Is Generative AI a Marketing Miracle? Yes. 

It’s intelligent! It’s revolutionary! It’s paradigm-shifting! It’s… marketing?

How much of the glitzy AI fanfare is justified and how much is just damn good PR?

As tools like ChatGPT dominate the public imagination, it’s easy to forget that they’re just really, really sophisticated auto-complete that learns from whatever’s available on the internet. And that material isn’t always great. 

Scientists predict that by 2026, AI chatbots will plateau because they’ll run out of quality, human-created training data—there are only so many Moby Dicks out there to lift from. When language models have nothing left but Tweets and 4chan comments to train on, their dazzling sonnet-writing abilities will start to dwindle—unless they re-read Melville. 

The much-hyped neural networks that form the basis of today’s AI tools might be artificial, but they’re not intelligent as we understand that term, bearing little resemblance to human brains. Yes, they can recognize patterns and can generalize, but they’re not capable of conceptual knowledge or deliberate reasoning. 

For now, when it comes to delivering measurable value, it’s less about the miracle of generative AI and more about the usefulness of ML (machine learning). Specifically, predictive analytics that can inform operational decisions. For example: if you can accurately predict when most customers will sign up for your service, you can get in front of the right audience that much faster. Is that modest and mundane? Yeah. Sorry. 

What Barbie Girls Can Teach Us About Marketing

If you’ve left your house even once this summer, you already know that the gooey, frothy, bubblegum-hued Barbie movie is hot AF right now. We’re all eating pink yogurt and dreaming pink plastic dreams. 

But how did an 11-inch doll inspire this much LUV? More importantly, how did the 60+ year old Barbie brand manage to stay relevant, especially when its young customers began opting for hipper, digitally-based playtime? Like, you know, video games? 

It’s marketing magic.

Barbie found a mission. No longer “just” a plastic toy, Barbie is now a recognizable brand with a noble purpose: “To inspire the limitless potential in every girl.” To be fair, that was Mattel’s tagline back in ‘59. In other words, the brand got in touch with its roots while also touting the psychological, emotional, and pro-social benefits of playing with dolls. Inspiring little girls to dream big, play hard, and connect meaningfully with one another is worth the fanfare. 

Barbie diversified. A mere decade ago, Barbie wasn’t invited to sit with the cool kids: young girls just didn’t see themselves in the preternaturally thin, grinning blonde. Mattel got the message and today’s Barbies sport a splendid diversity of body shapes, ethnicities, and abilities. It’s not just Malibu Barbie anymore—now you can aspire to be Professor Sarah Gilbert, vaccinologist and creator of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine. I know, right?

Barbie partnered. To promote the film, Mattel collaborated with 100+ companies, from Xbox to Crocs to Airbnb to Moon (that’s electric toothbrushes, btw)—if you’re Team Barbie, the merch is everywhere you look (literally, and I don’t mean figuratively). Best of all, every single imaginable demographic is on board: kids, feminists, gamers, champions of ugly shoes, fashionistas, your great Aunt Maude.

Well, maybe not everyone. Some detractors see the Barbie movie as a cynical cash grab—but hey, life in plastic isn’t always fantastic. 

Is Generative AI the Future of Marketing? Maybe

As marketers start prepping for the all-important second half of the year, some are turning to generative AI products like ChatGPT and Google Bard for solutions. But the FTC has its suspicions that the training programs for Open AI’s Large Language Models might involve security breaches and deceptive practices.

Marketers, being ever practical, just want to know if generative AI is a smart content creation tool.

With AI algorithms’ potential for misinformation, loose morals regarding plagiarism and inclusivity, and tendencies to hallucinate chimera like nonexistent audience demographics (yes, really), the best answer now is: it depends.

If you need to rapidly create a massive amount of content at scale and aren’t working in an ethically-rigorous field with lots of oversight (like healthcare or cybersecurity), give AI a spin. But don’t forget to edit. A lot.

Remember: AI is an excellent collaborator when it comes to ideation and planning. Stuck staring at that intimidating blank page? Ask the Bard to spit out a few email subject lines—then iterate and refine. Ask thoughtful questions, too. Generative AI is like a feedback loop: the quality of the prompt delimits the quality of the output.

It’s sort of like having a bright-eyed intern hanging around the creative department: handy, eager to please, lots of perfectly decent ideas… but maybe don’t invite them to client meetings—yet.

As Meta’s Threads Rivals Twitter, Marketers are Paying Attention

Twitter’s traffic has seen a nosedive since last Wednesday, when Meta rolled out its slick text-based platform, Threads. It’s like Instagram, but with text instead of pics. In other words, it’s exactly like Twitter. 

Boasting more than 100 million sign ups over the weekend, Threads is outpacing OpenAI’s ChatGPT in popularity. And it hasn’t even launched in Europe yet, where its user base is expected to explode.

Why people love it: users can sign up with their Instagram account and keep their username, which means they’ll already have followers. It’s easy, quick, and familiar.

Why it’s fab for content marketers: paid ads haven’t been intro-ed on Threads yet, which means it’s a red-hot opportunity to start building organic traffic. And if you’re familiar with Meta’s ad manager, moving brand messaging to Threads will be a breeze – and the followers are already there. So look out for that any-minute-now pitch from the Meta/Insta team. 

Press Release: Em Dash Content Studio Has Rebranded

(07/06/2023) As Em Dash continues to grow, we’re jazzed to announce the launch of our revitalized brand name, shiny new website, and updated services. 

Em Dash Content Studio is a boutique writing agency delivering end-to-end solutions for SEO content, copy, and strategy. Organic traffic driven by optimization and extraordinary writing is our MO and our roots are as varied as our gifted strategists, editors, and writers, hailing from marketing, journalism, business, academia, music—and Australia. 

In the last few months, we’ve put our heads and hearts together and decided it’s time to share more of our brilliance with the rest of the world. So we teamed up with the most talented designers on the planet at Buddy Web Design and Development to update our brand name and slogan. Biggest of all, we’re adding website audits and copywriting to our list of content marketing services. 

Sarah Loughry, Em Dash’s visionary founder and CEO, says, “This has been a long time coming. Since our founding in 2021, we’ve remained nimble—growing and evolving as a company and team. And this is just the beginning.”

Our new direction means we’re even better equipped to continue working closely with small to midsize businesses to help them grow. Every time a client lands on page one of Google, our team throws a parade because it’s a win for all of us. We’re writers and thinkers who love data, and our success comes down to math… and magic.