. But you need to have enough of them to gather consistent points of view.

Once again, no rocket science here, merely field experience. Should you interview 12 times the same kind of people, the insights you will derive from these interviews will be unbalanced.

What you want to do in the in-depth interview phase is to bring as many points of view as possible from the 12 you’ve collected, to bring different perspectives into your research. For instance (in B2B) 3 employees for the internal view, 6 buyers from 2 different subgroups for the external view and 3 resellers.

[Note that the same applies to B2C, replace “buyers” with “consumers” and resellers with retailers, for example].

Sample size for qualitative marketing research

If you need more insights, bringing in other subsets and expanding your sample beyond the limit of 12 might be a good idea. That is if you think you’ll have enough time to conduct these interviews, make the transcriptions, analyse the results, and that there will be a benefit for you. In any case, if the insights you are getting are repetitive, put an end to that interviewing process to save time and money.

Finally, remember that qualitative studies only provide insights. Such insights will have to be verified and quantified at a later stage. They should never be taken at face value. In fact, they are often used as the basis for the forthcoming quantitative study.

Customer Interviews

With regard to customer interviews, one will be essentially looking for very precise, in-depth customer insights on a subject that isn’t necessarily quantifiable. Besides, when dealing with hard-to-sell products or services (aka complex selling), customers are by definition in short supply. Samples are therefore too small to conduct quantitative interviews. In this case, statistics won’t help. Qualitative studies are, in that case, a no-brainer. 

Qualitative studies can also be used for customer feedback in order to improve customer experience

Beyond that, the methodology is pretty much the same. The content of your interview guide, however, will be very different. It will be all about the relationship between your customer and the business and/or its representatives. Each case is unique, there are no one-size-fits all interview guide for customer interviews.

The Why and the How

First of all, you need to define why you are interviewing your customers. Is it about measuring product or service quality or product-market fit, assessing relationship quality, understanding customer issues, or anticipating a change in market needs? Unless it is far more specific. In the case of the launch of a new offer, product, or service, for instance.

You will also need to know how to decrypt when customers are paying lip service to your questions. Namely when a sales rep is facing her customer during the interview. Buyers may not always feel comfortable when criticising vendors openly.

In this case, customers will most probably refrain from opening their kimonos, in order to retain their bargaining power. 

Thus, you’ll also need to decode your customers’ words to understand false and true arguments. Reading between the lines is a must in that case. Cross-checking information will also be necessary.

In other words, it’s quite difficult to carry out this type of survey if you’re on the vendor’s side, to maintain enough neutrality when you are being criticised. Frequently however, customers’ strong feelings are the most valuable and useful form of feedback if you want to improve your offer and service quality.

The post The learning curve of qualitative studies appeared first on Marketing and Innovation.

AI may be fun to play with but its implementation within businesses is a tad more complex. Visionary Marketing attended a round table discussion on the impact of generative AI on businesses and the future of work at Big Data AI Paris in September 2023. AI and IT experts from different backgrounds were able to shed some light on the dos and don’ts of the integration of artificial intelligence within enterprises. In a nutshell, there are four main areas one should never overlook: 1/cybersecurity 2/experimentation 3/problem-solution match 4/learning from failures. 

Dos and Don’ts for AI implementation within businesses

(Pictured Above) A Big Data AI Paris 2023 panel on the implementation of AI and especially generative AI in businesses. From left to right: Thomas Pagbé, Stéphane Roder, David Sebaoun, Valentine Ferreol and Nicolas Levillain.

“AI is old hat,” Thomas Pagbé, editorial manager of leading French IT for Business publication, announced quite rightfully in his introduction to the round table on “The future of work transformed by AI”. He raised the question as to what had really changed in how businesses viewed artificial intelligence.

To answer this question and document the theme of the round table, he had brought together a panel of IT experts from diverse and complementary backgrounds:

• Stéphane Roder – CEO of AI Builders
• David Sebaoun – Executive Partner at IBM Consulting France
• Valentine Ferreol – Digital Factory Director – interim CIO at Citeo
• Nicolas Levillain – Managing Director at BCG Platinion France

What has really changed in companies’ vision of AI implementation

What better way to describe the state of artificial intelligence in business in 2023 than with a generative AI like Midjourney? Here’s a vision that’s both futuristic and at the same time rooted in a 1980s-style Blade Runner view of the past. What if the future were a lot more like the past after all?

Sure, there were ChatGPT’s 100 million near-instant users, but is that sufficient to tell you how to implement AI within your business? Even if the numbers are huge, the share of visits to AI sites, compared to others, remains modest. What’s more, ChatGPT’s visitors are said to have been fewer since July.

Andreesen Horowitz have published a study that set the record straight.

Let’s return to our round table with this comment from Stéphane Roder. “Starting in 2016 we saw AI applications finding their way into our business processes and bringing value. This gives good results if you put them in the right places.”

The Democratisation of AI Is the True Revolution

So AI has ceased to be a technical subject, it’s become strategic. Increasing operational efficiency, designing new offers… So many subjects once reserved for humans alone have now found a co-pilot as the name goes.

The role of generative AI is undeniable, and should not be underestimated, in the “democratisation of artificial intelligence. Because it has made models available to users,” explained BCG’s Levillain.

Therefore, there is an undeniable generalisation of access to AI, but when it comes to disruption, we’re still not there, as IBM’s David Sebaoun points out. “Everything has changed and at the same time nothing has changed in AI,” he told us. “For me, generative AI is incremental.” For the IBM representative, it’s quantum computing that will “cause disruptions”.

No doubt, it’s all a matter of appreciation. Could this be the sign of a new era for the leading American IT company? Watson had often been presented as a revolution that has recently come to a rather unhappy end. Be that as it may, many AI experts agree on its “incremental” diagnosis.

In fact, whether or not we believe that ChatGPT is “revolutionary” – the history of technology will take care of that question without our comment – what’s important is that “we offer useful and effective solutions to decision makers”, added Valentine Ferreol.

The ultimate goal is to implement “both operational and decision-making issues, in a collective manner”. This is a task in which Valentine sees “CIOs playing the role of technologists vis-à-vis other departments, such as marketing or finance.”

For my part, I see it as a reminder not to give in to technological “revolutions” too fast. Neither today nor tomorrow.

Do CEOs need to be convinced of the importance of AI?

Is there still such a need for evangelisation in AI? According to Stéphane Roder, this has already been done by OpenAI and Microsoft, and we can only be impressed by how fast they did the job. Even if Joe Bloggs’s mastery of these tools remains uncertain.

Where does artificial intelligence stand in terms of insecurity? A Gartner study shows that for US companies, Generative AI is cited among the greatest risks.

The Ultimate Goal of Artificial Intelligence Technologies

Like Valentine, Stéphane Roder insists on the ultimate purpose of these technologies. “The question is whether it really adds value, or whether it’s a toy. CEOs want to quantify the contribution of technologies and answer questions about confidentiality.”

It’s a fundamental problem, but one that is “In the process of being resolved,” he told us. I am under the impression that such issues are still only seldom addressed.

That being said, Stéphane foresees “massive adoption, because ML allows you to do exceptional things”.

Nicolas Levillain confirms, “We’ve moved on from the need to convince CEOs to an effort to educate them to ask what they can get out of these technologies. Rethink how they work and how they interact with their customers, and find out if they can create new business.”

And he adds that this is work that BCG X, the techno arm of the famous consultancy, is carrying out with banks. It remains to be seen whether this movement with banks, sometimes carried out in a more than brutal manner from a human point of view, is due to the ongoing transformation of the business or to a miraculous and timely technological invention.

AI implementation by Industry

David Sebaoun has another explanation. For him, it’s the fact that banks and insurance companies are entirely based on IT and technology. Admittedly, but it’s probably not the most cutting-edge technology – otherwise what need would most established continental financial institutions have to buy budding pure players?

Banks were certainly the first to face new entrants, as he points out, but the digital transformation of banks, which we were calling for ten years ago, is still largely incomplete, to put it mildly.

[Above] The most up-to-date statistics on the use of generative AI by generation (not much impact there) and by industry (No! Healthcare isn’t the most likely candidate for AI implementation)… Our panellists argued that the evangelisation for AI is over, yet these figures are telling a very different story.   

If banks are so interested in Generative AI, it’s seemingly more to catch up with the movement indicated by Chris Skinner, which began in the UK and spread worldwide around the time of the 2008 crisis. ChatGPT is a good excuse for cutting cost quickly and effectively.

Where does artificial intelligence stand in terms of productivity gains?

So what impact will generative AI have on the workplace, and on productivity gains in particular? According to JP Morgan, it will be enormous. Working hours will shrink, and decision-making processes will be turned upside down. In short, it will be total disruption. It’s rather difficult to be that adamant when talking about such subjects, though. Changes won’t happen overnight, contrary to what we hear.

Wait and see before it happens.

The Big data and AI Paris 2023 panellists, however, have observed productivity gains. “BCG X analysed customers using generative AI in their software factories,” says Levillain, “and we witnessed 40% productivity gains, improved quality, and fewer bugs.” Here again, not everyone agrees, starting with Thomas Gerbaud, Data Scientist, developer, and IT blogger.

Generative AI does produce code, but is it useful? Sometimes, according to a few studies (Chen et al 2021, Cassano et al 2022, Buscemi et al 2023). I don’t find it all that interesting! The data scientists I work with prefer to think on their own and when they hit a snag, browse Stack Overflow for an answer.
Alt-Gr.tech – the end of code

Valentine Ferreol agrees with him: “It’s true that AI can generate code, but only simple one,” she said.

This is not to say that ChatGPT and its competitors can’t help us generate code. But it does mean that they may be of more interest to novices and tinkerers and that pros have other ways of getting things done.

Above all, this means that it’s too early to panic, and that time will tell whether the productivity gains will be that enormous, for what it means, for white-collar workers. By the way, the latter were already facing problems before the recent AI boom. What’s more, some jobs disappear, others are invented, it’s always been the case.

Let’s get straight to the point that interested me most in this round table. Learning from AI implementation failures.

Learning from the post-mortems of AI projects

Here are the lessons I’ve learned from the panellists’ analysis of these AI implementation post-mortems.

1. 1. Securing AI is more difficult than you might think (Nicolas Levillain): new AI technological frameworks seem easily accessible, and may give rise to the temptation to move very quickly in order to gain a competitive advantage. However, Making this new breed of applications secure requires a great deal of testing. Holding one’s horses is Levillain’s advice.
   2. Experimentation vs ratiocination (Valentine Ferreol): Valentine reminds us of the basics of innovation, and particularly digital innovation: success is best guided by trial and error rather than theory. Familiarising oneself with a new technology is the right starting point, whereas possible applications come next. This rule of thumb “allows us to innovate faster, as long as we dynamically exert our critical eye”, she says. We couldn’t agree more.
   3. ‘An LLM isn’t a hammer to crack a nut’ (Stéphane Roder): Stéphane reminds us that we witnessed a lot of epic failures in AI until 2019. It seems to have died down for a while, and now it’s picking up again. “Everyone wants their XXXGPT,” he said, “French Railway completely screwed up with their implementation, he said.” We’re just discovering the underlying technology, and while “these models are fun to ‘play’ with, that’s not how it works within businesses”. He insists on the learning curve for professional IT teams – “We know of big e-commerce players who are now working hard on shrinking their data models. Ninety percent of use cases are indeed queries on simple document databases,” he warns us. A reminder that the size of data models is no guarantee of success and that there are many setbacks when databases become oversized. Even ChatGPT is taking a step backward with ChatGPT4, which is reportedly less powerful than ChatGPT3.5 in some areas and sometimes declining over time for certain tasks (download the Stanford report about the evolution of ChatGPT’s behaviour overtime).
2. There are three AI implementation failure factors which must be stressed (David Sebaoun):

a) Lack of adoption,
b) Implementing POCs (Proofs of Concept) rather than pilots hence failing to scale (a main reason for failure in Big Data projects we already spotted 10 years ago or so),
c) Lack of governance (for example, those US states that used AI-based unemployment fraud detection systems and ended up favouring fraudsters).

As Levillain rightly concludes, “The key success factors for these types of projects are 75% human. The remaining 25% depends on technology.”

So far, I feel as if I were attending a project management course back in the ’80s.

Yet Nicolas added: “What has changed is that these models bring together people who didn’t talk to each other before: data scientists, business people and developers.”

Granted! In that case, I agree that this is a revolution, one that we’ve been awaiting for decades. Let’s hope he’s right.

The post Implementing AI within businesses appeared first on Marketing and Innovation.

Visionary Marketing spoke with Katja Graisse – co-founder of Balistikart, an independent digital creative agency – to discuss the Incognito AI Influencer Project. We touch on the benefits and limitations of AI-generated influencers, the intertwining of art and business, and more. Katja provides an optimistic assessment of the current digital landscape, proclaiming that the usage of AI allows for media involvement that is more flexible, sustainable, and ironically, honest. However, not everyone is transparent about AI personalities – some have used deepfakes in intentionally deceptive ways, causing many to question the technology’s true impact on our lives. What the future has in store for virtual influencers is unknown at this point.  

The Incognito AI Influencer Project

Picture taken from the Incognito AI influencer project

Do you want to give us an introduction and describe what the Incognito influencer project is?

We created the Incognito influencer project at the start of New York Fashion Week this year with the idea of creating an AI-generated influencer who would be able to engage with the Parisian fashion world from behind our screens and live all the different experiences that Fashion Week can offer through this influencer.

From there on, we tried to decipher some of the trends that the Fashion Week was having and try to put those into the storytelling that we give to this influencer. The whole notion that he is incognito is kind of paradoxical because the aim of most influencers is not to be incognito. Quite the contrary. And in this case, we wanted to have somewhat of the fashion underdog who is trying to infiltrate the fashion world as best he could.

Where did you first get the inspiration for a fashion underdog?

Every year we collect information and create a report on the fashion weeks, and so the idea was to be able to look at them from the front row and then be able to report them in a more fun way than we usually do through our trend reports. It was also a desire to be able to test AI technology, as we know that this is up-and-coming and that we’re now seeing more and more AI-generated influencers that have been appearing and we wanted to basically test and explore and therefore the term project behind Incognito influencer.

Picture taken from the Incognito AI influencer project

What advantages do you think virtual influencers have over real-life influencers today?

I think virtual influencers are perhaps a little more docile than real influencers. They don’t have whims or demands when it comes to flying first class or what have you.  It also is interesting when it comes to the luxury industry, which likes to have control. When you have an influencer, you can actually pretty much control all of the parameters. The other idea was to have a project that was proof of concept. And so we wanted to start an influencer with zero followers and not do any media spending or such. All that we’ve done so far has been organic, and we’ve seen that the response has been tremendous from all of the followers.

You’ve described the project as art. Would you say that this starting-from-scratch philosophy is related to this in some way?

I think the whole idea was to create a character that’s all about autofiction. You have the author, the character himself, the prompter – all of these are one single person. It goes back to Stefan’s early work where he had created a film that was presented at the Centre Pompidou in Paris – which was for the Mobile Film Festival – a 45-minute film called Autofiction. All of this relates to the kind of work that we like to do. We didn’t want to create an influencer that was trying to gain a tremendous number of followers. We’re more interested in the storytelling that goes with his character as he moves from all of these different fashion shows. It’s not the idea of coming up with someone who’s perfect – quite on the contrary – and it enables us to create lots of different fictional characters and situations that might not be truly there in reality.

Have any brands shown interest in this project?

Indeed, we have had some people come and reach out to us. I can’t necessarily disclose who they are at this point, but people who are interested in the concept and who have noted maybe the irony that was involved. We have the hope that we can also team up with younger brands that don’t necessarily have the traction that these major luxury brands may have for the moment. It will be interesting to see how we can perhaps do partnerships with younger brands and put forward their work.

Picture taken from the Incognito AI influencer project

Who would you describe your target audience as?

We have seen that we have a large scope of different demographics. We have Gen Alpha, who is following. We have Gen X who is following, and then we have a whole bracket in between. Mostly male by 60%, but all sorts of age groups and areas around the world.

Virtual influencers tend to have a higher rate of engagement than real-life influencers. Have you noticed this trend yourself?

Certainly, I think the engagement so far has been really, really high. We’ve had about 100,000 impressions and about 350 comments. Quite a good number of likes as well. We see what we are calling “the club of 100” – we have 100 followers who are extremely engaged, both on Instagram and also on Stéphane’s LinkedIn.

Stepping back a little, how would you describe an influencer in today’s world?

If we look at traditional influencers today, they have become extremely subject to monetization. A lot of them today are basically following this very specific mold – if you go from one to another, it’s very hard to differentiate them. You do have some exceptions, but on the whole, it’s become pretty much stale and I think perhaps a little shallow. We believe that with AI-generated images, you can actually create a character that has a lot more say to it, that has a lot more opinion. Influencers today are often less outspoken than they were in the past because they don’t want to bypass their VIP invitation to a dinner or something. So, I think that it is perhaps time to rethink what “influence” is.

How would you describe the distinction between a virtual influencer and a fake profile?

I think the idea of a fake profile is someone who is trying to mislead you. The whole notion of a virtual influencer is that they should be very outspoken about the fact that they are not real and that they’re not trying to mislead you in any kind of way. It’s very important to be transparent and to immediately say “I am a virtual influencer.” We’re dealing with a fictional character, rather than a fake personality who’s trying to impersonate someone or use someone else’s face to gain popularity.

In the case of the influencer incognito influencer project, the whole idea was to actually take Stéphane Galienni’s own face from an ID photo and paste that into all of the AI-generated images that he was doing. He is the real Stéphane, but he’s just interested in a different environment with a different type of clothing. His looks are constant, which is something that other AI influencers sometimes lack.

Is the usage of bot accounts different between virtual influencers and real-life influencers?

Bot accounts have been around for a very long time. However, they do not bring any kind of true engagement to an account because these are fake people, so they’re not engaging with your content in a real way. Having a large number of followers can fool some, but most people are pretty savvy with the fact that if you have a very large following but you have no engagement, no comments, and no likes, then there’s something probably a little fishy about your account. In our case, I don’t think that’s something that we were interested in. The whole idea was not to gain a huge amount of coverage or followers in order to get free tickets to something. The whole idea was to experiment and to be authentic.

In the coming months or years, where do you see this project leading?

I think time will tell. First of all, it takes a lot of energy to be creative on a regular basis. Not only are you generating 1 to 3 images a day, but you have to keep in mind that behind one image, maybe there are 50 trials before we come up with the right one. But people are really eager to see where it will go, and I think everything is open at this point. We sincerely believe that we can do something very creative and very DNA-specific to each brand because the whole idea of creating something from scratch is that you can really try and follow the brand codes, the color schemes, and the whole idea behind the brand. The ideas are so open, and we are certainly on the side of people who are saying, “Wow, technology is really extraordinary. Let’s play with this and see what happens.”

In conclusion, a few thoughts about this AI Influencer project

The advent of AI influencers certainly raises questions about how authenticity is defined in today’s digital landscape. The idea that an AI influencer can represent authenticity and transparency challenges our notions of the concepts – perhaps we must look beyond physical properties to assess creditability. Skepticism of the technology is natural, however – as Deepfakes permeate the digital world, critical evaluation of informational sources is paramount. With an eye to the future, we hope that AI influencers will continue to represent a refreshing spin on a medium, rather than a catalyst for a disinformation campaign.

The post An AI Incognito Influencer in the digital world appeared first on Marketing and Innovation.

‘Breaking down silos’ is certainly digital transformation’s most common phrase and myth. If you haven’t heard this phrase repeated over and over again, chances are your government hasn’t let you out of your house after the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s probably the biggest fable about transformation projects, be they digital or not. Some time ago, I delivered a presentation about the necessary cooperation between marketing and CIOs, which triggered an interesting piece in France’s leading economic newspaper, Les Echos. In this piece, the journalist reported that I was advocating the implementation of organisational silos to achieve better results. Obviously, he had completely misunderstood what I had said, unless I hadn’t made my point clearly enough. What I meant was that organisational silos couldn’t be broken down, that most of the time it served no purpose to even try and I further explained that intrapreneurship provides an interesting answer to this digital transformation dilemma. To top it all, it does produce far better results. 

Why Breaking down silos is digital transformation’s greatest myth and how to overcome it

Breaking down organisational silos. An old pipe dream. At the same time, silos are a ready-made excuse for those failing in their digital transformation endeavours – image produced with Midjourney.

My presentation was highlighting that there is no point in breaking down silos to facilitate digital transformation. It can even be counterproductive.

What I meant above all is that organisational silos are neither good nor bad. There are both good and bad things in them. 

Silo-breaking is a great subject for after office hours pub discussions, that’s all. One had rather embrace intrapreneurship. Here is why.

Breaking Down Organisational Silos: The Biggest Myth in Digital Transformation

Intrapreneurs are like scrum halves in Rugby Union. There are short players but fast and agile. Intrapreneurs do not even attempt to break down silos, because they are too busy leading the pack and have no time to waste. Image by antimuseum.com

Organisational silos are neither good nor bad

There’s no point raging against organisational silos, it’s a waste of time.

Let’s wonder why they exist. Organisational silos are created, or even recreate themselves, naturally, to protect business units’ ivory towers. That much is understood. Yet, if they are ever reappearing this is because they are the easiest way to do and manage business. They also make measuring and reporting on results far simpler.

Now, I did witness business owners explain that matrix management was more effective and I spent months on end trying to map such complex organisations inside information systems. The sad truth is, though that it’s not true at all.

More complexity in an organisation leads to more tensions, limited measurability and poorer results. Incidentally, it also leads to more expensive and malfunctioning information systems.

Breaking down organisational silos is easier said and depicted with Midjourney than done in real life

Besides, you cannot force people to collaborate just by throwing a matrix organisation chart at them. Working across departments happens naturally and effortlessly … provided that all parties reap a clear benefit from a cooperative endeavour.

Matrix organisations and work efficiency

Anyone who has worked within matrix organisations knows how inefficient and inflexible they are.

As a young project manager, I spent months on end mapping sales and marketing processes for the design and implementation of CRM systems.

When everyone reports to everyone else and everyone works with everyone else, achieving satisfying results and measuring them aren’t a piece of cake. Besides, efficiency gains aren’t necessarily as good as you might hope. There are some exceptions, but they’re few and far between.

That’s why, whether you like it or not, organisational silos are here to stay. You’d better get used to them, they will not go any time soon.

No organisation is perfect

In fact, anyone who has studied organisations in the context of innovation knows that no organisation is perfect, and that no type of organisation solves the difficult question of innovation within a company.

The key to achieving the difficult balance between creativity and process efficiency lies not in organisational charts, but in people, their skills and the leadership that fosters – or fails to foster – innovation.

Cross-functional innovation work can and must gain a foothold across organisational silos

That said, cross-functional work, is a prerequisite for innovation. To thrive, it must gain a foothold across these different silos, circumventing all the issues related to those organisational silos.

While I highlighted the above-mentioned benefits of silos (to some), I do not intend to glorify silo-based organisations either. What this really means is that it is not necessary to ‘break down’ silos, nor business units, let alone get rid of the people who work within them in order to innovate.

This is what I describe as the ‘scrum-half’ approach. For those who are not familiar with the game of Rugby Union, a scrum-half is a comparatively shorter player but faster and more agile than the rest. More often than not he (or she) is the one distributing the ball here and there and organising the attack. He or she isn’t the biggest or the heaviest, by far, but is certainly the smartest and fastest runner.

I should know, I once was one of them.

Intrapreneurs really know how to ‘break down’ silos

This is where intrapreneurs come in. It’s not a typo, an intrapreneur is a person, or group of people, who manages to innovate in an entrepreneurial way within a (usually large) organisation.

To succeed, intrapreneurs do not give a damn about organisation models. Organisational charts may change from day to day, or more often than not disappear altogether. I’ve seen it happen ever so often. Organisations change so quickly that no one can keep up with the changes and by the time the chart has been updated a new change in management occurs.

Intrapreneur Overlook Organisation Structures

Do not misunderstand me, intrapreneurs are no anarchists nor seek to overthrow the powers that be even though some people may think so. They do not care about organisation structures because it doesn’t matter.

I’ve almost always found it laughable. While many of my colleagues were waiting for, as they said, ‘someone to clear out the organisation’, I’ve always found that these moments of uncertainty are most favourable to change management (read this piece about my change management tips).

Four main organisational models for innovation but none of them is good

Even when you’ve broken down silos, your projects do not always cut the mustard. Above are the four most common types of organisation for innovation. In 2010, Paris-based consulting firm CCA demonstrated that none of these organisations is good or bad. All that matters is leadership and implementation. Results are not impacted by these models in any way, they found.

The only thing that matters for innovation – and digital transformation for that matter – is the quality of the people working for an organisation.

Scrum-half way, agile intrapreneurs who are bound to work across silos, move quickly and circumvent issues others had found unsolvable.

Intrapreneurs fight against no one, they just get things done

True intrapreneurs aren’t fighters. They have no enemies. Their only foe is status quo. They even grow a stiff upper lip in front of resilience to change.

To do this, he or she will solely rely on people’s skills, let self-organisation take place. Based on the results, he or she might end up structuring his or her project organisation. It’s not even necessary. Most of the time, structuring innovation takes place later at management’s request, who often lean on the above-mentioned innovator/intrapreneur to do so.

Breaking down silos? The innovator doesn’t ask please, he asks forgiveness (David Armano)

In conclusion, intrapreneurs never beg for help, they never ask where they fit in the organisation nor whether they have been given the right ‘job description”.

On the contrary, intrapreneurs get things done and later seek what change agents might be able to give them a hand.

A word of caution: I do not mean that innovation cannot come from above. It is entirely possible, and it often does.

Yet, even in that case, innovation requires intrepreneurship in the exact same way. Even if you have support from the top, be humble and work like intrapreneurs, because that’s the way to make innovation succeed. By definition, innovation is about getting things done differently. Hence, this is no surprise that you are bound to upset a few people down that route.

We also recommend that you read our nine top tips for intrapreneurship and change management.

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Will marketing jobs be killed by AI? We met with Jamie Brighton, at Adobe Summit 2023*. Jamie is Product Marketing Director for the Adobe Digital Experience business. His answer to the above question is a blatant No! He sees AI as being a co-pilot of marketers in their daily tasks. A set of tools to bridge the gap between creativity and marketing ROI. To put it in a few words, marketers should not be afraid of losing their jobs. On the contrary, they should look at AI as a great opportunity to make their jobs more creative and interesting.

Will marketing jobs be killed by AI? The answer is No!

Jamie Brighton, Director of Product Marketing EMEA, marketers should not be afraid to lose their jobs to AI. Picture: Jamie at the Adobe Summit 2023 in London on June 9, 2023

*Disclosure: Visionary Marketing is an #Adobepartner and Adobe is our client

So far, marketers have had to put up with a lot of issues in the way they are dealing with their marketing assets for their campaigns. Such assets are volatile. They keep being sent back and forth between members of the marketing teams as well as agencies. And multiple copies are being kept in various places…

In a nutshell, the ‘content supply chain process’ is broken. However, announcements made by Adobe and Publicis at Adobe Summit 2023 last week are aiming at resolving that issue.

Marketers are under pressure for creating personalised content at scale

‘It’s been fantastic to hear customers getting so excited about some of the things that we’ve been working on and announcing,’ the director of product marketing in the Adobe Digital Experience business said.

Marketers need to produce more personalized content at scale. AI will enable them to do just that. We generated this Image with Adobe Firefly at firefly.adobe.com

What Adobe did is ‘very much about the bringing together of the creative cloud and the marketing cloud, the experience cloud. And we’ve been infusing AI and generative AI capabilities across all those products’.

And it’s not just about the integration of Firefly in many parts of Adobe’s creative suite. ‘We’ve also been working on having AI capabilities built directly into things like the Experience Manager and Adobe Journey Optimiser, which is our omnichannel tool. So, these are fantastic ways for marketers to be creative. And more efficient, and to meet the kind of ever-expanding demands that are on them for producing high-quality content at scale.’

CX— shaping tools: the best of both worlds

All organizations need to be able to plan, create, deliver, and ultimately analyze the content that they’re producing. ‘In order to do that, they need to think about a content supply chain which goes from the ideation, thinking about the campaign, the brief, bringing together everything that you need in order to understand what you’re trying to achieve from this creative campaign,’ Jamie Brighton added.

Our Firefly prompt was ‘marketing cloud and creative cloud, seamless’ vibrant colors, flat colors, concept art. Very neat result. And let’s mention the Adobe Firefly watermark on the bottom left-hand side which is a major step forward in the implementation of transparency in Gen AI.

Most of the design journey begins with tools like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. ‘One of the historic challenges has been that if you need to do some sort of approval or create the asset and upload it somewhere for somebody to look at, you must go out of your workflow that you’re comfortable with,’ the Director of Product Marketing went on.

‘That’s approval processes that would typically happen in a workflow tool like Workfront can happen directly within the panels of the Photoshop interface and having the various renditions of an asset approved and ready to go live on a website again, can all happen directly within the creative cloud through the Photoshop on the desktop.’

This new way of working is bridging the gap between the two parts of the marketing organization. It is definitely a major step forward.

A seamless journey

Things are moving towards a genuinely seamless integration. Even though we are in the middle of a long ‘journey, which can never be finished’.

‘We designed this seamless integration to take away the cognitive load on the creatives around where to store the assets and enable them to build great marketing assets. Without having to even think about where it’s posted or where the approval process happens.’

Does that mean one will be able to launch campaigns at the touch of a button?

The idea of launching a campaign based on the single press of a button is a pie in the sky according to Jamie Brighton. There will always be some work to do for marketers. To a large extent, AI-driven creativity tools and this seamless process will bestow more power on marketers. Which they shall use to be more creative.

‘There will still be a place for creativity in this whole process. Once you have simplified the admin element of the creative process, we are just left with the creative process,’ Jamie added.

We see AI as a co-pilot and being a co-pilot indicates that there are two people, and two entities involved in this process.

So much for those who think that marketers will be replaced by ChatGPT. If anything, our jobs will even become more interesting and more creative because AI will have taken care of all the useless and frustrating repetitive tasks.

Will Marketing Jobs Be Killed by AI?

As a result, Jamie thinks that marketers should not be afraid of losing their jobs to AI.

Will marketing jobs be killed by AI? We asked Firefly to turn a computer into Frankenstein and even though the answer is quite compelling, Jamie thinks there’s no reason to be afraid. As a matter of fact, we do agree with him too.

One Should Absolutely Not be afraid of AI

People have had to come to grips with generative AI. ‘Now, they are starting to understand the impact rather than just thinking it’s just another buzzword. I know that there are people fear-mongering about what the potential impact of AI. But we’ve been talking about the potential impacts of it for a number of years now. I was at one of the big analyst conferences in 2018, and the entire keynote was about “Will AI take away X types of different jobs?”’

Let’s be realistic, though, some of the roles will go.

‘But actually, where they go, there will be a greater opportunity in other areas to create models in the first place, to build tools that enable people to interact with AI as a co-pilot. The likes of Microsoft and Accenture are all talking about this concept of AI as a co-pilot. You will always need a human in that marketing process. What we have to do is look at where the opportunities to streamline our processes and look at where the potential opportunities are for AI to just make us happier in our jobs, basically by removing some of that mundanity, removing some of the boring stuff,’ explained Jamie.

Marketing Jobs: AI Will be Our Co-pilot

In conclusion, we marketers should not be afraid of AI. At the same time, we should prepare ourselves for many changes. If we only take things positively, such changes will be exciting opportunities to make our jobs even more interesting.

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It’s this time of year, Adobe summit 2023 is taking place on June, 8–9 in London and Visionary Marketing will be there as #adobepartner (disclosure*). After a few years where the event only took place online (check our coverage here). It’s now a hybrid event, which is taking place both online and offline. As we are packing our bags for the event, complete with gimbal, digital camera, iPad, iPhone and personal computer, we are thrilled to be sharing some of the things we are most excited about this event.

Making Preparations for Adobe Summit 2023

Adobe Summit 2023 – online

* Disclosure, Adobe is a client of Visionary Marketing

Live reporting from London on the Adobe Summit 2023

This year, we will be reporting live from the event in London with social media and video snippets. They will be posted online on Twitter, LinkedIn and other platforms. And, of course, this very blog. You should therefore expect some live reports from us online on the summit at our dedicated Adobe page at vismktg.info/adobe23.

http://adobe.ly/43K31ZpThe Adobe Summit 2023 Event Page

We are very excited at Visionary Marketing. This is one of these moments when we are going to be able to talk and exchange with some of the most brilliant people in the industry. There’s no way one can avoid it. This year is going to be the year of generative AI. And Adobe is also a major player in this arena. A lot more cautious than others, but the headway shown in the past few weeks have been amazing.

Content Production in Businesses, a New Perspective

Here, I’m talking about the use of these new technologies with regards to contact production. Tomorrow, I will be publishing a demonstration of Adobe firefly and the firefly integration within Photoshop/These are the most stunning things that I have ever seen in the past 10 years.

These tools aren’t mere features within the existing Adobe suite. They give more creative powers to marketers who want to spruce up their content with relevant, impactful images.

The use of generative AI to produce images has already impacted content production too, in a big way. And businesses aren’t immune to it. If we look at it positively, we believe that generative AI for image production, when used positively, responsively and creatively, can be a means for marketers to create more impactful and exciting experiences for their customers.

At Visionary Marketing, we have already resorted to various AI generated image tools to populate our blogs in the past few months. There are limitations to this, though. Copyright Issues to start with.

A Few Issues and the Way Forward

Generative AI is using pre-training (hence the PT in chatG”PT’) and such training takes place from a given database (and very soon the database which is the current copy of the web retained by search engines). Even though those images are not exactly copied from the original, they are indeed inspired by them. This has triggered many issues from a legal point of view, and a couple of lawsuits as well.

Mes points — a priori — les plus intéressants

Adobe has followed a different route. The company released a new application within its creative suite which is now currently available as a beta version. It’s called firefly and those who want to try it can go to firefly.adobe.com.

The Adobe Summit 2023 will be a great way for us to rub shoulders with those who shape our industry and the future of our marketing teams and the overall profession. Content creation will be challenged in an incredible way now and in the years to come. If we embrace these technologies and use them responsibly, there will be huge opportunities for us, for creativity, for reinventing content marketing.

This event is a great opportunity for us to understand what trends are in the works in the marketing industry.

We will namely be talking with Luc Damann, President of EMEA and Jamie Brighton, Director of product marketing digital experience and we will be attending many live sessions.

We will attend press meetings as well regarding the ‘immersive retail experience’. Last but not least, the Adobe sneaks is a very exciting part of the Adobe Summit. Stay tuned and register now for this amazing event.

 

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Are digital experiences getting in the way of customers’ experiences? We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Joseph Pine, author of the article titled ‘Are Your Digital Tools Wasting Your Customers’ Time?” Having previously interviewed him, we knew he had an interesting perspective on the matter. He takes a close look at the way in which the economy is working with technology in order to change the way people interact with businesses. In his mind, digital experiences go way beyond the interaction of humans and screens. He also debunks myths regarding customer experience and how it is not always better to go digital. In fact, companies often try to eradicate human interaction thinking it will be beneficial when it actually does the opposite. 

Is digital wasting your customer’s time?

Joe Pine is the author of ‘Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want’ as well as multiple other books and he talked to us here at Visionary Marketing about digital experiences.

No one wants digital tools that waste their time. What everyone wants are digital experiences that offer time well spent

One of the key things to understanding the nature of life is that the most precious resource on the planet is the time of individual human beings.

As a consequence, the worst thing companies can do is waste their customers’ time. Yet, that’s what companies do all the time by asking for things that they already know. Businesses make customers go through procedures that they have defined as important, but that aren’t really to the end user.

‘We increasingly want our time to be saved around any type of service, digital or not, so that we can spend that time on experiences that we value,’ Joe said. 

Digital experiences don’t always equate to good experiences: people are frustrated when their digital experience is not up to their standards. Image generated by Midjourney

Digital Experiences Don’t Always Mean Good Experiences

People usually assume that going digital is going to improve customer experience. However, that is not always the case. A lot of great experiences come from interactions with other people. Indeed, many companies try to eliminate such exchanges by going fully digital without realising that people want to interact and connect with companies and vice versa. Some of these reasons are valid, but more often than not, it’s wasted time because when we try to artificially create these moments they get in the way of daily communication.

Why are companies doing this? What are they doing wrong?

A key impetus for it is that it’s going to save companies a lot of money so that we don’t need customer-facing people. Instead of recognising again, that’s where much of the value comes in. When consumers go digital, it doesn’t mean they want less human interaction. In fact, it is the other way around, they want faster and better human interactions.

Moreover, such businesses are very product-centric instead of customer-centric. Instead of understanding the customer and what it is that they’re trying to accomplish right now, they want the customer to follow the journey that they’ve laid out in advance. Then again, that’s not the journey that the customer wants to follow. ‘Perhaps this is happening because businesses have too few people who care about gaining customer insight,’ Joe assumed.

Myth: Building frictionless digital experiences will increase engagement

People engage when smart tools understand them, but what is a smart tool?

A smart tool is one that is using data. The data that it learns from you individually to be able to address your needs. So it’s a matter of sensing and responding. Then such a smart tool can understand what it is that customers want at this moment and it can act accordingly. For instance, think of smart thermostats that learn when you get up, or what kind of temperature the home owner likes in the winter.

Myth: Creating more ‘moments’ for customers will lead to more value. In fact, ‘moments’ are fairly product-centric. They’re what we want our customers to do and how we want them to engage with us. Whereas ‘modes’, are what the individual customer wants to accomplish.

What is digital context?
Digital context is just a great term that my co-author of the HBR article, Dave Naughton, came up with. The digital context is really about understanding, ‘What it is that I’m trying to accomplish right now, and it requires access to all of the digital data that is out there that will explain what mode a business can use to enhance its experience in banking or e-shopping, for instance’. The problem with most businesses is that they have no data. And they can’t provide any experience without digital context.

A good example is my client Carnival Corporation. They make good use of digital contexts. The cruise company created a digital tool called the Ocean Medallion. A device that allows them to understand the digital context that you are in while on the cruise ship. They can recognise every individual. Every employee has a tablet with them that when you get close, your device pops your picture and information up so they can greet you by name. It also has past interactions, your itinerary, what you’re trying to do, where you’re going and so forth.

Smart Digital Experiences vs Genius Digital Experiences

Genius experiences are the ones that understand everything that’s going on. They understand the ecosystem and grab all that digital context to anticipate what mode you’re in and then vastly multiply the number of jobs that it can do for you. That means they customise and individualise to you as well as being responsive.

For example, Alexa or Google Home. They have access to all your information. The genius level is, for instance, when you say ‘Alexa play some music’ they will play music based on what mood you’re in, who you’re with, what time of day it is, what you’re doing and trying to accomplish because it understands all of that. 

‘Alexa or Google Home can reach genius level because they have access to all our information’ [Image Google Chrome dinosaur by Jumpstory]Although, when we reach these genius experiences, there is always the possibility that people will start to find it as too much and even a little ‘creepy’. For this reason, it is important to resort to genius experiences only when the person wants and how the person wants it done. As opposed to bringing in things that maybe it should not know about the customer until you opt in. At one point it will be necessary to stop and ask yourself whether you still want to continue or make changes. Machines are taking over and it is evident more and more each day, which is why is important to work with them and craft better digital experiences for ourselves as well as our customers.

More on Joe Pine with Visionary Marketing: Experience Economy: Great Experiences Begin with Great Service

Amazon’s Author Joe Pine’s Page here

 

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Could one reduce the carbon footprint of digital advertising? When it comes to carbon emissions, digital is often criticised, and programmatic advertising in particular. How big is that footprint? And how could one minimise it? How are advertisers reacting? A recent Scope3 study sheds light on this subject. It shows that the digital marketing industry can also contribute to the common effort. This is what Fabien Omont, a representative of Adform, a Danish provider of solutions for digital advertising, told me when I interviewed him.

Reducing the Carbon Footprint of Digital Advertising Isn’t Mission Impossible

Scope3 has just released a 2023 brief that makes the case for a more responsible digital advertising industry. The link to the study is at the end of the post.

Disclosure: This podcast was produced in partnership with Ecran mobile on behalf of Adform, an Adtech provider. We have written this post with our usual objective of independence and authenticity.

Fabien Omont is Product Marketing Director at Adform. The Adtech company works with Scope3. The latter has just published its report on the State of Sustainable Advertising. By their own admission, Scope3 is ‘the only company to measure end-to-end emissions from across the media and advertising supply chain’.

The Carbon Footprint of Digital Advertising

Scope3 has estimated the CO2 emissions from programmatic advertising at 215,000 metric tonnes of CO2 per month in 5 countries alone. These are Australia, France, Great Britain, Germany and the USA.

The US Alone Accounts for Nearly Half of These Emissions

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/screenshot-2023-04-24-at-082009.jpgScope3’s measurement of the carbon footprint of digital advertising shows that it emits 215,000 tonnes of CO2 every month in 5 countries (Australia, France, the UK, Germany and the US). This would correspond to the consumption of nearly 24 million gallons of gasoline (91 million litres of petrol) each month. Click the picture to enlarge

In the UK only, each month programmatic advertising emits 30.6k metric tonnes of CO2

‘Digital advertising has become widespread,’ explains Fabien. The Internet amounts to 65.15% of the overall advertising expenditure for a worldwide  total of over US$550 billion. This is indeed considerable.

‘But beyond these figures, it is important to understand the main factors behind the carbon footprint of digital advertising,’ Fabien went on.

4 top drivers of digital advertising’s carbon footprint

1. Driver number one is the consumption of the terminals that Internet users are resorting to.
2. The second driver is how publishers will distribute content around the world. When a person reads an article, questions arise: where and how was it loaded? How was it distributed through the networks up to the user’s terminal?
3. The third driver is the creative distribution. Has it been optimised and what is its impact on bandwidth usage? Over the years, as bandwidth has improved, the visuals have become bulkier. This has an undeniable ecological knock-on effect.
4. The fourth and final driver is ad selection. This is the process that is put in place for the Internet user to receive an ad.

Advertising Selection Is Singled Out

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/screenshot-2023-04-24-at-085139.jpgThe ad selection criterion is the number one driver in the carbon footprint of digital ads. This is what the Scope3 report says. Click to enlarge the picture.

‘Ad selection definitely is the main driver behind carbon emissions of digital advertising. It weighs a lot more than terminal usage of even media distribution,’ Fabien explained.

60% of the carbon footprint of programmatic advertising is due to ad selection

Programmatic advertising is not only complex, it is also resource intensive. Fortunately, there are ways to reduce this carbon footprint.

‘The reality of digital advertising,’ explains Fabien, ‘is that the practice of header bidding has become almost universal amongst publishers.

Header-bidding infographic by Sortable

Multiplying advertising calls

“This is a practice which, to put it simply, consists in increasing the amount of advertising calls to optimise monetisation, i.e. generating double or triple bids, which will inflate the price of the winning bid and therefore make more money in the end.”

This approach is quite commendable from the point of view of monetisation and optimisation of the publisher’s income, Fabien explained, but its impact on carbon footprint is huge.

Advertisers are paying attention

However, advertisers are aware of the problem. This is a good sign Fabien Omont said.

Advertisers’ attitudes are changing and that’s good news

“Advertisers are very curious about what’s going on and the initiatives taken by start-ups like Scope3 and other tech players like Adform,” explains Fabien.

“Above all, advertising associations and media agencies have done a fantastic job of raising awareness amongst advertisers.”

In addition, legislation shall be enforced in the near future. The publication of carbon footprint numbers for digital advertising is indeed likely to become a regulatory requirement.

Getting Results Isn’t That Hard

“We have developed a solution for optimising the reduction of the carbon footprint of digital advertising,” Fabien Omont went on. “And the good news is that getting some good results is quite easy.”

Carbon emissions from digital advertising can very easily be cut in half

“The range of the impact of advertisers’ carbon footprint is very broad. The most virtuous advertisers will emit 55 grams of CO2 per thousand impressions,” explains Fabien, “the highest threshold, goes up to 4,782 grams.

However, Adform has noticed that the vast majority of publishers are well below these extremes, Fabien said.

Decarbonising programmatic advertising

‘If we tackle the top 10% of CO2 emitters, we will soon see a total reduction of 40–50% of carbon emissions due to digital advertising.’

In conclusion, the problem isn’t hopeless. Just by improving practices on the ground, one could achieve satisfactory results.

Important Notice on the Weight of Digital within the World’s Carbon Emissions

It’s worthy of note that, according to the World Economic Forum, “Studies estimate that digital technologies already contribute between 1.4% to 5.9% of global greenhouse gas emissions”.

Digital technology isn’t therefore responsible for the majority of our carbon footprint, far from that. 

It is far less to blame than the usual suspects, namely transportation, the manufacturing industry and agriculture, as well as central heating.

It should also be noted that carbon emissions are the most significant cause of the pollution we are witnessing but its far from being the only one.

In any case, every effort counts. And those made by the digital industry are to be welcomed and encouraged.

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Platform business models facilitate the exchange of goods and services between two or more interdependent groups, often producers and consumers. They are responsible for totally new ways of doing business. In our interview with Benoît Reillier from Launchworks.co, we discuss his book entitled Platform Strategy, from which he derived a cartoon version. In this book he delivers his predictions on the future of platform business. To him, platform business models will not replace all kinds of traditional business. They should inspire rather than scare, as they offer boundless opportunities for mixed business models in the future.

Platform Business Models Today and in the Future

Platform Business Models, beautifully illustrated by Louise Plantin is also available as a full-fledged book.

Understanding Platform Business Models

According to Benoît, some examples of companies that follow the Platform Business model are Airbnb, Uber, Google, and online marketplaces such as eBay, and Amazon. However, as the age of social media progresses, content from companies such as YouTube, TikTok, and other social platforms is now making up a sizeable part of the platform business.

Uber is the epitome of platform business models but there are many more of that ilk.

Looking at consumer behaviour, there are different ways platform businesses can be deemed successful. Depending on how they fulfil the different needs and wants of a customer. This includes travel websites like Expedia which make it easier to book an entire trip on one website or others like Tinder when one is looking for a romantic partner.

Benoît explained that platform business might not be seen as a straightforward concept, as it may have multiple definitions.

What makes that kind of business different from other types of businesses is that their organisations are entirely built around a business model that attracts participants, matches them, connects them, and enables them to transact.

Benoît Reillier added, ‘Marketplaces create value by allowing people to be connected.’

Now thanks to Benoît we have a much clearer definition of what Platform business is.

Platform business model means no Value Chain

As depicted in Benoît’s Platform Strategy cartoon opus, platform businesses do not derive their competitive advantage from the quality of their value chain like traditional business ventures.

The business model of platforms is definitely different from that of value chains

This is because traditional firm dynamics starts with buying material things and adding value to them. An example he gave, is that of a car manufacturer that builds and creates a car out of raw materials or semi-finished goods.

Traditional business models are based on linear processes that are resulting from their internal abilities to turn these manufacturing processes into value for the benefit of their customers.

Platform businesses are entirely different, Benoît Reillier stressed, since they, ‘are merely orchestrating their ecosystems’.

We’ve asked Midjourney to/imagine the difference between traditional and Plaftorm-based shopping and it came up with that…

Platform businesses do not have to worry about inventories. They aren’t buying anything from anyone. All they do is connecting people who own something with people who want to buy it.

Platform Business models are underpinned by principles that are not applicable to traditional businesses, Benoît Reillier found out.

There are two main rules, the network effect and price elasticity.

The Network Effect

‘Networks are characterised by positive externalities. All the members of the network benefit from it. The more there are new members joining that network, the bigger its value for all its members.’

That’s what Benoît calls the network effect. A major underlying principle that confers value on the platform.

‘At the outset, it’s very hard to convince new people to join a new network,’ he added. If there is a network with just the two of us, it won’t fare very well. We’ll then have to recruit new members, relentlessly.

‘Yet, once you’ve reached a certain critical mass, maybe thousands of members, what happens is that people will start to spot that network and its value, and it will then start to grow organically.’

Price Elasticity

It may appear to some that setting prices may be easier for platforms than traditional businesses. This is because they are masters of their own ecosystem, or so it seems.

However, Benoît warns us that appearances may be deceptive.

‘Even though they seem to have full control over their pricing structures,’ Benoît added, ‘platforms are walking on eggs when they decide to change them. Because these network ecosystems are complex systems, changing the way you charge one of your members may have a serious impact on all the others.’

In other words, if a platform business is a tad too inconsiderate when changing its pricing structure, it can start losing members.

‘If your platform business creates too much friction, it might become less attractive to newcomers,’ Benoît emphasised. ‘Traditional firms do not give too much thought to price elasticity. But platforms need to be more circumspect in that regard.’

The Future of Platform Business

As platforms gain ever more popularity, there have been concerns about platform business models taking over traditional business models and disrupting the economy.

Thus, Airbnb has attracted much criticism about its disturbance of the hospitality business in many places. It happened in New York, London or Paris for instance.

There are many other examples such as Amazon. The Seattle Internet company has raised fears of disruption of retail business by ecommerce. And more recently, the foray of the retail behemoth (now employing over 1.2 million staffers worldwide) into food retailing has triggered even more concerns.

However, Benoît doesn’t believe that platforms will be the terminators of traditional shopping.

Platform strategy by Laure Claire and Benoît Reillier – Routledge – 2017

‘In the future, many organisations will mix different types of business models. Value chains will still be around in 30 years’ time, and platform business models too. Businesses will undoubtedly combine several business models. Depending on the industry and the product, platforms will be the preferred business model, and for other industries or products, value chains will still be instrumental in organising the business.’

Maybe some companies will conduct part of their business in the Metaverse, but other more traditional business models will persist

‘Considering all the technologies that are cropping up now,’ Benoît concluded, ‘including Web3 and the immersive Web, this mix of different business models will enable us to manage distributed organisations in a much better way, through the combination of all these business models.’

Fears that Uber and other platforms will do away with any other types of businesses, as we thought barely 10 years ago, were probably exaggerated. Platform business models could on the contrary be one more string to the bows of traditional businesses who had better think how they could reinvent themselves. Major platform business best practices should inspire rather than scare you.

You may download the illustrated version of the book from the Launchworks.co website.

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Social media requires proper and effective visuals for your posts to be more impactful. Any first-grade student knows that. Seasoned marketers do too. That said, a recent study by Vistacreate and the Content Marketing Institute showed that there is room for improvement in that area. In this report, CMI’s Robert Rose, founder and chief strategy officer of The Content Advisory, the education and consulting group for Content Marketing, urged marketers to better test their assumptions. The report also provides in-depth insights regarding social media visuals and how to use them effectively.

How to Use Social Media Visuals More Effectively

Social Media Visuals are important CMI and Vista create conclude in a 2023 study. Nonetheless, marketers should be spending a little more time testing rather than creating visuals for themselves  –  This is a Midjourney-generated image of a painter crafting a social media visual for Twitter.

The Current State of Social Media Visuals

We all know, at least intuitively that social media visuals are important. A recent survey by CMI and Vista Create is bringing evidence that our gut feeling is true. It also points out that marketers should test their visuals more carefully.

A 2023 Social Media Visuals study by CMI and Vistacreate.

The survey results in a nutshell

CMI selected a sample of marketers for this survey. 167 respondents were qualified for analysis and they answered the institute’s questions in June 2022. Here is a visual representation of the sample with a slide taken from the report.

Worthy of note is the fact that B2B and B2B+B2C add up to 69% of the total sample. The survey is mostly geared towards business-to-business. B2C, other and not-for-profit make up the remaining 31% of the survey respondents. The survey was essentially carried out in the US (68% of respondents).

The survey results in a nutshell

CMI have derived five major insights from their survey Insight number one: test your assumptions

The authors of the report insist that too many marketers are behaving according to their own tastes rather than testing how effective their visuals are. This is the main finding of the report. Whereas marketing is about measuring customer response and the effectiveness of one’s messages and campaigns, it seems that most marketers are instead relying on their own tastes.

Social media visuals designed by Leonardo da Vinci? Anything is possible with Midjourney, but not sure it’s a good thing, though.

It might be a good idea if your brand is a trendsetter like Apple or Gucci. When Android released its new flat design look and feel with its 4.0 Icecream sandwich version, it set a new trend for all to follow. Apple followed in their footsteps in 2013. At the time, most of us found flat design awful and too minimalistic. After a little while our tastes changed and we became used to it.

Marketers have this tendency to craft beautiful images that they like rather than pictures that are either effective or appeal to their audiences. Whereas this might be a good idea if you are Apple or Gucci, it may not if your brand is not a luxury or a beloved brand. The above picture is a Midjourney-generated image. A painter is creating a huge social media visual for Twitter with a paintbrush.

This happened because every one of us had an Android or Apple iPhone in our pockets. In fact, we didn’t have a choice. For visual social ads, audiences do have a choice to click or not to click.

The perspective is very different. Hence the testing.

Insight number 2: look at visual social media as a platform

The authors are claiming that visual content creation for social media is moving in-house.

Nearly 50% of brands don’t have a separate budget for social media visual content. Yet, creating social media-friendly visuals is a job in its own right and a budget should be allocated to this.

60% of marketers said they create visual content themselves, 56% have in-house professional designers, and only 28% use freelance designers (the overlap is because some respondents indicated all three options)

What is strange though is that the authors of the report found out that ‘counter-intuitively, small businesses are more likely to have a separate budget for visual social content, as compared to larger companies (47% vs. 22%)’.

The authors claim that this is a good thing, but that brands need to have a least a small budget for content creation. After all, content creation is a job, not a hobby.

Insight number 3: build repeatable processes

When looking at what kinds of visuals are more successful than others, CMI’s survey consistently highlighted 3 main content types:

1. Video content
2. Custom photos (as opposed to stock images)
3. Infographics

Instagram’s top three are a bit different with ‘stories’ coming third. Reels on Facebook didn’t seem to catch up, though.

Videos are often quoted as being the top performers. That said, very few marketers manage to make their videos viral without paid social media ads. We definitely recommend brands to work on their word-of-mouth strategies before moving to ad-driven social activation.

Insight number 4: match those processes with a documented and formal budget

As to effectiveness, LinkedIn is definitely most brands’ pet social platform.

LinkedIn scored the highest at 56% (rating it as extremely or very effective), followed by Facebook (38%), and Instagram (31%)

These results are most probably due to the strong B2B bias in the survey sample.

Insight number 5: empower visual content creators to tell stories

The fifth insight is probably the most interesting one. CMI tested 5 different social media visuals with marketers and non-marketers. The results were completely different according to the audience.

Social media visuals should be tested with your audiences. CMI showed that the green visual was ranked highest by marketers and one of the least effective by non-marketers. QED.

Content creators know that by heart. As the name goes, they bet on creativity and inventiveness and come up with great concepts. But here comes the Corporate Marketing Officer who starts shouting at you by stating you’re ‘not on brand’.

Next thing you know, the content creator in question is so crestfallen that she or he – reluctantly – opens the boring brand guidelines once more and produces a clone of all other social media visuals. So much so that all the brand’s social media posts and ads look the same.

Marketers are too self-obsessed and they value their brand guidelines too much. Whereas brand guidelines are, in general, a good thing, they also tend to make all your content uniform and bland.

Try and work with third-party content creators and external media partners to generate more diverse and more social media-friendly visuals that appeal to your audiences. This is a trick we have often implemented while working as a social media director as well as with our customers.

About the authors of the report

The authors of the social media visuals study report

Important notice: our most observant readers will have noticed that we like to produce our own creative visuals without testing them. This is because we have been trendsetters for nearly thirty years 😉

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Isn’t the notion of “disruption “, aka disruptive innovation, used and abused by analysts and technology experts? And by dint of abuse, aren’t we in the process of deluding ourselves? At a time when some are fretting about the volatility of the business generated by ‘unicorns’ or even centaurs, it is perhaps worth asking whether we have not entered an innovation bubble, yet accentuated by that of generative AI, marked by the correction of technology values and a return to more traditional values. Yet it may be too early to find out about the reality of such disruptive innovations. Here are my thoughts about the subject with a few references to sources and books I found interesting.

Disruption: Is Disruptive Innovation Overhyped?

I find reviews of supposed disruptive innovations in the media, and especially social media, somewhat lacking consistency. One minute everyone is vowing that a revolution has happened. The next that a bubble is about to burst, yet no one is able to predict the future properly. Thus, is disruptive innovation real or a pie in the sky, or does it emerge over time? Is, by and large, IT causing disruption in our lives, or are there more important thing on earth? In short, how can we ensure that our vision for innovation is accurate? – image produced with Midjourney

The so-called GenAI revolution

While some have been claiming that we are living in a bubble of innovation (here, here and here for instance and here and here with AI), it has to be said that not everyone always agrees. Especially with the advent of the so-called GenAI revolution.

I’ve been asked whether electric cars were a disruptive innovation. For those of you who don’t know the history of innovation, let me introduce you to the “Jamais Contente (“Forever unsatisfied” literally), which broke the 100kph speed record near the Fulmen factories in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France in … 1899 [photo in public domain]As I felt like tackling the topic of disruptive innovation, I thought it would be interesting to revisit an article by Joanne Jacobs from a few years ago about this subject: ‘Are we in a disruptive bubble?‘.

In this piece, she explains what role disruptive innovation is playing in contemporary markets. She argues that disruption is not just a fad, but something more profound.

Forget all about unicorns, here come the centaurs! Bessemer Venture Partners – State of the Cloud 2022The hype surrounding disruptive innovation is overwhelming. Here is what I found here and there:

• Disruptive innovation is deemed to impact businesses and employment . with all-out automation a major source of job destruction;
• Integration of productive innovation is supposed to have enabled some companies to reinvent themselves ;
• Organisations are said to be reshaped through the introduction of collaborative networked business approaches ;
• Profound changes in traditional markets (as for banks for example).

A spanner in the works

Despite this, and the spectacular performance of some companies that have established themselves in just a few years to the point of throwing a spanner in the works of well established markets and provoking defensive reactions, some observers maintain that we are facing an innovation bubble.

Disruption: bubble or not bubble? – image Midjourney

And these same observers point out that the expectations they have of these disruptive innovations are not in proportion to what they could deliver.

And when expectations exceed what innovation can deliver, disappointment occurs. As described by Gartner in its “Hype Cycle” with what the US analyst group calls “The trough of disillusionment“.

Here the Gartner Hype Cycle of 2008 technologies

And the 2021 update. In the meantime many of the key groundbreaking technological innovations of the 2000s have fallen by the wayside, to be replaced by other, more trendy ones. With AI at the height of the current craze and without Web 3 (even Gartner have given up on it even though they wrote a favourable report on it).

Disruption strategy: not just a buzzword

“The reality is that business disruption is not a fad. It is not a set of buzzwords you need to use in planning meetings, and it is not a way of positioning a brand in the marketplace. ,” explains Joanne Jacobs.

In her view, the only real break is the one that results from the convergence of three elements:

1. Emerging technologies;
2. Changing customer needs;
3. The availability of resources.

It is the combination of these three ingredients that she believes makes disruption a reality or a fiction.

Disruption is the result of risk-taking. Often, it means that you should be making the most of a legal loophole.

We could, however, add a few important ingredients to this recipe:

• Significant market share to the point where it weighs on the incumbent players (in mass market, for a market share to be stable, the bar is set at 20%, with dominant products often achieving 70 or 80% in mature markets);
• A valuation that is not based solely on market cap (by its very nature volatile and speculative, with recent unicorns being punished for being valued at up to 50 times their sales, which is unreasonable);
• The ability to make a lasting mark on a market by changing practices, evolving buying patterns – even society and lifestyles.

• And lastly, the ability to survive market re-regulation, as was the case for ecommerce with Amazon. The Seattle firm, for example, sold VAT-free until 1996 in the UK (a little later in Europe). Re-regulation did not kill Amazon, it continued to thrive for many years. A second tier re-regulation is happening now with the implementation of VAT for all vendors on marketplaces.

Let’s challenge the challenge 

In recent years, we have seen the emergence of new entrants in markets that were thought to be stable and saturated:

“AirBnB entered the top ranks in terms of hotel market capitalisation and Uber represented the world’s fastest-growing car rental with driver service,” Joanne wrote in 2015. These businesses were seen as a real challenge to such established markets. 

But what is the situation today? There was a clear wake up call in the high-tech industry. No more valuations without sound business results underpinning. Well, maybe.

Here’s to disruption – the 1880s according to Vaclav Smil – Numbers don’t lie – p 98.

So the question arises, is disruptive innovation overhyped? Vaclav Smil, the famous author of “Numbers Don’t Lie” answers bluntly that we are mistaken. According to him, the most innovative period in human history was the… 1880s ![/caption]

According to the worshippers of the e-world, the late 20th century and the two opening decades of the 21st century brought us an unprecedented number of profound inventions. But that is a categorical misunderstanding, as most recent advances have been variations on two older fundamental discoveries: microprocessors […] and exploiting radio waves, part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Smil, Vaclav. Numbers Don’t Lie (p. 97)

A growing bubble of innovation?

According to Smil, and others, we may be living in a context that reflects a flowering of innovations, an accumulation of gadgets that are more or less important or distracting, but in which we are unaware of the importance of the underlying innovations.

The mobile: cause for wonder or plain incremental innovation?

To mimic smil’s deliberately cursory demonstration, we marvel at our little computer phones, but fail to take into account the importance of the work of Nikola Tesla to whom we owe the industrialisation of alternating current. Tesla died in debt and lonely, but without him, none of these gadgets would exist!

Amazing innovations, real breakthroughs?

Many of the innovations we use are undoubtedly incredible – and I never cease to marvel at those communication tools we wield. Yet, does that mean that all these contraptions are truly disruptive?

Reading this article from 2015 today as the clouds gather over tech stocks and others are towering up is interesting. Where do we stand on “disruption” at a time when, as Smil has it, there are many more important things than that in the economy.

A disruption bubble or a hyperbole of disruptive innovation?

In 2015, “[…]A whole range of disruptor companies from DropBox and SurveyMonkey, to the secretive Palantir Technologies and audacious SpaceX”, were redefining the way organisations were communicating, researching and developing products, Joanne explained.

Even then (2015 seems a long time ago) she was rejecting the idea that we were living in an “innovation bubble”. At the very least, she recognised “a bubble of disruption hyperbole”.

30 years after the development of the commercial Web, we have the necessary hindsight to see what has really changed under the impetus of these ‘disruptive’ companies.

And I have miwed feeling about the result. Both naysayers and proponents of disruptive innovation mays disagree with me, though. Regardless, I have looked at both sides of the equation, and the pros and cons of that so-called disruption.

Signs of evidence of disruption

According to Eric Van Susteren (Momentive’s head of Brand Content strategy), there are 5 pieces of evidence that this disruption exists:

1. 1. The Great Resignation could be the proof of a real and profound change, even if it is not solely driven by technology;
   2. This very big resignation have brought to the forefront employees’ expectations in the areas of diversity, equal opportunities and inclusion;
   3. A majority of new IT purchases were sourced from new suppliers;
   4. Nearly half, of (US) consumers say they are buying more online today, even though the ecommerce boom appears to be over including payment innovations that have fizzled out;
   5. The boom in the use of digital continues unabated with consumers ever more inclined to use online services.

Better still, McKinsey proved to us back in 2019 that the pace of disruption was accelerating in its report “navigating in a world of disruption“:

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/screenshot-2022-05-29-at-215900.jpgDisruption is accelerating according to McKinsey – Navigating a world of disruption – a 2019 report

But what will be left of all this in a few years’ time? Now that Covid has been forgotten, what has become of the ‘great resignation’? Will the wave of wealthy urbanites fleeing to the country last? We saw flock to the Pyrenees a few years ago and now they are all returning home to make a living. Nonetheless, only time will tell.

WFH policies

And how will the exiles in the far-flung suburbs survive such long commutes? Already, businesses are massively scaling down WFH policies. I’ve be a fan of remote working for 35 years, but I’m not sure it is made for everyone in the same way.

And what about the AI boom, noted by McKinsey in its report. In short, how can we tell the difference between disruption and non-disruption? How can we avoid, to use Joanne’s expression, this “hyperbole of disruption”?

NFT, Web3 and other pipe dreams

Some readers may think that “all this doesn’t matter, it’s all theory, what matters is what happens in the field”. There is truth in that. It doesn’t matter that disruptive innovation is all the rage, the proof will be in the bacon and even in eating the bacon.

Let’s mention Web 3, for instance. Pundits are telling us that the blockchain is nothing but a lie and, ultimately, nothing more than a glorified spreadsheet.

It’s […] not surprising that whenever “blockchain” has been experimented with in a traditional setting, it has either been thrown in the bin or turned into a private permissioned database that is nothing more than an Excel spreadsheet or a misleadingly named database
Nouriel Roubini, the big lie of blockchain – 2018

Others, no less knowledgeable, tell us that this is a major change and a fundamental breakthrough.

Web2 vs Web3 Thealien.design tutorial

Web3 is not vapourware, it’s a vision that encompasses different principles based on practices and technologies that enable new applications.
Frédéric Cavazza – Sysk – 2022 – white paper

Gartner, as far as they are concerned, issued a midlle-of-the-road statement about Web3.

Admittedly, blockchain is only one of the components of Web3, but not the least. So who should we believe? How can a layman navigate this world of “disruption”, to paraphrase MacKinsey?

What if we were living in a workd which has become too complicated for us to understand?

Even experts are losing touch

I’ve wondered a few times lately whether the world has really become complicated or whether it’s engineers and marketers that are messing things about so much that noone can understand anything anymore? Unless it’s Google — and AI soon — which made us stupid?

It reminded me of a lecture by the late Bernard Stiegler, who sadly passed away in 2020. His in-depth thoughts on the proletarianisation of our hyper connected society [see his presentation in French] hit the nail on the head (his diagnosis was more impressive than the solution he suggested).

The proletarisation of the world according to Bernard Stiegler (visual taken from one of his presentations)

We have lost the ability to understand the world around us

And once again, it’s Vaclav Smil who sets the record straight. The Manitoba hermit joins the French philosopher in a slightly different way.

Experts and facemasks

He begins by pointing out the extent to which ‘experts’, during the outbreak of Covid, by dint of hyperspecialisation, had been unable to help us deal with the pandemic. According to the Canadian thinker, there is an underlying explanation for the fact that it has taken so long for so clever experts to agree on something as simple as wearing a facemask.

[…] explanations of this comprehension deficit go beyond the fact that the sweep of our knowledge encourages specialization, whose obverse is an increasingly shallow understanding—even ignorance—of the basics.
[…]
and unlike in the industrializing cities of the 19th and early 20th centuries, jobs in modern urban areas are largely in services. Most modern urbanites are thus disconnected not only from the ways we produce our food but also from the ways we build our machines and devices.
Smil, Vaclav. How the World Really Works (p. 3). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition

Smil’s sentence rings true, but not only to describe our ignorance of the world in its main components. Proletarianisation also strikes experts in innovation, the Web, digital and the economy, and in the analysis of so-called ‘disruptive’ technologies.

I don’t know whether Roubini is right or whether, on the contrary, the aficionados of Web3 or AI (or of the next high-tech fad) will win the battle. They probably don’t even have a clue themselves. And innovation takes such a long time that it’s possible that we’ll have to wait a decade or two before we know the whole story.

Internet-banking.com, 30 years on

And so it is with ‘disruptive innovation’, and I used inverted commas quite intentionally. If someone had asked me – back when I created internet-banking.com – whether the Internet would ‘disrupt’ the banking sector, I would probably have said yes. And there’s a good reason for this: this selfulfilling prophecy was giving me job. Truth be told, I sincerely thought so.

Nearly 30 years on, my feelings are rather mixed. Almost all the neo-banks have been taken over by big financial institutions, and even if new ones have been created, we’re all keeping our fingers crossed for feare they crash before we’ve had time to withdraw our money (it’s already happend twice with me, once with ING and once with banque directe. Now my business is with Shine but after a year, Socgen got rid of them and this is a bad omen) .

Disruption or continuous improvement? Not so easy

Despite the above, Chris Skinner was predicting bank closures in droves nearly 10 years ago. And reality has finally caught up with many of today’s banking institutions, even in more traditional and stable markets like France.

‘Disruption’ did happen, but not in the way we expected originally.

If there has been disruption in the banking sector, and this is only the beginning, it is because of the impact of automation, a universal movement that affects all professions and that is linked to a natural trend in our societies since the miraculous 1880s, to put it in Smil’s words. Wherever a machine can do the job, it will. After all, human beings cost money, and they always complain that working is hard.

The answer to the question – is this technology disruptive or not – is not trivial, and is above all a matter of judgement and time.

The only thing that is certain is that the proletarianisation (in the meaning that we are losing the ability to understand how things work) that we are experiencing is not going to help us decode the technological innovations of the years to come. And that includes Generative AI in the first place.

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How do consumers form their perceived value of a product or service? This is the question that Bain & Company has attempted to answer in a very noteworthy brief published by Harvard Business Review. It opens up a new perspective on perceived customer value, beyond the hackneyed Maslow pyramid. This is the subject of today’s news flash.

Perceived Value: How Customers Rate a Product or Service

What makes customer value? Bain offers a dossier on this subject – image made with Midjourney.

Going beyond Maslow’s pyramid

According to the Harvard Business Review in which this unique article was published:

“Three decades of experience doing consumer research and observation for corporate clients led the authors—all with Bain & Company—to identify 30, ‘elements of value’.”

Maslow’s pyramid reviewed

“Their model traces its conceptual roots to Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” and extends his insights by focusing on people as consumers: describing their behaviour around products and services.”

Too much is made of the idea that a consumer’s relationship with his or her product is limited to the price. It is true that it depends on the product – image made with Midjourney.

The beginning of the article points out that companies often focus on price, omitting other factors. This seems like an easy way out, as “raising prices directly increases profits”. That being said, price management involves many different tactics, as the authors emphasise.

Price is not the only element of customer value

A few years ago, Byron Sharp pointed out the propensity of brands to focus on lowering prices through a never-ending chain of promotions, a harmful strategy in his view, as it leads to margin loss.

However, there are many more things on Heaven and Earth than price, to be accounted for behind this notion of product or service value.

What consumers truly value, however, can be difficult to pin down and psychologically complicated. How can leadership teams actively manage value or devise ways to deliver more of it, whether functional (saving time, reducing cost) or emotional (reducing anxiety, providing entertainment)?

To that end, Bains’s consultants and authors propose a useful infographic. A clearer, dynamic version can be found on their own website.

Bain & Company’s Elements of Perceived Value Pyramid

Perceived customer value is not just about price, the authors argue. Their proposed elements of value hierarchy from 2015 and 2016 were published in HBR in the same period. A more elaborate interactive version of this pyramid is available on the Bain website

The interactive version of the perceived customer value pyramid

https://www.bain.com/insights/elements-of-value-interactive/Click on the thumbnail to see the interactive version of this customer value pyramid

We can summarise the different components of value as follows:

1. The elements of perceived customer value that are related to the product’s features. These are the most obvious benefits (a product, a washing machine for instance, relieves you from a chore or another allows you to earn money…). Let’s take the purchase of a folding bike as an example. It has an obvious functional value. In the city, it is the fastest way to get around. Count approximately 12 mph on average for a bike, and 7 mph for a motor car.
2. The emotional part of perceived customer value. A product will remind you of your childhood or reduce your stress. Or make you feel better or healthier. Buying a bike to stretch the old legs after work will make you feel great and eliminate unnecessary fat;
   Changing Your Life
3. Yet, your bike purchase could also be a life-changing experience. As it did for me. I ride 3,200 miles per annum and this bike positively changed the way I experience the city. I no longer hesitate to ride across the whole of Paris to go on an errand, if only for the pleasure of getting a bit of exercise. I no longer forbid myself a long detour to go to my favourite shops. Many subcategories exist within this category.
4. Finally, a pinch of social impact on perceived customer value. While I’m pedalling away on my Brommie, I also feel that I’m working for future generations and helping to provide them with a more pleasant, less noisy and above all less polluted environment. Well, there’s still work to be done in that department! With my folding bike, I can also travel anywhere in the region and even further afield by putting my bike on the train.

The Influence of Context and Industries

Through this wee example, we better understand what the perceived value of a product or service is. We can also relate it to the transformative value described by Joe Pine, he who coined the phrase ‘customer experience’, in our video interview.

And Now, the Ball’s in Your Court

Elements of perceived customer value vary according to the product or service or the industry concerned. Buying a financial product has an impact not just on you but on your whole family. When you pass over, someone will inherit your savings, hopefully.

This impact is far greater than that of buying a folding bike. Even though I’m sure your faithful Brompton will be handed to someone else in the family, eventually.

And now, the ball’s in your court. All that’s left to do is to use this canvas to build a proper strategy for your products and services. One that is based on perceived customer value rather than sand.

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This morning’s newsflash was inspired by a tweet and refers to the recent Tech layoffs in Silicon Valley, no longer deemed the greatest place to work in Tech. Other posts tell stories of employees disappointed that they can no longer indulge in free pizza in the cafeteria before going to meetings in the “confetti room”. In short, it all sounds like a love story gone wrong. The main question emphasised by one of the sources I read this morning: is coddling your employees a good idea?

Tech layoffs and disillusionment in Silicon Valley

Here’s how Midjourney, as always very”creative”, sees Tech layoffs in Silicon Valley

Tech layoffs in Silicon Valley: deja vu

First in the 1990s (the great IT crisis), then in the 2000s (the Internet bubble).

These periods are engraved in my memory. No doubt the big IT company I worked for in the 90s was not as “cool” as Meta or Google, but we were fond of it and rightly so.

We learned a lot over there, roamed the world and the work was creative and exciting. A whole new era of work was then invented. Certainly much more creative than selling CPCs for a search engine.

Tech layoffs: absolutely hilarious, here’s how Midjourney interprets “fired”

A sector of the future

I was caught off guard in those years and for good reason. As a newcomer to the world of IT, coming from the ill-fated household appliance industry, the future was bright. “This is the industry of the future,” I was told.

And it was true, real-time computing changed the lives of all employees worldwide, not just a few. The same is probably true of the technologies developed in Silicon Valley.

Nonetheless, I have seen all the big tech companies disappear: DEC, Control Data, Data General, ICL, Compaq and so on.

Anticipation of the 2002 purge

In 2001-2 a new purge was on its way, but this time I wasn’t taken unawares. In a few months, the work of 4 years was kicked to the curb. A colleague came with a van to put the servers in the boot. A nuclear IT winter began.

A brief search for Silicon Valley layoffs in the Wall Street Journal

There is no doubt that the approach to work in these modern tech companies and what we knew in the prehistoric times of the beginning of real-time computing have nothing in common.

No entertainment nor treats

In those days, there was no entertainment, no candy, no confetti room, and even less TikTok to post videos of your workplace.

 

UPDATE SHE JUST GOT FIRED $GOOGL $GOOG pic.twitter.com/xms1PSaRxe

— GURGAVIN (@gurgavin) January 23, 2023

It’s true that I don’t eat sweets, I watch my weight and I haven’t played table football since I left school.

Overly “coddled” employees

I recommend Marketplace‘s post on the subject which made me think about this situation. Certainly, there is a situation that seems unfair and even incomprehensible. The current period has nothing to do with the great Internet crisis of the 2000s.

There is no collapse, no reversal of fortunes and even some of the companies that are being thrashed on the stock market are growing by… 12% (unbelievable but true).

So, there is something seemingly irrational about this (here’s the explanation).

But beyond these sad facts, the questions posed by the Marketplace article are worthy of note.

• First there is a generation of employees who have been “coddled” and are coming to terms with the harsh reality of a ruthless working world
• Then there are employees who live and breathe their work, a phenomenon that is particularly acute in the US.

Excerpt and food for thought

“I’m not rooting for anyone to lose their jobs. But I think there’s a big reckoning happening right now with employee expectations,” said Nolan Church, who is now a tech recruiting consultant and previously worked with DoorDash and Google.

Over the last decade, he said, there was a combination of easy money and hard-to-find talent in tech. That spurred a kind of arms race to be known as the best place to work. “But in hindsight, this created a generation of employees who expect to be coddled,” he added. “Now, employees are candidly shocked that their jobs are no longer safe, that the perks and amenities that they once had are evaporating quite fast.” [Source]

I always wondered about these “great places to work”, because every time I saw the label awarded I wondered what was behind it.

Since I have been self-employed, I no longer wonder whether my job will be cut. Strangely enough, I have zero job security and I’ve never felt more secure.

Maybe because I can only count on myself to get out of difficult situations when there are any.

Being “coddled” may not protect, it may even make you more vulnerable.

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Digital marketing is going through a shift, and it’s app-driven product-led marketing more than digital advertising and sales as a 2022 Amplitude report shows. In our interview with Adam Greco, who a product evangelist at Amplitude, we discussed this new groundbreaking trend and the reallocation of marketing dollars towards apps to generate more growth.

App-driven product-led marketing is the new cool

Product-led marketing is the new cool, Amplitude report states — image generated with Midjourney.

The Amplitude report of August 2022

During the COVID pandemic, there was tremendous growth in the usage of apps. Amplitude published its first report right after that. The August 2022 report is their second one.

 

“We were curious to see what the growth pattern would look like as the pandemic tapered down. We analysed industry trends across our 2000 customers,” Adam Greco said.

In the past, SaaS businesses invested a lot in sales and marketing. Nowadays, instead of hiring hundreds of salespeople, they favour product-led marketing growth

“The methodology of our study entailed looking at a bunch of industries over a year. The apps that we studied had to have at least 10,000 monthly active users in order to get rid of the outliers. We also interviewed over 200 business leaders from marketing and product to get their insights of what’s happening.” For the different industries, we analysed key countries across APAC, North America and Europe.

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/screenshot-2023-02-08-at-065000.jpgProduct-led growth with apps is for all countries, not just the US — click picture to enlarge.

The study covered different kinds of web applications, both social and transactional, with a focus on B2B, eCommerce, consumer tech, FinTech, wellness, etc. We saw a lot of situations where new, small businesses are getting started because of the fears of a recession or some of the impacts of a potential recession. So, a lot of things we are curious about is how does the potential economic downturn or coming out of the pandemic impact app usage.

Global product usage grew by a massive 16% year-over-year

Our previous report showed an amazing amount of growth in hundreds of percent. We went into this one expecting that there would be almost like negative product growth, but we were surprised that product growth increased year-over-year, with some ups and downs, from August 21 to August 22.

There was 16% growth showing that even during tumultuous economic times, there’s still massive investment in product-led marketing and apps as its key driver

Growth across different countries and geographies

Singapore witnessed the highest growth out of all, 43%, and their economy seems to be doing really well. Germany was at 38%, and then France at 32% growth.

These are significantly high numbers. I just spent a month in Europe, and it’s interesting to witness that it has started to become a powerhouse of start-ups.

A lot of these start-ups are using some kind of product teams and product methodology to differentiate themselves in the market. It is said that whenever you have potential economic downturns, it’s actually the best time to start new companies. We’re definitely seeing that.

What’s interesting is the largest product-led marketing growth that we saw was a social media app called BeReal. Their numbers were just through the roof. Interestingly, the CEO told us they use Amplitude to track growth.

He mentioned when he meets his investors, instead of showing them a pitch deck, he’s just showing them the growth data in Amplitude because it’s more impactful and it lets them see what’s happening.

French app Bereal was created by Alexis Barreyat and Kevin Perreau and it’s one of the best examples of product-led marketing Greco explains

We saw some massive growth in the travel sector in Europe since the restrictions have been lifted. One company based in the Netherlands was up 324%, another in Spain was up by 253%, and a UK-based firm scaled by 164%. It’s great to see how much the travel sector has kicked back after the pandemic.

Different Geographies Showed Growth in Different Industries

Adam Greco talked to us about product led marketing

In Europe, we saw maximum growth in the travel sector, while in North America a large growth could be observed in SaaS, and health and wellness apps. I think a lot of people want to get back in shape after sitting around for a couple of years in the pandemic. FinTech has been huge as well.

In France, two companies stood out. One is Qonto, a Paris-based financial company that helps with payments, expense management, and accounting solutions. They registered 75% year-over-year growth.

Then there is Luko, which is an insurance tech company focusing on transparency and an open model to let its users understand where their money is going. They had 119% growth. So, it’s all over the board, different companies in different regions with a lot of them being pandemic upstarts.

Growth Across Staffing & Job Search and FinTech Industries

This one was really fascinating because everyone had talked about the great resignation. People worried about losing their jobs because of recession. But during the pandemic, people felt empowered as they could find another job any time they want.

Overall, we saw that this industry had 118% year-over-year growth. What we’re seeing is people flocking to job-related apps and products and trying to use them to figure out multiple job options that exist out there. Also, a lot of that has to do with networking with peers about finding jobs.

When it comes to staffing, especially as you’re thinking about a downturn and recession, you thought maybe that would be an area that would go down, but it actually increased pretty significantly.

Crypto has been in the news lately and the whole crypto market has definitely lost a lot of steam. What’s interesting, though, and this may just be timing of when our product report ended in August, we saw about a 26% year-over-year growth in crypto apps.

So I think there may be a little bit of a news story hype that makes it seem like crypto is going down a lot more than it actually is. We definitely see it in the news and the whole debacle, but we’re seeing still a lot of usage in crypto apps and it’ll be interesting to see in our next year’s report if all the news actually does have an impact on app usage.

SaaS market: valuations versus product usage

Our stats showed that growth in SaaS was up on average about 25%. It seems like nowadays many B2B apps are SaaS apps. Talking about the valuation of SaaS companies, definitely, the stock prices have gone down, but it has not impacted product usage.

So we look at product usage as a fascinating indicator. It may be that the market valuation of companies versus the actual usage of these products is kind of misaligned.

Our assumption is that if SaaS app usage continues to stay strong, once the economy turns around, the valuations will probably go back up. You’d think that if the stock prices were down, the usage of these apps would be way down. But that hasn’t been the case as per our data.

Product-Led Marketing Is the New Cool

I believe firmly in product-led marketing growth. For those who aren’t familiar with product-led growth, the idea is that companies have to decide where they want to spend their money. In the past, a lot of money was spent in sales and marketing. If you’re a SaaS company, you might hire hundreds of salespeople. At the moment, product-led growth has really taken off owing to a couple of reasons.

Companies are deciding to spend more money on their digital products instead of buying advertisements or hiring salespeople. It’s backed by the fact that if you have a really good digital app, the word will spread and people will tell their friends, family, and more people will come onboard.

Hence, the way you could best differentiate yourself in the market is to have the best product and invest in it.

In a lot of companies like ours, we have an offering where people can try the product for free. Once they like it, it becomes a habit for them. Then they hit certain limits and have to pay. You’ll see that across the board. Products like calendar, where people use it to schedule meetings and then later they have to pay for it. This whole concept of product-led growth has really gained steam because in marketing it’s becoming increasingly difficult to show your return on investment these days as privacy policies are becoming strict and cookies are starting to be deleted.

Thus, a lot of the ways in which people would show their ROI or return on ad spend are becoming more difficult. Companies are realising that one of the best ways they could spend their money is to invest in the product where they can make sure that people are having really good product experiences.

Marketing Based on Product, Recommendations and Word of Mouth

There is a shift to a different type of marketing. It could be that ten years from now, people decide to move the other way and do a lot more of advertising. But right now, we just happen to see a massive change of where the dollars are going.

Suddenly, we’re also witnessing that the CTO, which is the chief product officer at many organisations and a role that didn’t even exist many years ago, is starting to become very prevalent. On the other hand, the Chief Marketing Officer role is somewhat ceding a little bit of budget and power over to the Chief Product Officer.

But it doesn’t have to be confrontational. Some of the leading companies are starting to realise that marketing and product should start to work together and almost join forces because the customer doesn’t care whether they’re interacting with the marketing or the product department. They just want to come to a website or an app and have a good experience. They want to have a good product that they can use and get value from.

How they get to the product isn’t as critical as they continue to use it week over week, month over month. The smartest companies are getting the marketing and product departments to acknowledge the need to work together because it’s the customer who is important, not their internal departmental hierarchy.

The Future May Come With Reduced Digital Advertising Spends

That’s what we believe and are starting to see. A lot of organisations are questioning the value they’re getting out of spending in digital advertising. If you spend €50,000 a month on digital advertising, you’re definitely going to get some impact. But you’re going to have to keep spending €50,000 every month to realise similar results. It doesn’t really have a compounding effect.

Companies are telling us that the investments they’re making in the product is actually having a multiplier effect because it does get more people to join, to use the product and become loyal customers.

They feel like they almost get two, three or €4 per euro spent when they invest in the product, but it’s a 1 to 1 when they spend it in marketing.

It is certainly going to be interesting to discover how focusing more on product instead of advertisements will unlock value for B2B marketers. 

https://amplitude.com/product-report-2022Click to download the report

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Customer communities aren’t for every brand. Yet, facilitating communities with your customers could supercharge your marketing. This is, in essence, what Sanjay d’Humières explained to us in this interview. Sanjay is the founder of RTCX (Real-Time Community Experience), a consultancy supporting businesses with their community marketing. He reminded us, lest we forget, we should always work with our customers to drive a successful marketing strategy. In doing so, Sanjay rightly reminds us, like Jonah Berger (Contagious), that social media makes up only a small portion of word of mouth.

Supercharge Your Marketing With Customer Communities

“Brands fear unhappy customers,” Sanjay d’Humières tells us, and they are wrong. I asked Midjourney to show me a crowd of smiling customers raising their hands, but it seems that for AI, customers are necessarily grumpy. Yet it is possible to bring a community of customers together and turn it into something positive.

Brands Must Focus Their Attention on Their Loyal Consumers

Like it or not, the process of creating a new marketing strategy necessarily involves customers, Sanjay reminds us. Often, we interview them, which is a very important part of the process of creating new offers and new services.

Marketing to customer communities means bringing together engaged consumers around a brand or product, Sanjay d’Humières explains. Sanjay is the founder of RTCX, a “startup specialising in stakeholder listening dedicated to companies and communities”.

“Brands shouldn’t make assumptions on behalf of their customers, they should value their opinion, then make strategic decisions based on hard facts. That’s how a significant ROI for the brand is obtained,” explains Sanjay d’Humières.

Involving consumers in the marketing process

“Consumers must be involved in the whole marketing process,” says Sanjay.

Seeking your customers’ opinions allows them to take ownership of the brand

It is crucial to establish contact between customers and the human beings behind the logos. This is how customers take ownership of the discussion. Often, they do express pride in having contributed to the creation of a product or service.

With a little time and effort – as we spent with Midjourney – you’ll manage to make your customers smile too. So work with your customer communities and thank them for their commitment to your brand!

“Involving customers in our marketing approach is the basis of our discipline, but a lot of brands are afraid of hearing what they have to say,” Sanjay points out.

However, unhappy customers also have important opinions that must be taken into account.

Customer feedback is often focusing on heated discussions on social networks. They only represent 20% of the iceberg, though.

Eighty per cent of customer reviews remain hidden. These people would like to give their opinion but do not know how to do it.

Social media does not represent the entirety of word of mouth

“Many companies rely solely on semantic analysis of social interactions and forget that there are many people who don’t know how to use social networks,” Sanjay points out.

Marketers thus form an idea from what a minority of customers have written or said. It is crucial marketers did away with this approach.

If you don’t communicate properly with your customers, they then vent their anger on social networks, sometimes for no valid reason.

[Jonah Berger, like Sanjay, is convinced that word of mouth doesn’t stop with social media and he gives evidence of that in his book].

How to build Customer communities

“Step one is to define what you want to do with this community,” says Sanjay.

The methodology for creating an online community is to recruit people through social networks, using specific keywords related to your brand and service.

Then, the facilitation of this community can be performed in Facebook groups, closed or open depending on the needs. This makes it possible to collect and analyse comments and quotes.

For face-to-face communities and clubs, recruitment is also carried out on social networks, and then brands can gather the participants and explain what they are trying to achieve.

Subsequently, participants make observations, negative, positive or neutral. Proposals are built. Lastly, the brand will decide whether to implement the suggestions from its customers.

If a brand does not implement suggestions from its customers, it should explain why

If it does implement a customer’s suggestion, it must give a deadline and communicate with the participants afterwards. This is how a brand can create a bond with its customers.

Is working with customer communities risky?

“Companies that do without these communities will miss out on vibrant and valuable consumer insights,” insists Sanjay.

Consumers are becoming increasingly demanding of the brands they trust.

Disregarding customer communities is a strategic pitfall

There is more and more talk about purpose and sustainability. Consumers are aware of this and all stakeholders need to be involved in the brand’s marketing process.

Does community marketing pay off?

Developing brand awareness and images can be very expensive and time-consuming. Communities allow you to develop your reputation at a lower cost.

A pool of ambassadors will speak positively about your brand without you having to invest huge marketing budgets

Word of mouth is the most effective form of marketing. This also makes it possible to onboard new members.

Committed participants who enjoy coming to co-creation workshops will spread the word to others. This will allow new participants to join in.

Why aren’t more companies developing customer communities?

The main reason is that instant ROI doesn’t exist with word-of-mouth marketing.

What really matters is the quality of exchanges and insights.

Do less, but do better

“Covid has made things happen,” Sanjay says. 2023 has a lot of surprises in store for us with regard to marketing and mass markets.

The energy crisis and inflation will also have an impact on the way consumers buy, and the way they express themselves. We need to capture all this.

Marketers must understand that they need to do perhaps a little less but to do it better.

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What is the current state of Sales Enablement in Europe and especially in the UK? A recent Seismic–LXA survey carried out amongst 1,000 UK, German and French professionals produced some very useful insights regarding the current transformation of the sales process. It shows how sales are becoming increasingly complex and how organisations are adapting to the new situation. Sales Enablement is more than ever at the heart of these changes. Here are my five takeaways from this very noteworthy report. #Disclosure: Visionary Marketing worked with Seismic in 2022.

5 takeaways from the 2023 Seismic-LXA State of Sales Enablement report

The state of Sales Enablement in 2023. S.E. can turn your average salesperson into a superhero, but many businesses have to overcome a few challenges before they get there — image generated with Midjourney.

State of Sales Enablement: A Survey of 1,000 European Professionals

 LXA conducted this survey in Europe and focused mostly on the UK (72% of the 1,000 respondents), with a smaller proportion of answers from France and Germany. It allows some sort of comparison between countries with a little bias on the UK, though. Continental Europe is far less advanced in terms of Sales Enablement adoption, this nuance is somewhat important.

The state of sales enablement report by LXA is adamant: all respondents in the UK have a Sales Enablement Function.

Most respondents are working in sales, with a fair proportion of managers and top managers. This is a fine sample and the insights we can derive from that survey are extremely newsworthy.

LXA evaluates the Sales Enablement market at $508.9 billion in their report. This number encompasses both SalesTech and MarTech. Sales Enablement is indeed a very broad subject, and one must take this into account.

My commentary is summarised in this post. You will find an unabridged version in the enclosed Loom video. Often, we will abbreviate Sales Enablement as S.E., for convenience.

Exec summary of my 5 takeaways from the 2023 Seismic Sales Enablement report

The State of sales enablement report puts numbers on our impressions from the field: Clients are becoming more and more demanding and sales are becoming increasingly complex

My five takeaways from the report are the following.

1. Selling is getting harder. It takes more steps for you to get customers to come to a decision. And it makes sense in that context that Sales Enablement finds its place within organisations. That said, we still found 32% who are not entirely convinced that Sales Enablement means better performance. And I found this rather baffling.
2. All respondents believe that S.E. is effective, but there is room for maturity improvement. Let us stress again that the survey is mostly focused on the UK. Sales Enablement is not as developed on the continent and especially in France. Over there it only came to the agenda — if one excludes international businesses — a year ago or so. It may have preexisted but neither with this name nor with a proper S.E. philosophy. Often, there is no such thing as a Sales Enablement Function to start with. A recent interview we carried out on behalf of Sparklane with S.E. professionals in French (including a Seismic representative) confirmed this.
3. Respondents declare that sales and marketing alignment is a reality. But they keep contradicting themselves. Sales and marketing are increasingly aligned, that’s the good news. When I looked into the details, in the light of other surveys that we have analysed, I had my doubts and questions.
4. S.E. deployment is suffering from a lack of “sales professionals and necessary data skills, content sales, operation skills and knowledge…”. I wondered whether such people exist or whether the crux of the problem isn’t the collaboration between teams. As well as the way one has designed and implemented sales organisations.
5. Lastly, most respondents concur that processes and tools to drive their content strategy effectively are in place (but are content strategies implemented effectively?)

Clients are becoming increasingly demanding, and the sales process has changed and become more complex

Sixty-eight per cent of respondents agree that Sales Enablement is “key to driving business performance”’. But at the same time, one still finds 16% who strongly disagree and another 16% who feel “neutral” regarding that statement. And 32% still makes up one third of the total population.

Does this opinion relate to the tool itself or to how it was implemented? We witnessed similar reactions with CRM implementations, some 30 years ago.

Worthy of note is the fact that clients are becoming increasingly demanding as 47% think that it takes 10+ interactions with the average customer before they land a deal. It is an undeniable sign that sales are becoming increasingly complex and that complex selling is becoming the norm.

This is very consistent with what we see happening in the field.

Changing the way one engages with customers

The way you engage with customers has changed. Customers want to be challenged, and they’re also keen to learn from you as a supplier. You need to be seen as an expert – they want facts and credibility and expect you to know about them before you even pick up the phone. The planning, investigation and discovery that you do as a seller is probably one of the most important aspects of any customer engagement

Liz Waugh, Global Director of Sales Enablement, Crayon

The change in buyer behaviour has an undeniable impact on the discovery phase. This is probably where modern-day salespeople have the greatest shortcomings. We see a lot of sales reps who are feeling incredibly helpless regarding this changing sales process.

They know that they have to work differently and stop pushing their products and understand the customers better before they try to sell and close. They understand all the words but it’s very hard for them to put this new vision into practice.

A matter of education

Sales Enablement can help but it’s mostly an educational issue with the overall approach of sales. One needs to change the way one does sales and turn the process on its head.

The Sales Enablement landscape is more mature in the UK than on the continent. Still, none of LXA’s 5 Ps gets a 5/5 mark. S.E. contributes to all the stages of the sales process and nearly 30% of respondents stress a split of responsibility between sales and marketing. This still leaves 70% of respondents where it’s not the case.

Sales and Marketing alignment: the good and the bad

Sales and marketing alignment has been on the agenda for so long that the fact it is still on the agenda shows clearly that there is still a problem.

Where does alignment fit in a Sales Enablement deployment strategy? Well, that item is very confusing.

About sales and marketing alignment

80% of respondents declare that sales and marketing alignment is a reality. When we look at the ownership of the S.E. function, though, this is a very different kettle of fish.

Most of that ownership seems to be in the hands of the sales function and marketing is only marginally in charge. Marketing, therefore, is kept on the side even though 30% of them are sharing the “responsibility for managing sales enablement” with sales.

I would like to see marketing a lot more involved in such projects and even possibly the merger of the two functions.

Beyond this, Liz Waugh has another good point.

Sales enablement doesn’t just land within sales. It should thoroughly involve the whole business. Everyone should be able to have a high-level discussion on what sales enablement does and the impact it makes. If you’ve made sure that there is consistency between sales and marketing, then everybody can land the right message

Liz Waugh, Global Director of Sales Enablement, Crayon

It’s not even a matter of sales and marketing alignment. That’s probably where it starts, but it’s a matter of really aligning the entirety of the company and focusing on customers’ needs and satisfaction.

Customer Success

We hear a  lot about this new “customer success” function, yet we still have a long way to go before customer success is sales’ primary aim. As it should be.

Thus, I think it is high time that marketers change the way that they work, and it’s high time that sales started working better with marketing too.

Maybe it would be a good idea to stop calling them marketing and sales, to start with. Should we call them Smarketing from now on?

ABM and Sales Enablement

All of that is the essence of ABM — Account-Based Marketing — an area where marketers and sales are heavily focusing on deals and account planning together, not as separate entities trying to align with each other.

Now, despite all the talking, the way that sales have developed in the past decade has been going backwards in my honest opinion. Inbound and lead gen on one side, inside sales on another, Business development elsewhere, product development working separately, and yet another function, customer success, to patch things up.

Rethinking the way sales and marketing are run

It’s probably time to rethink the way that sales and marketing organisations are run, one cannot split all functions, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, talk about “alignment”. This doesn’t make sense and organisations should be simplified and made leaner for the sake of customers and sales efficiency.

Talent issue?

On another level, 72% of responding organisations strongly agree with the fact that the market is lacking “sales professionals with the necessary SalesTech, data, sales content or sales operations skills and knowledge…”

This is consistent with what Tony Hughes describes in “Tech-Powered Sales”.

My experience in that area is somewhat different, though.

Such full-stack marketers/sellers exist, and I’m probably one of them, but I doubt that this is replicable on a large scale.

Sales and content

Let’s take the example of sales content only. Certainly, far easier than mastering SalesTech and data management and other technical things. Despite my efforts and the fact that I managed to implement large organisation-wide UGC-based content teams in many countries, the only population I’ve never been able to convince was sales.

I think that getting sales to contribute to a blog is understandably more difficult.

For one, it’s harder to ask them to concentrate on chasing new deals and be in the field and ask them to sit at their desk writing content. This is something that we knowledge workers and consultants do all the time. It’s part of our job and taking hindsight and writing is part of our selling process and skills. It’s not naturally so for salespeople.

I know that Tony Hughes disagrees, but I’ve tried too many times to bring salespeople to the water and I couldn’t make them drink.

So, what if one tried, once more, to work as a team rather than ask people to do other people’s jobs?

Upskilling the sales force

Now, when it comes to upskilling the sales force, it seems that respondents primarily focus on personal selling skills like deal closing and negotiation. Obviously, one needs to learn and master selling skills.

Yet, the fact that the respondents place “understanding customers, ICPs and personas” second seems to me to be the crux of the problem.

Indeed, as the sales process is getting increasingly challenging, salespeople have to convince prospective customers differently and stop pushing their products and features.

A new requirement for sales teams

Hence, what used to be a nice-to-have for upper-level KAM in large organisations such as value selling and solution selling is now becoming a must-have in this world where every sale is complex.

It seems to me that this is the area where salespeople must improve the most and where they feel awfully isolated. Therefore, they need a lot of coaching in this domain, and this is particularly where marketing can help.

Sales reps must learn to focus a lot more on their customers and targeted industries’ pain points and how to solve them. They must become trusted advisers, to put it in David Maister’s words. This is no small task.

It seems to me a lot more important than becoming a SalesTech wizard or a content specialist. For these last two items, I think it’s a lot more effective and scalable for businesses to rely on the help of marketers whom they should include in their account-management teams.

The commissioning process

To this end, I also think that beyond the rethink of the sales organisation, one needs to re-engineer the commissioning process to encompass marketing. How can you call for more marketing and sales alignment and not compensate them when they play a major role in identifying new deals and even more, closing sales?

It happened to me a few times in the past when I was playing a major role in an account team in paving the way to success for a large multimillion-dollar deal. At the end of the process, only the salesperson was raking in the money.

I always found this unfair and not conducive to inciting marketers to join the account teams.

Certainly, a lot of people disagree with that and think even that compensation should be taken out purely and simply. And I often hear that you do not need to be compensated to be motivated to sell. But I’m rather sceptical about this and it doesn’t fit with my field experience.

I believe on the contrary that this is a major trigger for motivation in sales and it is a good thing that marketers learn to work in that way as well.

A helpful survey for understanding the state of Sales Enablement

To conclude with this analysis, this survey was incredibly helpful in showing the progress made with Sales Enablement deployment. It also highlighted the areas where there is room for improvement in sales and marketing alignment.

There is undoubtedly a huge gap between the US and the UK, and continental Europe, though.

One would have welcomed a more thorough comparison with other European countries and maybe Seismic will deliver this soon.

State of Sales Enablement report: download the entire pdf presentation

A more in-depth analysis is available in the recording which I have included hereafter.

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Is Twitter still the right platform for advertisers? Twitter has been in the news lately for changes that have happened within the organisation as well as in its user policies. More recently, Musk even decided to ask Twitter users whether he should resign and it seems he didn’t quite like the answer. Journalists reporting on the whims of Mr Elon Musk are having good fun but what should advertisers do? Should they put Twitter on hold? To find out I interviewed Kelsey Chickering, Principal Analyst – CMO Practice at Forrester on how these changes are likely to impact brands and B2B marketers. Kelsey shed some light on where the platform is headed and what marketers should do. And her advice is clear: advertisers should put Twitter on the back-burner, both for ads and word of mouth. Let that sink in! Elon.

Forrester Advises Brands to Put Twitter on the Back-Burner

Is Twitter still the proper platform for advertisers? Forrester’s Chickering’s answer to that question is a resounding no. Let that sink in, Elon!

Twitter for advertisers: should brands pay attention to Twitter’s new boss’s whims?

Kelsey Chickering: From the advertiser’s perspective, you have to pay attention to Elon’s whims, because at this point these are directing the future of Twitter, the way moderation is happening, and the new tools that are popping up.

It’s a sound decision to pause your Twitter dollars for most advertisers as Elon Musks’s whims can change on a dime.

They should keep a pulse check on what Musk is tweeting and indicating about the future of Twitter, while taking a conservative approach to spending on it.

We don’t know the future, so let’s wait and see. I wouldn’t say take Twitter off your list forever. But it’s a sound idea to stop spending on it for the moment given the uncertainty associated with the platform. It’s proven in the last several weeks that it’s not really the safest place for brands to be.

The Future of Twitter for Advertisers

Should advertisers still dish out their advertising dollars for Twitter visibility? Our once favourite blue bird is crying its heart out.

Consumers are worried about the future of Twitter and what it might become. Will it be a place where they want to spend time, or a place that gets overrun by misinformation and disinformation?

However, I think from an advertiser’s perspective, most brands don’t really need Twitter to meet their business goals in terms of advertising.

It’s not as big of a concern since you can put your ad dollars where you can get mid to upper funnel results. Many brands weren’t using Twitter for lower funnel direct response activities. I reckon there’s minimal impact to your bottom line to move your ad spend elsewhere. There are, of course, exceptions to it.

“Advertisers can find new avenues,” Forrester’s analyst warns

Thus, for advertisers, they can find new avenues. For consumers, it’s a little different because Twitter is offering something that no one else is offering them right now.

It is a place where people go to find information, get real-time updates, and see the news as it’s happening. That’s something you can’t necessarily find anywhere else at this point.

https://visionarymarketing.com/en/2021/10/networking-and-building-your-b2b-business-on-linkedin/Kelsey Chickering kindly answered our questions – photo by Valerie Sarron

Twitter for marketers is more of a use case than a must-have. There are certain use cases like customer service where Twitter becomes important and is a channel you manage. It might mean that you have to find new vehicles to handle customer service.

Influencers and Twitter

Twitter has certainly been a platform for the media and news reporting side. It’s a place where you can get seen and heard. All that said, there are new platforms popping up. TikTok, for example, is creator-born and a lot of creators are flocking to it. You might see more people on the news side spend time on it as well.

Alternative Platforms for Twitter Advertisers and Marketers

Two channels I believe are viable places for both creators and friends: TikTok and Reddit. Reddit is similar to Twitter where you can find very niche audiences. There are conversations about different and specific topics, a provision which Twitter had bestowed upon many communities. Major difference though is that Twitter is more real time and events-based.

Then we have Bluesky by Jack Dorsey. It’s quite unclear though what Bluesky actually is, what it will be and whether it would be a replacement for Twitter. I haven’t yet seen anything that indicates if it would be a replacement. However, this landscape is ripe for a new platform that has similar functionality to Twitter with the safety and content moderation it offers.

Verified Status or Paid Status

Welcome or Goodbye to Twitter advertisers? Whoever understands the current status of his or her verified account wins a free Twitter bird.

Having a verified account on Twitter could actually be a good thing. It would be helpful for people to understand whether content is coming from a real person or a fake account.

But unfortunately, the recent changes have made it easier for impersonators to get verified. So it had a bit of an inverse impact.

All of the information that I’ve seen, it seems to be a back and forth from Twitter trying to figure out the right balance, while realising that there’s a problem if it’s accessible for everybody.

Regrettably, verification meant impersonation instead of true verification, which implies it was hard to put more trust in information from such accounts.

Current landscape and future of social media

We are at a turning point for Meta. Suffice to say, social media advertising has struggled in the last year with Apple’s privacy changes.

If you look at any report from Meta or in the more recent Forrester’s Ad forecasts that were released this November, social media advertising will decelerate to its slowest pace, rising only 7.4% this year.

Hence, there is a slowdown in spending that we’re projecting over 2023.

However, agency executives and brands are still seeing social media maintained over a year. They’re deliberating on how to continue maintaining those budgets, as the budget deployment avenues are changing.

Meta is a channel that delivers on many different aspects of customer lifecycle, everything from discovering a new product all the way through to managing conversations with your current customers. It has certainly gained the lion’s share of media because on the lower funnel side, it’s actually proven very efficient for advertisers. It’s a way for them to get lower funnel media for a good price.

New platforms emerge and you see consumers shift into new places like TikTok, for instance. We are beginning to see brands figure out how to shift their dollars into new modern spaces that people are spending time on. It presents a whole new set of challenges, especially from content creation perspective. In the foreseeable future, you’re going to see shifts out of legacy platforms like Meta into emerging ones like TikTok, and integrators that help you create the content for those platforms.

Content Creation: Brands Versus Influencers

We’re starting to see a trend toward brands and agencies hiring creators to make content for organic channels. That’s not just to gain influence from their followers, but also to make content for them to publish. I reckon they’re realising that when you enter a platform like TikTok, you can’t use the same old strategy. Their content teams probably don’t fully understand how to make compelling content for that platform. So they’re hiring creators and outside resources to either make their content or advise on it.

Brands going back to work on their own content and channels

You need to have your house in order while you’re advertising.

Your owned properties are incredibly important because consumers are seamlessly moving from social media platforms to your website, back to something else, and on to the blog content you might create.

It is natural and seamless for consumers at this point. So every touch point that you expect a consumer to have with you should reflect your brand and values. It should reflect your look and feel, and the experience that you want people to have with you. Regardless of social media, it’s crucial for brands to get their house in order and ensure that their own presence is good for consumers.

What’s in Store for Twitter Advertisers and Consumers

The Twitter verified account status saga was enough to get the entire planet completely confused over what should or shouldn’t be done. It sued to state that your verified account was worth bloody nothing and that it was just a legacy verified badge granted to someone who used to be known. It now points out that “this account is verified because it’s notable in government, news, entertainment, or another designated category”. Advertisers are now granted a yellow “This account is verified because it’s an official business on Twitter” badge. Heck! Isn’t all that utterly confusing. I will not make any comments on Musk’s management capabilities.

Wait for a Few Months Forrester Analyst Says

In the next several months, things will pave way for some clarity. You might see that consumers double down on Twitter and realise they can’t go anywhere else and this is where they love to spend time.

Or there might be an exodus from the platform if it becomes a place that has a lot of unsavoury content or content that you don’t want to keep. Any of those two scenarios may happen with consumers, but I don’t see brands going back to Twitter in the next two quarters.

This is based on the uncertainty with the platform combined with brands tightening their belts.

Right now, we’re in a period of economic uncertainty where brands aren’t flushed with cash to spend on advertising.

So they need to make hard choices about where to show up. The way the platform has manifested itself recently makes it a pretty easy choice for brands to decide where to cut or put money elsewhere.

Organic Content on Twitter

If you think the platform is not suitable for your ad dollars, it’s not suitable for your content at all. Removing your content from a platform because you feel it’s not safe, translates into your organic presence as well.

Here’s the result, cowboy. Let that sink in! https://t.co/H4Fq8xRLd6

— Yann Gourvennec (@ygourven) January 22, 2023

Forbes showed that the result of Musk’s new governance is pretty clear. It stressed a 50% drop in advertising volume in November 2022 alone. Kelsey’s advice must have been followed. For us on the B2B marketing side, it might be high time we start exploring other platforms. Not forgetting to spruce up our digital assets.

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So you think your customers love your brand? Really?! Recently, I came across a motivational piece on Inc.com entitled: “People With High Emotional Intelligence Ask 3 Key Questions to Become More Likeable and Give Better Advice.” I am not usually interested in self development articles or books. However, I found these 3 questions useful to businesses if only you read them through the eyes of an entrepreneur. One may even venture to say that they are the very essence of marketing.

Ask these 3 questions if you want your customers to love your brand

Self-development isn’t my cup of latte but asking these 3 questions taken from a motivational article in Inc.com will help you become more likeable and make your customers love your brand!

Love thy customers and they will love thy brand!

Self-development isn’t my cup of tea, yet it’s one of the most popular book categories amongst the general public. It is understandable, people need advice and are in search of simple if not simplistic recipes. They need them to survive in a world which is generally perceived, not always rightly, as hostile.

When I came across that Inc.com piece, I found that I could turn it into a short bullet point list targeted at businesses and entrepreneurs.

After all, those who can ask these three questions can get their customers to love their brand better.

The piece is entitled “People With High Emotional Intelligence Ask 3 Key Questions to Become More Likeable and Give Better Advice”. Let us review these 3 questions and put them into a marketing and business context.

I have therefore hacked this list to my liking. You can read the original Inc.com article afterwards if you feel you need to become a more likeable person too.

[Businesses] like to be liked. It’s human nature: We crave connection and relationships, and we enjoy the affirmation and ego boost that results from knowing that other people enjoy being around us

So often, I come across business owners who will tell me, “I want to talk to my community.” Meaning “my customers”.

The issue though is that not all customers are part of a community. Brompton’s, Apple’s and Dyson’s customers maybe. Even that is debatable. Giff Gaff’s, that’s for sure. But most businesses’ customers aren’t forming a “community of customers”.

Number one reason is … you are not a likeable brand! It doesn’t mean your products aren’t good nor selling well. But there is no emotional bond between your customers and your brand.

Hence the three questions. Here they are.

1. “What do you think I should do?” (as a brand)

The essence of marketing is being interested in one’s customers. This doesn’t mean that product-led marketing has no future. It means that you should always ask customers how they feel, what they like and what they don’t like.

And that means being genuinely interested in what they have to say.

You do not need to carry out online surveys amongst millions of buyers. Interviewing, in depth, twelve of them will suffice and it won’t take that long.

2. “What other facts would help you to make a decision?”

People make decisions for emotional reasons all the time

Love your customers and they will love your brand too. Image generated by Midjourney with the following prompt: “An old-fashioned 19th century sepia drawing of a lady customer who offers a bunch of flowers to a shop owner in a department store like Whiteley’s and is kneeling before him.” Not sure the AI got Whiteley’s right, though. Maybe it’s never been to Bayswater.

The author is right. Emotion is part of the buying process. It’s also true of B2B. Truth be told, it’s probably even more true of the B2B purchasing process. B2B is said to be rational and B2C emotional. More often than not it’s the other way around.

• A B2B buyer will need to be reassured. Buying expensive stuff for a business means taking a huge risk and putting one’s head on the block more often than not. The more you reassure your client, the better.
• Buying a B2B service or product isn’t always a matter of features. Most of the time it’s not at all. It’s about reassurance as mentioned above, and feeling the vendor will support you and help you
• Failure isn’t just a threat for sellers, it’s also a threat to buyers. Failing to negotiate and buy the right service at the right price could cost you money and your reputation. The buyer is as much afraid of buying than the seller (I’ve worked on both sides I can guarantee it’s the way it happens).

3. “How do you think you would feel if you decided to do X?”

Trying to put oneself in one’s customers shoes means genuinely help them make the right decision and partnering with them.

This is something I’m particularly keen on. Not just selling, but working alongside my clients to help them succeed.

“Customer Success” is even a popular job position at the moment. However I find that too often, it’s just a phrase and the customer success officer is just a seller in sheep’s clothing.

Try and be genuinely interested in the success of your customer and you will be surprised. We supported a client with a man from Mars report last year. It was just a wee three-day engagement but the outcome was nice:

Whereas our client was about to embark on a costly and useless B2C strategy which would have led to nothing, we comforted them by pointing towards a more rewarding low-hanging fruit strategy while emphasising a few issues that needed to be fixed.

This little engagement made our client save hundreds of thousands of euros (each year).

A few days ago, I received a little note from them with a box of chocolate. Yes! They sent us the chocolate, not the other way round. Not only that, they shared their prospects with us. They are genuinely grateful we helped them.

And we are genuinely happy we did. We feel proud that we’ve helped a nice company as best we could.

As the author at Inc.com points out:

You’ll give better advice, and you’ll become more charismatic in the process

See! Self-development articles can be helpful to businesses too.

Read the original Inc.com piece

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Social Selling is about strategy, it’s not about tools or tactics, let alone the infamous LinkedIn Social Selling Index. Social Media is one of the most important avenues for B2B marketers in the post-pandemic world. Let’s hear it from an expert on what it takes to be great at social and leverage this channel effectively. In this podcast Tim Hughes talks to us about the updated version of his book on social selling.

Social selling is about strategy it’s not about tools

Social selling isn’t a tool, it’s about strategy and it’s a must-have in a post-pandemic world – Buy the book from Amazon now!

 

TH In this new version of the book I have added more content and bolstered it after discussing with 15 practitioners – people that are doing social selling. For an organisation’s executive team, social selling ought to be part of the strategy.

When social media came out, many didn’t know what to do with it. The marketing department would leave it in a cupboard and then bring it out every week or two. They’d post something on a corporate page and ask everybody to like it, which more often than not doesn’t fetch good results.

Social now is a clear competitive advantage for an organisation. But it has to be run as a strategy, not as a tactic.

The key thing about the book is that I want to show there’s a clear connection between social media and leads and meetings. How are you going to use social to build a pipeline and get revenue?

Social Selling Is Not Communicating Online, It’s About Dollars

We have a definition as well as methodology for social. Social selling is using your presence and behaviour on social media to build influence, make connections, grow relationships and trust, which lead to conversations and commercial interaction.

A proper Social Selling strategy isn’t about communicating online Tim Hughes says, it’s about dollars and cents!

The key thing there is we’re driving commercial interaction. Organisations now at a leadership level should be able to say at board meetings that we’re spending ‘x’ on marketing and getting ‘y’ from social media. It’s not about getting likes and clicks and views, it’s about revenue. They should be able to say we’re getting $10 million from the use of social media. That’s about driving a strategy from the top down to actually understand why they’re on social.

Let’s talk social media in terms of a classic exhibition. You as a buyer know what supplier you want to talk to. So you go over there, sit down and have a conversation. Probably at that exhibition there would be somebody who would have seen you and would talk to you. Now, we would expect what happens on social media is I walk into it and a salesman comes up and smacks me in the face with a brochure. Nobody’s interested in that.

LinkedIn is your shop window!

We know from research that people come to social media to be social. We’re not coming to social media to be smacked on the face with a sales brochure.

 One of our clients is Namos, an Oracle reseller, with whom we worked to transform their sales team. We now have buyers coming on to social media, walking up to their sales team, which is transformational. Normally when it’s about sales people, folks don’t like or trust them. Here, we have buyers coming up to their salespeople saying, I think you can help me – and that’s translating. One of them has recently signed a $2.6 million deal.

We have organisations that are doing multimillion-dollar deals purely because of their position on social and treating it as a strategy, while ensuring that everybody within the organisation is involved.

Creating a mission statement

We do a classic brainstorming session where we get the C-suite and probably one of their advisors into a room. Then we work through with them about the importance of strategy and using data to show how the world is changed. People quite often recognise that there’s been this change, but they don’t understand that now 60% of the world’s population is active on social media for two and a half hours a day. This is the data that comes from Simon Kemp.

Telstra Purple came up with a mission statement which says a social organisation sees social as a platform for closing the distance between clients, prospects, remote employees and potential recruits. Social gives them the ability to get traditional visibility that you would expect from marketing. They’re a cybersecurity company. So they are very keen to be trusted and to get the trusted advisor status, for people to say that company looks like they know what they’re talking about.

Humans are social animals, and social selling is well suited for social animals who need to converse and collaborate with one another.

Tools for Social Selling

We as a business actually use very few tools because this is about you and being human centric. We use Slack internally. I have used internal social now for a number of years. When I was in corporate, we used it to attain an increased efficiency of the employees by 25%. That’s like getting 25% more employees at no cost and it saved so much time. It didn’t stop meetings, but it used to cut down their time. It works only when you have senior leadership using it. Leaders should say, as they did in my previous organisation, that if you want to get hold of me, I am on Slack. I might check email only at certain points in the day. So Slack is where we should connect.

What Matters Is Conversations and Collaborations

We use Slack, LinkedIn and a number of social platforms purely because today we live in two worlds – physical and digital. As soon as we go online onto social media, we’re in digital.

What we need to be able to do as salespeople and leaders of organisations is to be able to walk digital corridors and have digital conversations.

The key is to make sure that if you’re going to start in sales as the point of actually transforming your organisation to digital, then what you need are people who have seen it, done it and whom the sales team respects.

Age doesn’t have an impact at all on understanding social

Mindset required for social selling

It isn’t just about social selling, but transforming your organisation to digital. We have the physical world that we all know and love, and we have the digital world. Social media is a conduit to the digital world. Your LinkedIn profile is you – it’s your digital twin. So the way that your LinkedIn profile looks is how you want the digital world to recognise you.

For example, at Cambridge Display Technology, they’re not using any recruitment consultants or recruitment advertising anymore. They have gone digital and empowered their people to talk online that it is a great place to work for. They articulate how great their diversity program is, or how well their ESG program unfolds. Those who read this on social say that it looks like a place I want to work for.

It the world of digital, social gives us new efficiency and new ways of working.

It’s not about tools, a new ERP system or anything like that. It’s about using digital is the way that we work, and that empowerment across the organisation means that we can work in different ways. We can strip out cost and be more efficient. What we would recommend is having an open mind and understand that there is a new digital way of doing things.

Businesses Navigating Their Way in the New Digital World

When Adam Gray and I started our company six years ago, we thought we had eight months, at which point everybody would get it and it would become the norm. Here we are in our seventh year and 99.99% of companies do not understand this. There are companies who have got big marketing budgets and don’t understand digital.

There’s this misalignment from a leadership perspective to understand what social and digital stand for and what it means for their business.

To break away from this, it’s about likes and clicks and things like that. I recently read about an organisation who have got 300,000 employees. They’ve got 8 million followers on LinkedIn, but get 15 likes per post, out of which seven are internal. This clearly means they aren’t influencing their prospects and customers.

It’s about understanding the world of digital, the way it works and not just an understanding about social, but having the business acumen about how to apply it.

Things have changed because of Covid-19 and we need to do things differently. Organisations are coming to us as they are completely redesigning their processes which are 30 years old.

Social Selling Doesn’t Take Long

Look at the speed of things – LinkedIn allows you to have 200 connections a week. That’s 200 conversations with people you’re trying to influence. Social selling actually shortens the sales cycle because of not having to deal with a lot up front. People will see you as soon you are online and have a conversation with you instantly.

We saw a real tipping point in October 2020 when people in the UK went into the second lockdown. We had to relearn the way we worked. I don’t need to commute anywhere, I can sit in my office or at home and run a normal day’s work.

The impediment to success on social and digital is that there are still so many mental models out there that 30 years ago is the way that we do things.

LinkedIn and its impact on social selling

In the physical world, when we meet a potential client for a meal or sports, we don’t immediately talk about work. We try to get close to the person, and this is what being social is about. We don’t talk about business posts and personal posts. This is life posts. This is about understanding each other. It pulls people towards you. I know social selling, but also the fact that my father has dementia and he’s in a home allows you to know the real Tim Hughes – the Tim Hughes that you would deal with if he delivers a service to you.

What you’ll find is that LinkedIn will become more like Facebook, because more people will actually recognise the fact that by doing this you’re getting people to understand you

When you come to my LinkedIn profile, you should better understand what it is that I stand for. Your LinkedIn profile is your shop window to the world. It’s about as soon as your ideal customer spots you, he thinks you are interesting. He is curious about that and walks towards you. Your LinkedIn profile explains who you are, and it cannot merely be the fact that you go to work, but that you’re going to spend the next weekend seeing your parents. That’s part of me and who I am. People respect that and I get people coming to me which punches out my network, punches into the people that I’m trying to influence.

Social Selling Strategy: Social Media, Not Spam Media

Social is not about putting a brochure online – neither your ideal customer nor anybody wants it. People buy people. I’m looking for a relationship with somebody. Someone that can help me solve my business issues and that I can trust. Somebody that I know that if the project starts failing and I ring them up, they’re going to take that call. Even if it’s a Saturday, I can look upon them that they’re an organisation I want to do business with.

Now, when I do business in the physical world, I don’t walk into a meeting and immediately give people brochures. I sit there and say, I’ve been working here for 20 years. I’ve been selling accounting systems for 20 years across industries. I generally know about some things about accounting, but there’s bound to be something I have missed.

It’s about bringing that expertise and also bringing your personality as people buy people. This is social media. This is not spam media.

It’s about empowering the people, that’s when things actually start happening and the magic takes place.

The post Social selling is about strategy it’s not about tools appeared first on Marketing and Innovation.

What if the immersive web were the ultimate goal of Meta’s new strategy? This idea came up during our interview with Pierric Duthoit, Business Director France at Meta, at the Tech for Retail exhibition, of which Visionary Marketing was a media partner. Pierric shared with us some of the innovations launched by Meta as well as his strategic views. A strategy closer to Forrester’s vision than that of B2C commentators.

Forget the Metaverse, Meta’s True strategy is about the Immersive Web

The world’s eyes are on the Metaverse, but Meta’s real strategy would be more geared towards the immersive web

The announcement by Mark Zuckerberg on the Metaverse, followed by Facebook’s name change took everyone by surprise. Immediately, naysayers seized the opportunity to denigrate it to the well-known tune of “it will never work!”

I have seen less than lukewarm comments regarding Meta’s plans for the future but some disgruntled Meta employees are even more critical. The least one can say is the Metaverse is not probably aimed at users of Meta’s historical brand, deemed tarnished by The Guardian.

Heated Discussions About the Future of the Metaverse

Other, more enthusiastic commentators followed suit, speaking highly of this vision of the future. At the same time, they were pointing out that other players were already working on it too.

Visionaries, meanwhile, claimed that the Metaverse was a reality, but not for Meta, but with online gaming heavyweights like Fortnite.

The Immersive Web experience in business starts with all virtual meetings – image by Meta

Finally, others announced that the Metaverse was promising and was already attracting investors, even if it didn’t really exist.

Finally, pragmatists like Forrester’s analysts, said that B2B was bound to be the future of the Metaverse.

Often, there are heated discussions between proponents and detractors of the Metaverse.

The future of nascent technologies is hard to predict

I have read a lot about this subject and I must admit that sometimes I feel a bit lost. Not only because of its complexity, beyond reach for most. Above all, I find that many commentators do sound a bit adamant about the future of nascent technologies.

My experience with technology has taught me that one can never be too cautious. I had rather test innovations in the field… quietly and without getting too excited.

What I understand from Pierric Duthoit’s interview is that Meta’s strategy is not really the Metaverse, though, which would not be for now, but rather a new form of Web, the immersive Web.

I see it above all as a series of creative attempts. After all, this is how innovation works. One step at a time.

While some may find it hard to believe in the future existence of immersive experiences in virtual remote meetings, I would therefore remain cautious.

After all, we have waited 20 years for web conferencing to be universally embraced. The current Zoom fatigue, although real, will not make online meetings disappear. They are part of our working environment and innovations in this area are still possible, and even desirable.

Here is a summary of my discussions with Pierric Duthoit who described some of the innovations Meta is currently carrying out for its clients.

Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns: a solution for optimising e-commerce performance campaigns

Meta is using artificial intelligence and machine learning to dramatically increase the power of its platforms around the world.

So, “the goal of the Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (A+SC) solution is to allow our clients to reach the right audiences, test different kinds of graphic designs tailored with their audiences and improve their performance”, says Duthoit.

In these times of crisis, our customers are not looking to spend more, but rather to optimise their performance.

Using the solution results in an approximate 12% improvement in CPA (cost per action).

“On our platforms, many people discover brands or products. This is Discovery Commerce. The approach is to push a number of options thanks to the knowledge we have of our audiences,” Pierric emphasises.

Avantage+ Shopping Campaigns is used by companies such as Samsung. This allows them to test different images and texts, and optimise them for their audiences.

A+SC automatically pushes the best optimisation to the largest possible audience

Instagram and augmented reality

Moving on to another innovation and Instagram, “When we talk about augmented reality, we are talking about the provision of filters that allow you to see almost in three dimensions”, Pierric explains.

Furniture vendors for example, will let you see the furniture in your home before you buy. A camera system films your environment and places the fixtures in it.

Using augmented reality to the full

More than 700 million of Meta’s 3 billion users use AR filters

Many B2C brands are already integrating three-dimensional elements into their product design. This then makes it possible to implement augmented reality very quickly.

Will the Metaverse ever be live on Instagram?

“It is already possible to have your NFTs on Instagram. You can upload them and share them. It’s a first step,” Pierric Duthoit stresses.

The Metaverse as defined by Meta will see the light of day within ten years. These technologies take time

In the Metaverse experience, a lot happens in B2B, Pierric explains.

“Accor hotels are looking at how to practise online learning with virtual reality with people all over the world, and applications are starting to emerge in the medical field.”

Meta announced partnerships with Zoom, Microsoft, AutoCAD and Accenture at Connect 2022. It aims to begin deploying virtual reality around these B2B solutions any time soon.

Many commentators in the online gaming world have claimed that the Metaverse was a reality… but not for Meta.

Meta on its way to the immersive Web

This interview showed us that Meta’s strategy goes well beyond the Metaverse. Its aim is geared towards the immersive Web. It all starts with a set of technological innovations that are being put in place one after the other.

It is too early to draw any conclusions, though. Visionary Marketing will therefore keep an eye on these initiatives over time to measure their progress.

The post The Immersive Web is Meta’s ultimate goal, not the Metaverse appeared first on Marketing and Innovation.

A worldwide survey of 7,000 people highlights the poor perception of customer service by consumers. In Europe and the rest of the world. Fortunately, technological solutions are available to marketers who want to improve their flailing customer service. This survey by CM.com is entitled “Customer Service: When Emotions Take Control”. It could serve as a roadmap for businesses that are keen to improve their customer experience in 2023. Visionary Marketing interviewed Pierre Garrigues, CM.com Country Manager for France, to dissect the survey and collect his recommendations.

CM.com survey shows customer service is a major source of frustration for consumers

CM.com’s survey on customer service shows clearly that consumers aren’t really impressed with the quality of service they are getting from their favourite brands.

Disclosure: This podcast is produced in partnership with Ecranmobile.fr and CM.com.

Dutch company CM.com has interviewed 7,000 consumers worldwide. Looking at the numbers, barring a few exceptions, one finds that frustration is overwhelming with regard to consumers’ interactions with brands, regardless of the geography.

CM.com’s customer service survey shows that each interaction between a customer and a brand is a decisive moment in their relationship

A consumer braces for impact before contacting his customer service

Customer Service Interactions: Good and Not So Good Vibes

“Consumers rarely contact the customer service department of a product or service provider to congratulate them. Consumers mostly contact support for questions about product quality, last mile delivery issues or product dissatisfaction,” Garrigues says.

This leads to rather negative emotions, as the study confirms.

41% of consumers are already irritated when they contact customer service

The study reveals that more than a quarter of respondents ask a relative to contact customer service on their behalf. This tells you how much of an ordeal that must be!

Contacting customer service? Not quite a picnic yet for most consumers. The good news is one third of them seem to be happy!

“This survey shows how difficult it is to interact with a brand and get answers to the questions you have,” he says.

With this customer service survey, CM.com lays bare the emotions associated with each support contact channel. Live chat and point of sale (face to face) stand out in this panel. It is also worth noting that consumers view social media and messaging apps positively. Except for the French who don’t seem to use social for customer service. Some regional differences still exist apparently.

Consumers’ love affair with omnichannel marketing

Brands need to do away with the old-fashioned ticketing approach

“If you contact a brand using the ticketing method, by email, phone and social networking, you will probably receive three different answers to the same question,” he points out.

The siloed approach to ticketing must be banned according to Pierre Garrigues of CM.com

Above all, one shouldn’t lose the human touch: “Tools are not designed to be natively connected to all available platforms and means of communication,” Pierre Garrigues went on. “Customers should never be likened to a number, they should be identified by their first and last names, purchase and relationship history with the brand.”

Different Channels in Different Geographical Areas

“Viber, WhatsApp, Telegram for Asia-Pacific and WeChat allow omnichannel contact and exchange,” continues Pierre Garrigues. They are popular in most areas but some of these channels are unknown in some places. This is the case for Viber in France, Garrigues explains.

“The penetration rate of Viber in France is 4%, vs. almost 40% in Eastern European countries,” explains Pierre Garrigues.

International companies must therefore choose the most appropriate mix of channels. Depending on the geographical area, the age or idiosyncrasies of the customers they are dealing with.

Businesses need to adapt to their customers’ preferred channels, rather than impose theirs

What’s in store for customer service in the future?

“The current period and the turbulent times we are going through will naturally force brands to better serve their existing and loyal customers,” predicts Pierre Garrigues.

CM.com’s customer service survey shows that almost half of the surveyed customers had rather change brands after a bad customer experience if the product or service they purchase is worth over €500.

These customers are the primary source of revenue and results for the company. It has too often been neglected at the expense of customer acquisition marketing or awareness campaigns.

This will not last. Customer service used to be a low priority but it is bound to come to the forefront in the future

“Some brands have already taken steps towards this change. Omnichannel marketing allows for the collaboration between the customer service and customer acquisition departments. Brands should implement this change for the benefit and experience of their customers as well as their employees,” says Garrigues.

Community management can no longer make do with moderating comments on a social networking page

This survey is the living proof that customer service needs a major overhaul.

Download CM’s survey of 7,000 consumers in the UK, the US, China, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and France.

The post Customer service is a major source of frustration for consumers appeared first on Marketing and Innovation.

Growth hacking can often be perceived as toxic, but you can sit back and relax, it is possible to practise ethical growth hacking but it requires time and energy, growth hacking expert Frederic Canevet explained to Visionary Marketing. In a nutshell, it may be a little harder than you think, but it is well worth the effort. Fred, who ate his own dogfood to sell his bestseller on the subject, tells us everything we should know about whte hat growth hacking.

Ethical Growth Hacking Is Not an Oxymoron

White hat, back hat? Growth hacking often suffers a dire reputation fuelled by unscrupulous individuals, some of whom have built real fortunes on questionable approaches. But ethical growth hacking is possible, explains Fred Canevet – image created with Midjourney on our personalised mode.

Could you mention historical examples of growth hacking?

Frédéric Canevet: There are two tale-telling cases that illustrate the controversial practices of growth hacking perfectly:

1. In America, Airbnb got its start by exploiting data from Craigslist. The company developed an automated system to extract property listings and contact owners, offering them the chance to earn $500 a week by listing their accommodation on Airbnb.
2. In France, the founder of Telecom operator Free Mobile Xavier Niel, back in the days of the Minitel, created a tool to send automated mass messages to Minitel users. Lonely hearts messaging services on the Minitel being most profitable at that time, he launched a competitor to a leading dating service and diverted their traffic through targeted messages. Although this practice earned him legal action and a lost court case, the profits generated helped him build his initial fortune, notably through a network of sex shops linked to this Minitel business.

Can Growth Hacking Be ethical and responsible, though?

FC: Yes, it’s feasible but it requires time and effort.

Ethical growth hacking: white hat ends up paying better than black hat – image made with Midjourney on our custom mode.

How should our vision of growth hacking evolve overtime?

FC: Our approach has to evolve considerably in the face of today’s economic challenges. In a tense economic climate, we can no longer afford traditional marketing with its long-term plans. This is precisely what inspired growth hacking in Silicon Valley, where startups had to, as the time-honoured slogan went, “live or die“. In a world tending towards the end of consumerism, at least in Europe, the challenge is to do more with less.

There are three levels of growth hacking.

1. “White hat” represents legal and ethical practices, similar to the “Fosbury flop” in athletics – a revolutionary innovation, but one that abides to the rules. This approach is based on business cycle analysis using the AARRR method: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Recommendation and Revenue.
2. “Grey hat” is sitting in the middle. For example, automation on LinkedIn, although prohibited by the platform, is still widely practised. I have personally experienced the risks of resorting to this approach when I was suspended for managing two separate profiles.
3. Finally, “Black hat” encompasses strictly prohibited practices: i.e. creating fake accounts, identity theft, or unauthorised recovery of personal data. These methods may seem tempting in the short term, but prove disastrous for a company’s reputation and long-term survival.

How can we guarantee efficiency while remaining ethical?

FC: Sending mass unsolicited messages in LinkedIn serves no purpose. Instead, effectiveness lies in forging true connections. The strategy I adopt lies in the daily publication of high added value content, demonstrating real expertise. It’s not an aggressive sales approach, but rather inbound marketing based on trust.

In fact, email spam is a no no. You send 10,000 emails and what you get is a 0.5% open rate and a slightly lower click rate. All in all, as you sent tens of thousands of messages, you may get some sort of result. But very soon, all this is bound to dwindle. Not to mention how damaging all this could be to your reputation.

As for ‘black hat’, I absolutely forbid it. In particular, fake accounts attached to the name of a company, solely for the purpose of recovering data from lists of people and companies that follow the page of the target company. This is illegal, because it’s identity theft. The same applies to those individuals who seek to recover the email addresses or telephone numbers of people with whom they have no relationship. I refuse to do that, especially as it often involves personal data.

Facts and Figures About Ethical Growth Hacking

FC. To illustrate the effectiveness of the approach I recommend, let’s quote some figures from the company I work for, Eloquant: over 20% of the 1,200 people who signed up for our interviews with customer relationship experts this year came from LinkedIn, out of an industry of around 15,000 professionals. Our aim is to unite this community, establish our legitimacy, and then convert the members of this community into visitors of our various events such as webinars or our “All for Customers” trade show in Paris.

The omnichannel approach is becoming essential as traditional channels become saturated. The numbers are not adding up: the rate of participation in webinars has fallen from 35% 3-4 years ago to around 25% today, 30% at the most. The rate of viewing replays has also fallen, from 15% to 12%. These figures show that it is no longer viable to rely on a single channel. Omnichannel is of the essence, and face-to-face meetings especially, that are more effective than ever.

How important is personalisation in your approach?

FC. Personalisation is vital. For birthday wishes, we take a two-step approach: an initial message automated by my assistant, followed by personal interaction on my part.

And I send the messages one by one.

AI won’t replace humans, but professionals who master AI will outperform those who don’t. Our experience with Smart Tribune illustrates this principle: during a joint event, we decided to pull together and appeal to our respective networks and approach each potential participant individually. Success depended on pre-existing relationships and established personal links.

This then led to a white paper written jointly with Apizee and Smart Tribune [note: in French only], based on an OpinionWay survey of 1,000 interviewees. Our partners used AI to kickstart the writing of this project. While AI was impressive at the start, it was quite obvious after a while that all this was more artificial than intelligent: the formatting was bland, transitions were artificial. All that was typical ChatGPT gibberish. We had to substantially correct all these initial sections.

AI remains a valuable tool, particularly for copywriting. I use a custom GPT to generate drafts of posts about my events. The result, while not exceptional, provides us with a straw man, which can then be adapted and personalised.

How is the digital landscape changing with these new AI practices?

FC. There has been a significant drop in SEO traffic on Google these past few months. Well-established blogs have been massively hit by the arrival of AI and the automatic generation of content. As Google is struggling to distinguish authentic content, it then started to favour more specialised and industry-specific sites.

I’ve noticed that many content creators and bloggers I know have given up or scaled down their online writing. Personally, while blogging used to be my number one priority, it has now slipped into second place. I now prefer to concentrate on LinkedIn.

 

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Scaling a B2B start-up globally sounds nice, but how do you do this? To find out, I interviewed D.K. Lee, co-founder of Marqvision, a promising US start-up with operations in Korea and European presence in Paris, France. I spent some time with D.K. to understand his background, here is a written account of this fascinating discussion with a seasoned multicultural entrepreneur.

Marqvision’s D.K. Lee shares his secrets for scaling a B2B start-up globally in just two years

D.K. Lee told us all about how to scale a B2B start-up in just two years. Replicating this for yourself might well be a challenge for many.

How It All Started

D.K. Lee was born and raised in Seoul until he was 14 years old. Then he moved to Canada mainly to study English, and then spent his middle and high school years in Canada near Toronto. 

Subsequently, he crossed the border and moved to Cornell to study management. 

The founding of a B2B start-up

Right after college D.K. (aka Do Kyung), joined EY where he was “fortunate enough to work with large corporations in Seoul like Samsung and LG and help them on digital transformation matters behind the scenes” he told us.

This is when he realised that “Digital transformation was actually happening within big companies, not just in Korea but all over the world”. He then joined a start-up, Seoul-based Dailyhotel, as chief of staff and investment manager. 

In 2019, the company was sold to a larger business, Yanolja, with a $60-million valuation. Yanolja is, according to their LinkedIn page, the fastest-growing and No.1 travel platform and the only ‘Unicorn’ among travel-related companies in South Korea.

“That was my first exit experience,” D.K. told us. “Although I was not a founder, I was one of the older members of the company.”

He then went on to found Marqvision in 2020. He first met his co-founder in 2019. “We gradually built up our idea, worked on the prototype, and launched our project in the first quarter of 2020.”

Why found a company in the US?

“The US provides a better foundation for entrepreneurs to scale their companies globally” D. K. Lee told Visionary Marketing. That’s only one of the reasons, though.

“I think it’s still the place where you find the best talents in the tech industry, whether it be engineers, product managers and the sales and marketing folks,” he added.

Recruitment is essential for my start-up to scale.

Marqvision isn’t located in Silicon Valley, though, but 400 miles south of San Jose, in Los Angeles. The reason being that entertainment and luxury goods companies are situated near the city of angels, not San Francisco nor the Valley.

If you can’t beat them, join them!

Despite the reports we are having in Europe that Silicon Valley is going through a slump and the economic climate is rotten, it seems no other place on earth can beat California.  

One distinct sign of this is that all other competing technology areas are rebranding themselves as XXX Silicon Something. Replace XXX with Berlin, Tel Aviv and “Something” with Roundabout for London or Sentier for Paris and you have it. 

A vast majority of technological innovations are still coming from the United States, mostly from Silicon Valley

Off to a quick and great start

Marqvision is off a great start and it happened in just two years. I’m still amazed at the speed at which such businesses grow. In this case it’s no miracle. The start-up did find the solution to a major business problem (See our story here)

D.K. thinks he’s “been lucky in many ways”. Having met a great co-founder and all the folks who worked with Marqvision. 

Yet, the building and scaling of a start-up worldwide that fast can hardly be the result of luck alone. I asked D.K. how he’d done it so as to share his tips with our readers. 

“In order to really scale your start-up globally, especially if you’re in the B2B space, you need to meet your customers face to face

“That’s the only way to get a vivid, and real feedback about your product, about your solution, about your service,” he said. 

That’s a clear warning to all these would-be entrepreneurs I’ve seen who are afraid to share their thoughts with you in the early stage of building their business. 

“And that’s the only way to continuously enhance your product to the next level,” he added. In order to do that, your team must sit by your side to meet with your client.”

And the result is staggering. In just two years, Marqvision was able to operate in five different offices across the world. 

Winning a Prestigious LVMH Award

Marqvision’s success didn’t pass unnoticed. LVMH awarded the US start-up the prize for innovation in the data and AI category whereas “more than a 1,000 companies had applied for this prestigious award”.

“We were fortunate and honoured to have won the LVMH Innovation Award in the  data & AI category” DK Lee (second on the right) declared. LVMH’s Arnaud in fifth from the left. [LVMH 2022 website]

Joining the LVMH acceleration programme

“Following the award, we joined La maison des start-ups,” D.K. Lee added, “a start-up acceleration programme offered by LVMH group.” 

This is why Marqvision is also based in Paris’s Station F. “We have our Paris office over there until next year,” he told us.

Multicultural management in a B2B Start-up

“I love working with French people,” D.K. told us, “I love the breadth and depth of their experience and what they brought to the company in the field of the luxury industry.” 

Admittedly, there are some language issues he confided, but “we have a great product manager who is acting as an ombudsman between the locals and the rest of the team in Seoul and the US”. 

The sheer distance and time difference between all three continents are also an issue he admitted. “Working remotely is an inevitable trend moving forward,” he added, “but we should not deny all the benefits coming from working together side by side and in a nice office.”

Hence the organisation of all hands meetings to ensure that everyone is on the same page. 

Working from Home or in the Office?

I know some people might find it ironic that large businesses are moving forward with WFH policies and start-ups are pushing back on that same issue. It is perfectly understandable, however.

Big companies are more suited for remote working, I strongly believe that working together side by side for smaller start-ups is a much better way to build a stronger foundation early on  

There is no doubt that collaboration tools have brought a great deal to modern management techniques and we, at Visionary Marketing, are using them on a daily basis. 

However, D.K. has a valid point when he says, “all those tools are just a means to an end, and the end is actually the gathering of people. We could do that in person at a physical site, or we could do that through a gym or an audio conference. But I think one should know that it’s actually important for all people to get together.” 

Marqvision even invited, a month ago, all its leaders from the US (East and West Coast) and Paris to their Seoul office. “So they could meet with our engineers, analysts and back-office employees. We had a great time, for just about a week. We had nice dinners and that was a great way to boost our morale.”

Scaling a start-up isn’t just about working hard. It’s also about keeping the old team spirit alive across all time zones.

The post How to scale a B2B start-up globally in just two years appeared first on Marketing and Innovation.

Counterfeiting is one of the biggest sources of dirty money on the planet. And it does not only affect the field of luxury goods. It also concerns the production and sale of medicines and even spare parts for aircraft! To discuss this, Visionary Marketing interviewed Emmanuel Alavoine, Head of Expansion at Marqvision, a US start-up that in just two years has managed to forge partnerships with the biggest brands. Its co-founder also told us that the start-up could well become one of the next American unicorns. Here is the transcript of our interview, recorded during the Tech for Retail exhibition in Paris, of which we were media partner.

Marqvision Tackles Counterfeiting on Marketplaces

Emmanuel Alavoine at the Tech for Retail show on 28 November 2022. Counterfeiting would represent more than 3% of world trade according to the OECD, a figure that is constantly increasing.

Counterfeiting: “the world’s biggest economic blight”

“It is the world’s biggest economic blight. Counterfeiting surpasses even the organised crime of prostitution, arms dealing and drugs,” Emmanuel told us.

The OECD, in its 2020 report, estimates that the value of counterfeiting is €300 billion per year. “When we cumulate in value for the consumer, the damage is estimated at 3 trillion euros per annum,” Emmanuel Alavoine said.

When you think of organised crime, you immediately think of drugs and prostitution. But counterfeiting is worth much more: 300 billion euros, the equivalent of Belgium’s GDP.

Counterfeiting is therefore a real scourge of organised crime, often in the hands of the mafia

Counterfeiters use all the methods of modern commerce, to piggyback on the fame of a brand they don’t own

Counterfeiting doesn’t just affect the luxury goods industry

It affects a wide range of industries and brands of varying reputations.

Among the products affected is indeed luxury, with brands from the sector’s major groups, French, Italian, British and Spanish. “For this sector, it’s about traditional copying of iconic brands.”

But counterfeiting also affects pharmaceuticals, food, hygiene, beauty products, kids’ toys, clothing and sports goods.

When counterfeiting affects public health, a new dimension of crime is reached.

This counterfeiting also affects more sophisticated sectors such as car parts, automotive equipment and lubricants, and even aircraft parts, tools and industrial components.

“In terms of value, luxury goods still represent the greatest loss in relation to counterfeit products,” says Emmanuel.

These products are worth several thousands, even tens of thousands of euros. Counterfeit products are worth, depending on the case, a few dozen euros.

The price difference is already very revealing in the luxury sector. Sometimes the buyer is aware of what they are doing when they buy these counterfeit products. But the vast majority of counterfeit customers are in good faith and unaware of the nature of these products.

Counterfeiting on Marketplaces

Counterfeiting is found on e-commerce sites hosted by marketplaces. But it is also found on standalone merchant sites with their own URLs and domain names.

They operate with impunity until brands spot them and implement legal solutions to remove them.

Counterfeiting: a potential danger to the public

There are different geographical sources of counterfeiting.

“The OECD considers that 90% of counterfeit products today come from China,” explains Emmanuel. Counterfeiting from China is mostly transiting through Hong Kong.

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/cmw4qtjnpkb4c5re2kwtw2mlkq.webpCounterfeiting in the world according to El Pais (OECD source) – 2017

India is another platform for counterfeit products when it comes to medicines. Also noteworthy are countries like Turkey, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Finally, there are the logistics resale platforms around the world.

They allow these products to transit through lawless export hubs. And then reintroduce them into Europe, the US, Latin America or Africa.

According to El Pais, apart from Hong Kong, other platforms include Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Ukraine and Albania.

The organised crime of counterfeiting

Counterfeiting is the work of organised crime, explains Emmanuel Alavoine. “That is to say, the industrial sites of counterfeiting are almost comparable to the industrial sites of brands”.

They have international production capacities, quality control, international standards and they all have logistical channels for transport, registration, customs clearance identical to the original brands.

Counterfeit industry sites are comparable to brand sites

A hundred sensitive marketplaces

“There are hierarchies of more or less sensitive sites. The majority of counterfeit production, as well as its consumption, is Asian,” adds the Marqvision representative.

But these products are very easily exported to Europe and the US as well.

No mistake on the final destinations of dangerous counterfeit goods… – Source OECD 2022

Marqvision has identified around one hundred marketplaces that are lax to varying degrees and are open to the resale of counterfeit goods. However, according to its press release, the Korean system tracks “more than 1,500 marketplaces worldwide”.

Some of these marketplaces are well known in Europe, such as Wish (note: an American platform).

Others are extremely sensitive in South-East Asia in particular, or in China. They are trying to collaborate more or less openly and dynamically to stop this movement.

Indeed, “it’s worthy of note that these marketplaces have an economic interest in constantly attracting traffic, whereas the interest of the brand is to control its channels and customer relations.

These are conflicting interests,” explains Emmanuel, “that’s what causes the issue with counterfeiting”.

What about big e-commerce platforms?

“Larger portals are doing some upstream control work, but they are not immune to hosting the resale of counterfeit products.”

Apart from Wish, there is Alibaba.

“The celebrated Chinese platform works in partnership with Interpol, Europol and all major brands to combat counterfeiting with varying degrees of success and results,” explains Emmanuel Alavoine.

“Alibaba has been somewhat stamped “counterfeit”, because they are a world leader in e-commerce, due to their mastery of the Chinese market. But their goal remains to attract more Western brands that won’t turn up if they don’t take a proactive stance against counterfeits,” adds Emmanuel Alavoine.

How Marqvision Is Fighting Counterfeiting

“We have developed a proprietary artificial intelligence system,” explains Emmanuel. “Our AI engineers are based in Seoul and work on our algorithm.”

This algorithm will use two methods of detection: a) visual detection that will use images that have the appropriate resolution to compare them to the originals and b) semantic detection that is based on the analysis of text, titles, descriptions and price.

We were able to attend the demonstration on the start-up’s stand. Unfortunately, for obvious reasons of confidentiality, it is not possible for us to show the video of this demo. Here is the simplified process as we can summarise it from memory.

The work of detecting, and especially of denouncing irregularities, is done with the intervention of a human person. This choice is voluntary and justified.

The process can be summarised as follows:

1. The platform detects anomalies automatically as we described above, through image checking and semantic analysis,
2. An operator will verify the results by performing a visual check,
3. If the latter is satisfactory, the operator triggers the complaint procedure. It is voluntary that the machine doesn’t perform this operation,
4. The system will thus automatically send a deletion request via the standard platform form. The form will autofill. All complaint features for documented platforms (the 1,500+ platforms mentioned above) are being directly integrated into the tool;
5. The operator can proceed to the next check.

In conclusion, a future unicorn spotted by the LVMH group

Given the stakes involved in counterfeiting and the importance it holds for the big names in luxury goods, it is not surprising that Marqvision was spotted by LVMH.

The luxury group awarded them the innovative start-up prize out of 1,000 applicants (AI and data category). The Korean start-up is now hosted by Station F in Paris.

D. K. Lee, the co-founder of the barely two-year-old start-up that has raised $25 million, told Visionary Marketing that Marqvision would probably be a unicorn before long.

If one can judge the importance of a B2B solution by the size of the problem it solves, one will not be surprised by this prophecy.

Read the OECD report on counterfeiting

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The myths of innovation are ubiquitous. Everyone thinks they know what innovation is and means yet in fact innovation is probably one of the most overrated business concepts. ‘Poor is the substance, alas! and yet I’ve read all the books,’ the warning sent by French poet Stéphane Mallarmé would be perfectly valid for most of the literature devoted to innovation. There are books on that subject; however, which are worth reading such as the inevitable myths of innovation by Scott Berkun. We published this piece for the first time in 2010. We are republishing it because of its relevance in the current context of 2022. 

The Myths of Innovation is a must-read for would-be innovators

https://visionarymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/scott-berkun-myths-of-innovation-e1606552665292.jpegScott Berkun delivering a presentation on his myths of innovation

Berkun is a full-time writer and speaker and former program manager at Microsoft, the man behind the success of Internet Explorer at a time when the Web was dominated by Netscape.

He also delivers lectures such as this amazing Carnegie Mellon presentation (per below) on the book I am describing here.

Ask anyone about the epitome of innovation and they will tell you that the iPhone is it and that 2007 is the ultimate year of innovation. Ask Vaclav Smil and he’ll tell you this is nothing compared to other innovations like ammonia for instance. I’d even add that Apple never invented the smartphone. Nokia did, in 1995 or so and HTC (née Qtec) improved it as early as 2003. Most people confuse innovation for commercial success. That’s one of my favourite myths of innovation.

His book is not based on dubious principles but spells out clearly the dos and don’ts of innovation. It’s a lot more powerful than most books because of that because it’s easier to learn from mistakes than mimic other people’s behaviour.

Here are Scott Berkun’s ten myths of innovation summed up in a few words, and I hope this will convince you to buy a copy of his book too.

All ten myths described by Scott Berkun in his book

Myth number one: the myth of the epiphany. An epiphany, in essence, a sudden moment at which creation is supposed to happen, is epitomised by Archimedes’s Eureka moment or Newton’s apple.

If many innovations are described as magical moments, the truth is often more complex: hard work is required, the Eureka moment is often coming at the end of that process (not the beginning).

Most Eureka legends aren’t real; they are myths aimed at giving a romantic view of innovation,

We understand nothing about the history of innovation

Myth number 2: we understand the history of innovation. Well, so we think, but most of the time we don’t.

Most of the stories we read about innovation aren’t real either.

Google wasn’t a search engine to start with, nor was Flickr a photo-sharing platform, etc.

In fact, most innovations are the results of errors, changes, and corrections, but we like history to smooth things out and make them sound perfect and simple.

Myth number 3: there is a method for innovation.

How does one deliver innovation? Despite our attraction to recipes, innovation is, in essence, a ‘charge into the unknown’ and therefore, a method for innovation is a bit of an oxymoron,

Myth number 4: people love new ideas, so we like to think, but most of the time it’s not true.

Changing one’s habits is always a challenge, and that is true of customers too (remember Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the chasm?)

There is no end to the list of rejections that innovators have to face. Change management is an innovator’s best friend,

The lone inventor

Myth number 5: the lone inventor. We like stories in which a genius single-handedly changed the world: Edison invented the electric light; Ford invented the automobile; Apple invented the first graphical user interface, etc.

All wrong! And most of these stories are wrong.

Often, innovations happen simultaneously, too (in different countries at approximately the same time).

Lastly, successful companies are often started by a group of people, not the obligatory lone inventor.

Myth number 6: good ideas are hard to find.

Ideas are everywhere, and not just found as a result of a brainstorm session (a tool which most of the time is badly used and implemented).

Ideas come in more than many ways, mostly through trial and error.

As far as I am concerned, because I am not a very imaginative person, I love to pick other people’s brains and make notes of all the ideas they have had but have never had the pluck to implement.

‘It would be so nice if we could do this and that and the other’ is often my starting point. The real issue is not the idea(s) but how they could come to fruition and when.

Those who know better, most of the time, know nothing

Myth number 7: your boss knows more about innovation than you do.

Berkun argues that managers can make decisions that others can’t, but this doesn’t mean that they always know what to do.

Often, power and a high position in the hierarchy exert pressure on execs, and they feel terribly alone.

I have witnessed that the higher in the hierarchy, the further away you are from the field, the easier it is to lose sight of reality; theoretical views don’t make decision-making easy.

Often, managers are, therefore, afraid of innovation.

Berkun provides the antidote by describing the most necessary common traits of successful managers,

Myth number 8: the best ideas win.

There is a fairy tale view of innovation (in fairy tales good guys win, and bad guys lose) hence the belief that it’s always the best innovation that wins.

There are so many counterexamples such as the QWERTY keyboard (aimed at slowing down typists to avoid jamming), HTML and JavaScript (probably the most horrendous computer languages ever invented), the M-16 rifle, etc.

There are seven factors according to Berkun which are leading to product success: culture, dominant design, inheritance and tradition, politics, economics, subjectivity and short-term orientation.

Problems and solutions

Myth number 9: problems and solutions.

Great innovations  —  such as the palm pilot project, a pioneering digital notepad of the 1990s  —  often come from the clear and simple spelling of a few problems that they are meant to solve.

Believing that serendipity plays a major role is also wrong and yet another proof of the myth of the epiphany. Hard work and prototyping are of the essence.

Myth number 10: innovation is always good.

Rumour has it that Rudolf Diesel committed suicide when he realised that only the military was interested in his innovation.

He thought that this would serve the purpose of the war between Germany and France. Diesel was a German national but he’d almost lived in France all his life.

His innovation was being used to do harm and kill people and destroy Europe, not to do good and improve people’s lives.

Other examples abound quoted by Berkun in his book  —  such as the DDT and personal computers and even cell phones, not to mention discrimination via the infamous digital divide.

In conclusion: true innovators don’t use the word innovation

Such are the lessons we can derive from Scott Berkun’s research on innovation. In one of his posts on the Harvard Business Review blog, Berkun declared that true innovators don’t use the word innovation at all.

They talk about new products, new projects, change management, or just doing things. Innovation isn’t a playground for intellectuals; it’s a game for doers and hard workers.

I found the statements so true, and so close to how I felt (sometimes event organisers ask me to pitch about innovation and I feel weird about that because innovation is something one does but is very difficult to describe) that I decided to know more and buy this book.

Now, the Myths of Innovation is one of my favourite business books.

Find out more

• ‘Why innovation is overrated’ by Scott Berkun
• download a free summary of the book
• the ‘Myths of innovation’ video at Carnegie Mellon, a presentation by Scott
• buy ‘the Myths of innovation’ from Amazon.

read chapter 4 free of charge, courtesy of O’Reilly publishing

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Blockchain technology is transforming the supply chain with limitless potential. It’s strengthening connections, making it more secure and transparent. Therefore, it’s a gateway for consumers to hold their favorite brands and companies accountable while guaranteeing product authenticity and responsible sourcing.

According to IBM:

Blockchain for supply chain solutions help supply chain leaders use data to handle the disruptions of today and build resiliency for the future

From UPS to Louis Vuitton to Pfizer, blockchain is improving efficiency, ensuring authenticity, and reducing costs. Big changes are on the horizon for many brands as they discover the potential and consumer demand rises.

Will Blockchain Technology Provide Vital Solutions for the Supply Chain?

Can Blockchain technology be useful to the Supply Chain and innovation in that area?

What is a ‘Blockchain’?

A blockchain, simply put, is a shared database that records transactions and tracks assets.

Let’s break it down.

First, the ‘block’. In this case, transaction information. The block stores information such as; the buyer, the seller, product type, and the amount exchanged, etc. In reality, a block is a hashed line of code comprised of various numbers and letters; ‘e3f44q2bn…’.

Sort of like a DNA strand, a block holds the information, and if the block is altered it would be considered a completely different block.

Second, the ‘chain’. When a new block is made, the information gets encrypted and linked chronologically in a chain. Then a copy of the block is shared with everyone in the network. Storing the blocks chronologically, like a chain, means that each block relies on the block that comes before it like how each link of a chain relies on the link before it.

Blockchain Technology is best known for being the underpinning of cryptocurrencies such as the (in) famous bitcoin

Cybersecurity and Blockchain Technology 

The security of the blockchain relies on the decentralized nature of the system. Everyone in the network gets a copy of the chain. If someone were to attempt to change the information of a block, all the information in the chain following that would be void as there would be a break in the chain. This means that someone would have to adjust ALL the blocks following in order for the chain to accept that new block. 

Let’s say that someone accomplished this feat.

The problem that arises is that this single chain no longer matches the chain that everyone else in the network has a copy of. This essentially voids that chain. The shared database recognizes tampering with the chain and corrects the information. This means that the only way someone could change information, is if they changed over half of all the chains in the network, which is nearly impossible.

Supply Chain Implementation

The supply chain has the potential of implementing blockchain technology in many ways.

Business runs on information. The faster it’s received and the more accurate it is, the better – IBM

In the example above, a company can store transaction information to ensure authenticity and security. This helps with customer disputes, prevents fraudulent transactions, and false claims.

Blockchain technology can offer tracking and traceability. 

In sourcing, a block is created containing information about the exact location of where the raw materials were sourced. It can hold the payment and receipt information for the primary sector. This ensures proper compensation for the farmers, loggers, and miners acquiring the raw materials. An area that typically draws the short straw in the distribution of wealth.

In transportation, a block is created containing information about each step in production. The lifecycle of a product can be stored that includes production, distribution, and delivery. Companies can display a public product blockchain to their consumers to showcase fair trade and ethical sourcing. The increase in transparency allows for greater trust from consumers. Public blockchains can even provide consumers with real-time tracking of a product which is vital in the evolution of last mile delivery.

Courier companies like UPS and Fedex are beginning to use this technology through BiTA.

Examples

Big name companies are already implementing blockchain technology.

Fashion companies like Louis Vuitton and Prada are collaborating with Aura to authenticate products and display a transparent supply chain. Products are tagged with a microchip to display product authenticity, manufacturing date, and where it was made. The customer can also easily find the model number, where it was purchased, its description, and much more by simply scanning the tag. It can even show consumers the entire product lifecycle to ensure ethical sourcing.

According to the Prada Group:

The technology offered by the Aura Blockchain Consortium enables direct-to-consumer access to product-history and proof of authenticity; they can easily and transparently follow a product’s lifecycle, from conception through distribution, with trusted data throughout, and thus strengthen their relationship with their favorite luxury brands

Prada Group from Milan

Big pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Bayer are collaborating with MediLedger to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and reduce chargebacks and fraud. For example, real-time tracking ensures compliance with regulations in temperature and humidity. Tagging drug inventory tightens the supply chain to reduce counterfeit drugs. As a result, this also helps when validating drug returns to manufacturers when wholesalers receive excess inventory. 

According to Harvard Business Review:

The U.S. Drug Supply Chain Security Act of 2013 requires pharmaceutical companies to identify and trace prescription drugs to protect consumers from counterfeit, stolen, or harmful products

The Big Potential of Blockchain Technology for the Supply Chain

There is big potential with the use of blockchain in many sectors of business.

In the automotive industry, the technology can be used to store VIN numbers for easy recalls of vehicles, transfer car titles more efficiently, and track insurance data.

For the food industry, it can display ethical sourcing and environmentally friendly practices. In the hospitality industry, hotel chains can reduce third-party booking services and create efficient booking and selling processes.

In conclusion, blockchain technology has the potential to improve the supply chain of companies in ways we haven’t even discovered yet.

The blockchain provides a more secure, decentralized way to store information companies can become more efficient and transparent than ever before

As a result, connecting and tightening the supply chain from the source to the sale. Although, only the future can tell how blockchain technology will continue to improve and transform the supply chain.

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