AI Images they are the worst

Speaker A: Foreign. Marketing Espresso. Making marketing as enjoyable, energizing and digestible as your morning coffee. Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Marketing Espresso. I hope that you are, uh, well today. So I thought, being that actually, before we get into it, standard, before I go on my little rampage rant, whatever it is that I'm going to get delivered for you guys say, I wanted to remind you that although this is the last season of 2026, I will be bringing out other seasons. And the best way for you to find out when that happens is if you subscribe to the pod. But also if you've been a podcast listener for ages and you haven't left me a review yet, please do that. That would be excellent. And if you haven't reached out to me and asked me a question or, you know, give me something to ch on the podcast, then please, by all means, because it's coming back, it's not going for good. I'm not falling off a cliff. I keep reminding people of this. I'm just having a baby. Women do it all the time. We're very capable. I thought being last season and all, I might do something a little bit retro for the podcast and do some more individual solo eps for you. Which I know, like, people used to say they loved the solo eps and they actually preferred them. So I thought, you know what? I forgot a lot of thoughts going on in my mind about a lot of different things in marketing at the moment. So there's plenty that I can always talk about. So I thought, why not give you guys a topic of conversation that's been coming up a little bit for me, and it's around using AI to produce your images and whether we should be doing it, whether we shouldn't be doing it. And the reality is, I think it's pretty damn obvious if you're using AI to generate any of your branding stuff in this day and age. And I think that it's really unfair to your brand. And I want to really give a shout out to brand strategists out there, and not just because I've got a lot that are mates, but genuinely the work that they do, it's not just fonts and colors and it's not just this pretty stuff, it's actually the thoughts behind it. And I think in a world where everything is becoming increasingly same, same, and follow this AI and, you know, let's cut corners. And I think if you're a brand that actually invest in yourself and you're a brand that invests in you know, your brand and looking different and standing out and really understanding what those things are. I honestly think that you can't not succeed even when I know everyone's going on. I've had a lot of conversations lately about everyone saying there's no one not talking about the economy and how hard it is at the moment. And I get it. I hear it. Cost of living pressures, interest rates. I'm sick of hearing it, to be honest, because I've got clients out there that have had the biggest start to the year they've ever had in 10 plus years of business. So the reason that I think they're doing so well versus a lot of other businesses is because they're still m. They've got me working for them, but they're still you. They've come up with a brand and that brand has been going for 10 plus years. And I'm not saying you need to be 10 plus years in. What I'm saying is you need to be so solid in your brand that people know to expect it and know that it looks different and, and it doesn't look like shit. It looks like you've invested. It looks like you understand what you stand for. You say no to the things that you don't stand for and you actually stand for something in your space. You really, truly understand the unique selling proposition that you are delivering. And the reason I really wanted to go on this rant today was last week. I've got, I've got a client that's dabbling in the advertising world in terms of they've been around for a long time. We've done a lot of organic marketing. It's been very successful, uh, in the space they're in. The reality is referrals and word of mouth are always going to be key channels for them. But it was really about testing other channels. And this comes back to the thing I spoke about in the One Percenters episode where it's like, you know, what are you going to try every year that is a little bit different, that might help your marketing in some way or, you know, might just take you to a different audience that you hadn't gotten to before. So this is a thing that they've chosen to dabble in. And obviously the advertising world is expensive. You not only have the cost of the ads, but you also have the cost of the agency running the ads. And I always recommend to my clients not to do this themselves. I've had plenty of clients try and unfortunately it always kind of works out the same. Like it's not. Yeah, unfortunately, you are better off outsourcing. You are better off finding someone to do this for you because they just understand the platforms better. They generally also have the knowledge of what is working. Uh, and that's one of the things, you know, when you first engage with them, that's the conversations that you should be having around, you know, what are you seeing working at the moment? What kind of ads are producing, producing leads, like, what results are you getting? All of those great questions when you're looking for any kind of agency. So they, they're dabbling at the moment. And interestingly enough, this agency came recommended. And look, they've been fab, fabulous, great conversations, all of that. We had a hypothesis at the beginning of the experiment, if we will, because, uh, you guys know I love to relate marketing to science, science to marketing. We had the hypotheses and unfortunately that hypothesis has kind of come to. To fruition. There's two other things that we're testing at the moment that I'm like, I reckon they'll have a bigger impact just purely because of the way that the funnel is. So they sent us back this artwork for one of the ads in particular. And I was so underwhelmed and from the agency and from the conversations I was having with them, I was like, why would you even send this? You're a marketing agency. You, you should be priding yourself on creativity. Like, as marketers, there is an element of our job that has to always remain creative, that has to be looking for that edge that always needs to be trying to deliver the results, find the thing that no one else has found in that market for our client and be that little bit different. Like, that's why we get hired. And this image or these images were clearly AI And I thought to myself, this is crazy. We're in an, you know, we're in a world where I think marketers and the way that we use AI, it's definitely there to help us be more efficient. I literally put something into Claude this afternoon to ask whether I should be using humanitarics or eventbrite for something. Right. Research, boom. Gives m me an answer. Decided Humanitics because it's a way better organization. It's not for profit, all of that great stuff. But you would absolutely never, ever, ever, ever, ever catch me using AI to create an image for one of my clients that has branding guidelines and has a set templated approach to all of their collateral so that everything looks a certain way. And the problem with the AI images are, ah, they're not even created with humans in mind. They're not created based on the reaction humans have to the image, because AI doesn't know that. But we're very visual people and we're very easily overstimulated by visuals. So getting that balance right between esthetics and information and all of that on an image, it can't be done through AI. Well, and I think everyone, everyone knows now when you see an AI generated image, straight away you're like, ugh. And I've seen people doing it with their photos and it's just too perfect. Like, I think it shouldn't look that nothing's that perfect in life. You shouldn't look that perfect in a photo. It takes away your human. Ed. And I think this is the thing. The more that we use AI, the more we take the human out of stuff. I was reading something this afternoon and it was like, all about the fact that, you know, this marketer that I know, all her strategy sessions now are, uh, trying to give confidence back to business owners where they've lost it because the business owners have started relying on AI for answers to questions that they already know. And I think this is the problem. I think we're outsourcing these things. We're outsourcing the images, we're outsourcing the content, we're outsourcing absolutely everything because we're so busy and time poor that this content world that we got sucked into has seemed overwhelming. And it's felt like we can't meet the expectation of how often we need to be posting to the online world or whatever it is. But let me tell you, since I have not been posting about this podcast to my Instagram account, my downloads have over doubled every week. I've never been quieter about the podcast yet I've never received more downloads. And it's not even because my guests are doing a really great job of posting about it, to be honest. That's something that, when we come back, like, I need to be saying to my guests, this is what I expect from you. More when it comes to, you know, if you get time on this podcast, this is where I expect you to post it and celebrate it. And, you know, some of them are excellent, others I never hear from. But to be fair, that's also on me, right? Because I haven't sent them or pushed them or told them what I expect or any of those things when they come on. And even myself, I'm not doing a great job about posting. But ironically, yeah, the downloads have doubled and it's got nothing to do with me posting about it. And I think this is where we're using AI to cut corners. We think it's creating these really great visual images for us because we're not designers and we feel like I can't afford a designer. But it's not true. You actually absolutely can. When you are sitting down to launch your brand, when you're working on your brand, go and spend the money to get some templates. And I'm not talking generic canva templates, I'm talking talk to a brand strategist. It doesn't mean that you have to spend thousands of dollars. There are brand strategists out there that offer packages for unique templates that you can just have on rotation for your socials for things like that. And actually the difference is brand strategists and designers have done the qualifications to understand how the human brain works and that fundamentally has not changed. Even though with AI, I would say we are second guessing ourselves and the human brain is going to change. We have less attention span, we know. So therefore visually capturing someone is even harder now. So if you're using a really shitty AI image that's got too much text on it, doesn't have a point that's interesting whatsoever, uh, it's going to be really hard to grab someone's attention. Or if you really can't afford the brand person to have a look at your brand and just come up with some unique things for you, less is more. Go and do a little bit of research and discover what it is that your clients react to. And I guarantee you, to be honest, it's actually always a photo of you. And the more real you look, look, and the more raw you look, the more you're going to engage with people. I think AI feels fake when we see people online that just seem too perfect, too overdone, that feels fake too. And I think that depending on who your client is, if your client's someone that's in a, in a world where aesthetics are everything, then sure, you're going to have to match that standard. But if you're, you know, an Australian business looking for other Australian businesses, we just want someone that relates to us. We want someone that makes us feel seen. We want people that seem in our world and not completely out of it. But please stop using AI to generate your images is pretty much the whole thing about this. Because brand strategists, designers, they all have their place. There's a reason that they exist in the sphere that is marketing. There's A reason that they can boost visibility. There's a reason that brands that invest in this do better than brands that don't that think they can cut corners and go through AI or think that, like, oh, that looks good enough, good enough. Um, is it good enough? Is it good enough for your brand? Is it good enough for the thing that you're investing all your time and energy into? Is it good enough for the thing that you decided to launch? Make sure that you're. It's not just, uh, good enough. We want better than just good enough. And I think your brand deserves better than just good enough if you're really serious about it and serious about standing out in crowded markets and serious about, you know, having that point of difference. So I hope that's been helpful and not just a little bit of a rant for you. My key takeaways are, uh, if you're feeling overwhelmed and you're like, but, Beck, I have to use AI. Like, I need to cut this corner. I've got no time. Then I think, reevaluate. Go back to the point that I always go to because I want to give you, uh, guys, something actionable from this. If you are feeling that overwhelm and you're like, AI is my only answer. I need it to write my content and I need it to create my images. I want you to go back to why. And also, what kind of response do I think I'm going to get from this? What am I hoping to achieve by doing this thing and cutting the corner? Because will I actually achieve the thing I want to achieve or will I miss the boat entirely? And therefore I'm better off actually doing less but doing things better? And it always comes back to that, you know, quality versus quantity. Unfortunately, that has not changed in the world because I think, you know, this podcast is proof that sometimes when we pull back, it doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to lose all of the momentum that we've made. I mean, I think me pulling back from Instagram doesn't really matter because I think finding anyone on Instagram these days is nearly impossible. And all my conversations lead around that. But I don't think LinkedIn is that far behind, if we're going to be completely honest. Uh, I think a lot of people's engagement has fallen off a cliff and I think people are a little bit over the platform. I think people are just over this social media, crazy driven world that we're living in that is forcing us to use AI constantly rather than focusing on the things that we know really, really matter. Um, so that's my thoughts for you today. I hope it's been helpful. Reach out and ask me any questions that you have on this episode or any episode, really. I'm always happy to help out with your marketing question. Um, I love marketing and I really want to see it done well by you guys. I want everyone that listens to this podcast to feel empowered and feel like they can actually take control of their marketing, do a really great job without AI creating their images. I hope you have a great week, guys. I'll be back in your ears next week. Hi Bec here. Just dropping in to say that if you are struggling with your marketing planning, I have got the solution just for you. You I have recently launched my marketing planner to the world and I am offering it to you at a 5% discount for listening. Uh, to the potty. You can see what's in the planner and how it's going to change your life simply by visiting my website, beckchapel.com and heading to the resources section. When you're ready to check out chuck in potty VIP and you'll get your 5% discount. Thanks for listening and I hope that it changes your life.