Message Points: ChatGPT Isn't Emotional or Creative

Hello and thanks for joining me for Message Points. This is the podcast that is released between the discussion shows and it's here to provide you with additional insights, ideas and pointers on all things communication. So let's get to our first point. You know, chat GPT continues to create plenty of conversations and cautionary tales, including plagiarism alerts. Yet another reason why you should not solely rely on technology to do everything for you.

I mean, we've talked about that before on this show and on get the message. We've talked about not over relying on automation or attribution software, things like that. Well, A.I. copywriting tools are included in this. Copywriter and SEO specialist Shari Berg or Shari Berg. Hopefully I got one of those right. Shared a story about this on LinkedIn. She writes, Well, it finally happened, or at least noticed very publicly.

Companies are finding out that chat GPT isn't all that. And quite frankly, it's quite fond of plagiarism. In case you missed it, technology media giant seen it issued an apology this week for a little experiment it had going with the AI engine scene that employed chat GPT to produce some articles for its scene that money personal finance page. On the surface the articles seemed fine. They were coherent. However, another website called Futurism called them out for it when it discovered the content was full of errors.

Futurism also noted the popular AI engine had a fondness for outright plagiarizing. Others work on the same topics. If I produce copy like this for a client, they'd part ways with me in a hurry. Issuing a public apology for bad content isn't something any brand ever wants to do, especially if the bad copy commits the cardinal sin of copying someone else's hard work. It can ruin your reputation in a hurry, not to mention calls into question whether you're truly a subject matter expert.

When professional copywriters and content creators warn against using AI to replace our entire marketing department. We're not trying to save our own behinds. We're speaking the harsh truth that I simply cannot replace us. At least not yet. We care about your reputation. We want you to get top quality content that aligns with your mission, vision and values, not to mention your brand voice. If you don't produce content that adds value, then it won't rank well with search engines like Google.

Work with someone who understands the benefits and limitations of AI content engines. You won't regret it, but you may regret that 100% chat GPT generated blog you just posted. That's it. That's the post. Now go forth and create quality content that doesn't rely 100% on AI. You know, a couple of thoughts on this. When you think about how A.I. is going to be scraping the Internet for some of its information, in fact, I want to say one of the first times I tried chat GPT just to see what it would do.

I asked it about things I want to say. I even said something about marketing trends in 2023 and it said, Sorry, you know, I'm only digging information that goes back to 2021. So that was kind of interesting to keep in mind. But the other thing is, you know, I've spent some time talking here about, you know, how there's just so much repetitive content out there when it comes to companies who are in certain industries and they write blog content and they all think the exact same way.

Every single company in this space thinks, okay, well, every write blogs, we need to write this, this, this and this about these things. They're all thinking the same way. They're all written the same way. And that's why if you're writing one, let's just say the 25th blog on that topic in your space, because the others have been written over the last couple of years, you wonder just how much value it's going to bring your consumer if you're not putting new research, a new take on it, things like that. I wonder how that plays into this as well, especially if the information only goes back so far depending on where it's pulling the information from.

And her point about calling into question your legitimate claim to being a thought leader or a subject matter expert is fantastic. That is one of the main reasons why I would never solely rely on this. Well, first off, I. I don't want to I mean, you know, I think there's reasons for utilizing it and maybe it can help fill some content or give me something that, you know, maybe is helpful. But I think even then, I would still want to put my voice on it.

Even then, I'm still going to make judgments on whether it's relevant. You know, where some of this stuff gets kind of dangerous is, among other things, outside of plagiarism. You know, is, you know, those companies that are out there putting content out just just to say that they're doing it, you know, and they're just going to grab this blog or this content and just throw it on there and say, hey, we did a blog. And I think that's the other reason why she's talking about alignment here. You know, if all you're doing is just trying to turn something out quickly, I mean, it's really not doing you any good.

And then it's even worse if it's not aligning with your mission, your values, the things that are important to how people should view your company and what your company stands for. But all of that goes down the tube if you get accused of plagiarism. Here's our next point. You know, now things like chat keep not only remind us about how quickly things are evolving, but it also might make you wonder what you really should invest in or how much you should invest in something.

Well, B2B marketing advisor Stacy Dan Heiser has some answers and she posted this on LinkedIn. B2B marketers, when everything is changing all around you, it's time to shift the focus to what you can control. According to a LinkedIn survey, the biggest opportunities for B2B marketers right now are number one, investing and building relationships and trust with customers. If you don't have a marketing plan for your current customers, now is the time to build one.

What to do? Think beyond an e-newsletter. Provide value to your customers as they deal with changing business conditions. I love that point. She says. Think about this, she says. Think sea level involvement. Offer your engineering, marketing, or sales resources to share ideas and trends to help your customers sustain or grow their business. This means product, road mapping, planning sessions, team training sessions, etc.. Number two, a chance to stay relevant and rethink the brand story.

Now, if you follow Mark Shafer, you've heard him talk about the importance in rapidly changing times to staying relevant, she says. Yesterday, I wrote about the importance of being relevant in your marketing and sales outreach. Only the customer can decide if your solution and messaging are relevant. Man, I love that too. That is so true. You know what that reminds me of? Even back in the day when most of my work or a lot of my work was really creative driven and I still utilize creativity a lot.

I remember that I would tell fellow creatives that we had to be mindful of that. We could think something that we're creating as cool all day, but we're not making it for us. We're making it for the audience. And of course, that applies to marketing. Everybody can call this a brilliant hero shot and high five each other and think, All this sounds creative and brilliant, but it doesn't matter. If the customer or the consumer looks at it and goes, What am I looking at? So as she says, only the customer can decide if your solution and messaging are relevant.

She says, Here's what to do. Don't guess. Ask. Talk to your salespeople and customers to understand what's changed in the industry and business. Use tools like Winter, which is why NTR to test your messaging. Then keep everything updated and consistent. She says Number three and four take market share plus challenge creativity. These go hand in hand. My colleagues and I wrote an entire book called Standout Marketing based on our research into the Sea of Sameness.

Most companies copy and paste each other. Is this beginning to sound familiar? The result? Same look and feel. Same y story. Same jargon. Same perspective. If you want to stand out and take market share, you have to do things differently. And that requires some creativity. I feel like she could co-host this show with me.

There might be somebody listening now going, Did you write this or did she write this? I'm confused. This is all Stacy. All right. She goes on to say what to do first. Who internally is actively monitoring your competitors? Great first step. I often say quit focusing so much on what they're doing and trying to do it better and instead focus on what they're not doing and what you can do instead. She says You can't be different if you don't know what you're up against. Next, brainstorm ideas with a diverse group of internal stakeholders about ways to stand out sales, product, customer success, operations, etc..

Use the customer intel you gathered in step two to keep things in context. Next point. Speaking of not copying things that other people are doing, they ask you Answer. Author and digital sales and marketing expert Marcus Sheridan is telling marketers to stop doing something else. Very, very specific. He said this recently on LinkedIn. Dear marketers, please stop relying on, quote, other websites in your industry and quote to show you how to do your job.

A little inspiration from others is fine, but too often we use everyone else as a crutch. Besides that, they should be watching you. So blaze your own dang trail. And if you want to start thinking outside the box, stop focusing on your industry. Instead, look to actual creators on YouTube, Tik Tok, etc. that are in very different industries that are nailing the principles of creativity and content success.

Trust me, whatever they're doing right could very well apply to your business, your brand, and your content. You just have to have the right mindset. So please, for the love of all, that's pure holy.

Stop waiting for your industry peers to show you the way and start believing in your own ability to do something truly great, novel and lasting. You listen to that and not only does it make sense. It's also so simple. I'm sure Marcus is also aware that one of the things that gets in the way of that is somebody going, Well, we like how this person's doing videos or blogs, but we can't do that because that's not our brand or for whatever reason, that won't work for our company.

You know, I think about some of the other discussions we've had about this, where the word branding can just lock you in to a process where you can't do anything creative because you've already established what the parameters are and you're scared to death to go beyond them, even if it helps you. I also think about some advice we had on another message point about the idea of having memes as part of your social media presence and how it's okay to be fun. I mean, that was the point.

He was like, Oh my gosh, someone might smile or laugh when they look at your stuff. That's terrible. You don't want that, do you? And of course, the other component of this is everything. There's context. Context is needed for everything, right? You know, it doesn't necessarily mean you do something controversial, but I mean, you can definitely use something out there that everybody recognizes and put it in the context of your industry and have everybody go, oh, that is so true. Or, oh, my gosh, that's that. That's the struggle I have.

They clearly understand me because that perfectly and humorously demonstrates what I struggle with. Maybe this company can help me and maybe they've got some humanity back there because they're actually having some fun with this challenge. I mean, there's just so many ways to think about this. And I just recently wrote a blog on Scott Murray online dot com where Gary Vee talks about his process for Tik-tok videos and his team or his team's process. And their process is, let's go check out what people are doing right now, not what people have been doing ever since Tik-tok started.

Not doing what everybody's doing from, you know, post the graphic above and point at it. I mean, what everybody does, but literally what people are doing now that's catching a little bit of fire that's kind of new that we can jump on before it turns into something that everybody's been doing for the last eight months. And that's what they go with. And I think in some cases, that's what Marcus is talking about when he says, go out there and find some cool stuff people are doing and it isn't so much copying it, but figure out, okay, well, they did it like this. We could do it this way, but with this spin and this emphasis, I mean, we have so many tools to be able to infuse creativity, and sometimes that creativity can be a different way of presenting something, or it could be something that's going to help engagement.

Like I remember Chris Brogan when he first got into video, one of the things he was telling people was to add components and videos that would break up the monotony of just staying on a one shot the entire time, cut away to something, maybe you move around or something. But, you know, he was pointing out that's one of the reasons why newscast cut so many times with so many things going on, because if it stays on one shot for so long, people's minds can sometimes drift. So some of the creativity could be, okay, what can we do to turn this video into something that's not just somebody sitting in front of the microphone talking? Finally, our last point On a recent episode of Message Points, I talked about the new book by Nancy Hutt about behavioral science and marketing and the importance of emotion in marketing.

Well, the master of. Science and Applied Psychology department at USC has done some of its own research, and here are some highlights. I'm going to share this with you on the show notes for this episode. It's actually an infographic that just breaks everything down really nicely. It's called Thinking versus Feeling The Psychology of Advertising. It says the average American is exposed to a wide variety of commercials across many types of media, including TV, radio, online and print, on a constant 24 hour basis.

Exactly. And this is why I stress the importance of humanized communication and content with meaning and connection, because this is what people are bombarded with. Most of these things don't have that it says, but because we're exposed to so much advertising. How do marketers and advertisers make certain ads stand out in the herd? I love this because I think it strengthens what we talk about here.

So it says we've gone from being exposed to about 500 ads a day back in the 1970s to as many as 5000 a day today. 5.3 trillion display ads are shown online each year. The number of 32nd TV commercials seen in the year. For the average child, it's 20,000. For the average person, it's 2 million. It says advertising campaigns that performed well, 31% had emotional content. 16% had rational content.

It says emotional response to an ad has a far greater influence on a consumer's intent to buy a product than the ads content does. The emotion of likeability is the measure most predictive of whether an advertisement will increase brand sales. The most reoccurring themes for sentimental ads are pride, love, unique achievement, mans empathy, loneliness and friendships and memories.

Think about one of the key themes in Mark Shafer's latest book on Community about the loneliness issue that we have right now, including, you know, stemming back from the pandemic. And that's why community can be so powerful today. Community marketing can be so powerful. There's an emotional connection. There's a sense of belonging, a sense of friendship. Perhaps they say that there are two types of emotional response. Number one is based on empathy.

An empathetic response is when people empathize and feel closer to your brand after seeing the advertisement. But another thing that creates emotional response, and Nancy talks about this in her book, is being able to communicate in a way to your consumer or your customer and frame it in a way that generates an emotional response, makes them say something like, Oh, yeah, I would love that. I would love somebody did that for me. Or, Oh, clearly these people get it. And I think they can help me. Number two, they say another type of emotive response is based on creativity.

A creative response occurs when the ad makes people think your brand is imaginative or ahead of the game. Factors include casting, tone of voice, humor, background, music, setting the storyline, or even just the way the ad is directed. They say the lessons learned are create joy or surprise right away. Keeping viewers involved depends in large part on two emotions joy and surprise. And number two, build an emotional roller coaster. Viewers are more likely to continue watching a video ad if they experience emotional ups and downs.

I think this would be a great topic to discuss here, because I think there are so many other factors here you have to think about, including, you know, how long do you have

to potentially generate that response. Like when you're watching a YouTube ad and you have the ability to skip in 5 seconds, can you pull something like this off in 5 seconds that makes somebody not click skip? And that's how this stuff fits into communication. You know, I talk a lot about communication and sometimes we get into some of these strategic things. You know, I think it's important to remember we're still talking about communication. We're still talking about something that is conveyed in content that gets interpreted.

And there's a reaction usually either positive or negative. And another thing that I try to stress a lot is when when you think about all the those big numbers that they gave us at the beginning of this thing, the bombardment of ads, the bombardment of pitches, it creates defense mechanisms in us. That's why we're going to skip it. That's why you're only going to get 5 seconds sometimes. Times before, you know, we get to our content. First off, that's not what we came to see when the ad comes up. But if there's a chance, I mean, what do we have to do there to make somebody not skip? Is there something we can do there? Is there a signal we can send to the brain that says, Wait, this is different? And I still think these are the type of things that can apply to so many other forms of content and messaging.

So as I mentioned, I will have a link to that on the SHOWNOTES for this episode as well as the comments and links from LinkedIn that I shared today. The insights from our experts today. If you need to reach out to me, there's all kinds of ways to do that on the site, including recording a message, sending me an email at Scott at Scott Murray online dot com of course Scott Murray online dot com is where you will find this podcast And the show notes I just talked about. You can also fill out a contact form there if I can help you in some way and if you know other marketers or other people in the space or people that are really trying to improve that human connection from businesses to consumers, please tell them about the show so that the people we talk to here in the things that we talk about here, they can join in and be part of the conversation and learn about all the things that are going on in the communication and marketing world today.

Well, thank you so much for listening and I hope you'll join us next week for our next discussion on Get the Message.