What should marketing and communications leaders actually do with AI right now?

Speaker A: You matter in my life as a brand or frankly, you don't. We have to be all in on this. It has to be real across every single thing that we do. I don't mind an AI generated beach, but I don't want AI generated people. So to be able to turn creative round ideas around, respond to market trends, respond to price drops and wider, AI can be absolutely invaluable in that process. What is AI? What are we doing? Where's it all going? If I hadn't checked something properly, I would have ended up in a bit of hot water with things I've quoted or used.

Speaker B: There we are. Well, welcome, welcome everybody. When I do this, I would like whoops and rounds of applause if we could. Hello and welcome. I'm your host, Sam Knowles. As Andrew said, this is the second year in the row that we've recorded a live episode of Data Malarkey, the podcast about using Data Sparta live on stage at the Craven Hill Conference at the invitation of Andrew. Andrew, thank you again so much. As Andrew said, joining me on stage today is the multi award winning chief, uh, Communications and Chief Marketing Officer Pete Markey. And I can't tell you how pleased that I am that I'm going to be talking data malarkey with Pete Markey. Proper classic nominative determinism here. Now, Pete CV is a roll call of some of Britain's biggest and best known brands. He cut his teeth with British Gas and the AA and he was Marketing Director, uh, first at the Insurance Challenger brand more than after which he took the same role at the global insurer rsa. This was followed by stints leading marketing and communications at the Post Office, Aviva, TSB bank and most recently and about this time last year for Boots. Pete's gone a bit plural since then, sharing his experience, success and trophy cabinets full of awards with a growing portfolio of clients. Though last month he took on the role of Chief Communications and Marketing Officer at the University of Nottingham. Nottingham M is a world top 100 university and a Russell Group institution with campuses in the uk but also in China and Malaysia. Not to mention, as you were telling me earlier, Pete, a team of 277. Throughout Pete's career, data evidence and increasingly the role of AI and machine learning have been constant run beats. It's great to have you live on stage today, Pete. Welcome to Data Malarkey.

Speaker A: Well, it's great to be here, thank you, thank you for that reception.

Speaker B: Now first off, could you tell me if that's a good narrative about how you've Got to where you are today. Is there anything I've missed off or got wrong? This is your chance to put the record.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I think got most. Well, it was all spot on, as you'd expect. Sound very diligent. And, um, now, the last year I've had a lot of fun actually, so I've been out consulting. So, um, the more random thing I'm working on at the moment is I'm trying to launch a new male skincare brand with Ben Shepard and Joel Dommet. And so Ben host this morning in Tipping Point, Joel hosts the Mas Singer and it's been fascinating. And can I do some audience anticipation? Please, let's do it. How many men in the room actively have a skincare regime? You see, there's a gap there. So, um, those that have see me afterwards, those that haven't still see me afterwards. Um, but there's a new brand coming this year. We're working on. It's been a lot of fun trying to engage and work with men who traditionally were not known, uh, for being that engaged with our skincare regime. So that's also been quite exciting. On top of the other bits you've talked about and data and use, uh, of, uh, both of their fan bases to create and build the brand has been an important part of that story. So, yeah, very excited.

Speaker B: Fantastic. Now, before we consider the current and the future impact of AI on marketing communications, both the opportunities and the pitfalls, I, um, wanted to ask you for this first. Across the many different roles that you've held, what have you learned about human behavior that never changes, regardless of category or technology?

Speaker A: I think there's a. There's something about, um. I think relevance is probably a word that I've used a lot, probably particularly in the last three or four jobs, is that. And we can all relate to this in our own lives. Are brands that matter in our lives and are important and brands that drift out of importance in our lives? Um, when I joined Boots, um, people would say to me, oh, you're joining good old boots. And it used to really annoy me because good old boots is something at the back of your mind. It's a business you maybe used to interact with is not important anymore. And we set out a mantra to go from good old boots to oh, my God, wow, boots for each bit of communication. And I think the bit that's always been true is your brand can so easily lose relevance if you're not careful, if you haven't got that connection and you don't show up. In a relevant, modern way in people's lives today. And that was certainly a true boots about five years ago. So always we need to think about the role we're playing customers. Are we relevant today? Because we are as brands, easily replaced in many instances. So that importance of staying relevant, I think is just a human need of, like, you matter in my life as a brand, or frankly, you don't.

Speaker B: Very good, Very good. Now listen, you've looked after, as I've said, highly trusted and often very fragile public brands that are absolutely in the public, in the public eye. What do you think that a modern CMO. What does a modern CMO understand about trust that a 1990s marketer simply would not have had to consider?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think the. I think it's such a positive thing. But being true to what you're about and being authentic and you will live and breathe this with the brands you look after each day is more important now than ever in an age of social media, isn't it? Where you will get called out if your brand is not living and breathing what is doing? And I think that's become increasingly important. And, um, my favorite example of this was when I worked for more than Challenger. Uh, insurance company launched 20 years ago. Uh, this year, um, we were all about, we do more. That was our promise. And, um, I remember the most humbling moment, having been in that business and we were taking the brand, looking at the brand tracking and people loving the brand, and then took a deeper level into the experience tracker. And it was very clear that we were less than. So, um, we'd offshored our call center to Mumbai. Our fault. We hadn't trained people properly. People in the call center weren't trained. They didn't know what a lawnmower was. They didn't know what a garden shed was. And you listen to these calls. Oh, God. And so we were delivering less than. And that was being called out through surveys. Now, if that was today, there would be a plethora of content of people saying, you are less than, you are not more than. And I think one of the best examples of how, as brands, if we've got a clear sense of purpose and what we're about, it has to be real, has to be authentic. And I think the, the truth now is that's more important than ever. So any positioning work I, uh, I've done with any business has been really clearly about what this actually means. This isn' clever line of copy at the bottom of our adverts with, uh, you for life for boots. An example is this has to be about the DNA of what we do. And if you walk into a shop and it's not true, and you meet our staff and it's not true, then it ain't true and we can't do it. We have to be all in on this. It has to be real across every single thing that we do, not just something really clever at the bottom of an advert. And that's the thing I think is more true than ever before.

Speaker B: That's perfect. Now, listen, every generation believes that it's invented. Sex didn't quite work there. Um, and for many, as we've heard several times today, the age of AI began on 30th November 2022 with the launch of ChatGPT. But you've worked in finance and fintech and you've been modeling the impact of marketing effectiveness throughout your career. When did you start to use what might be called AI and machine learning?

Speaker A: Ooh. I think, I mean to. Honestly, it's really accelerated in my life and work probably in the last year. Um, and I guess, particularly when I was, I guess in the back six months of boots, and as I enter period of doing consulting, it, um, just became more and more of an aid to me and the team. But also there was just more and more noise. And, um, I don't mean that in a bad way, but, you know, when you sit in a CMO's job, there's a lot of noise around you and particularly lots of really happy CFOs who are like, oh, I've just read the FT, but everyone's piling in on AI. What are you doing? And it got to the point where I actually wrote a paper with the team that we kept updating every month on what are we doing about AI? Because if I had a pound for the number of times I was asked, you were like, no, we're already doing stuff. But it was quite a good discipline. So I think it was probably about 18 months ago. What are we actually doing? What should we be doing? How we benchmark against others and what's the AI journey that we're on? And that was also aided by working with a couple of big hold codes. WPP on their tool open. We worked with Oliver on their pencil tool. We had tools around us that I thought, we've got to start to do something with this technology. So that was the sort of boots journey. Um, and to do that, mainly the thinking process was, how does this help us speed up what we're doing? Brief writing, development, Research analysis, it was really important. So the number of questions the research team would get on basic things, like how many women In Wolverhampton age 35, like L'. Oreal, that was really helpful for pulling that together, but also some creative development. Um, and at that stage I drew very clear guidelines around what we would and wouldn't do as a brand. So, yeah, so for boots as a brand, on images, we haven't retouched images for many, many years. So clearly, I don't want AI generated people or AI generated body parts, hands or whatever. If we talk about health and wellness and beauty, it's got to be real. I don't mind an AI generated beach, but I don't want AI, uh, generated people. It has to be authentic and true to what we're doing. And then just for myself, consulting in the last year, when you suddenly go from having the, um, people who are out on their own consult will know this, you suddenly go from, what if you've got a PA and a team and then you arrive in something like the Ben and Joel thing, and you go, what's the marketing team? Well, it's me, uh, and what's my pa? Support me. And, uh, I am organized, but I tend to try and be in five places at the same time. And suddenly AI just became invaluable to research markets and understand industries where I didn't have a research team and I needed to do stuff myself. The only key, learning, I guess, for me with that is also just checking that what you're being given back is factually accurate. And, uh, my favorite moments, I had to, uh. I, uh, think it was for a podcast again. I had to provide quotes of what other people had said about me. I thought, I don't know. So I went to ChatGPT and it made up about five quotes. And I thought, these are brilliant said. Who said them? Oh, no, no, they weren't actual real quotes, just things that we think people that, you know, would have said about you. And I said, can you only give me real quotes? And they said, I'm so sorry, in the future, I know I'll only give you real quotes. And, um, anyway, it's got better since then. Um, but it's become invaluable in just how I live my everyday life now in terms of managing my time. And, um. So, yeah, it's become increasing part of what I do.

Speaker B: So. Would you describe yourself as more fanboy than Luddite? I mean, I'm just interested in what your current split is between kind of excitement and concern when it comes to using generative AI. M in particular.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I'm more in the excitement part, I think, at the moment. And I'm on the consulting bits. I work with an agency called Bold Space. They've got a tool called boldstream and they've built an AI version of me in there. There's agents based on cmos, so I've been through the journey of having my mind mapped and turned into AI and M so people can interrogate. This sounds scary, doesn't it? An AI version of me. So it's been quite exciting going on that journey and that tool's being, uh, promoted more heavily in the next few weeks. So I've really learned to embrace it. I think. I can't run away from it. I guess where the concern comes in is, I think for me and the team I'm working with now, I think there's still got to be the element of really clear and sharp strategic thinking across the top, you know, and the best of the AI tools I've seen, it could be great at helping you and assisting you in generating content, particularly, you know, um, versioning of creative. But I would hate to see a day where we lose that strategic thought or the creative brilliance of some of the work I've admired through the years. And, you know, the example I used recently is. Is, um. I think it's got a bit tired now. But you look at the meerkat campaign, I can't see it a day yet. And I might eat these words. If I'm here next year or the year after, where an AI tool can generate something as brilliant and off the wall as that, where you go, I've got some meerkats promoting a car insurance comparison website. I can't quite see it yet. And, um, I guess the best example of that is I did some consulting for a media agency, Fusion Unlimited, at the start of this year. I was writing the positioning. I got to a point where I was really stuck on the end line. I knew what we were about and I'd written some version. I'm stuck on this. So I thought, I'm going to go to ChatGPT and help me write it. I said, imagine you are the best copywriter in the world and you wrote Nike's Just do it it. And this is the agency and this is our values. Write it. For me, it's utter crap. I mean, literally just tried to rewrite, just do it. And it was just awful. And so I haven't yet got to a point of going, I can't see the brilliance yet coming through there. So my excitement is labor saving, time saving helps you like, if I look at the University of Nottingham, the number of versions we've got to do creative in all the global markets we're in, it's a game changer. And that was true of Boots. The millions of variances of Christmas campaigns and ads. AI is a game changer there, but the concern is I'd never want to lose that oversight over the top of that creative brilliance and thinking and strategic thought that I think we do so well. So whenever I, including in my current job and in Boots, very clear on where we set the guardrails and what we will and won't do. AI can be brilliant at these things, but I want to protect these skills because I just think they're brilliant and I would never want to lose them.

Speaker B: I think it's a constant drumbeat that we've heard throughout from different contributors today. I'm sure we'll continue to hear. And when I speak to people on data malarkey, constantly, that people are saying that critical thinking is something that we cannot cognitively offload. It's going to be a real risk. Now, when you were at the Post Office, you described CMOs as needing to be artists, scientist and politician. Of those three, which do you think has become most challenging and which most important in the era of AI?

Speaker A: Can I say all three? Um, I think as a cmo, the scientist bit. The reason I said that was that so much of our jobs now is about data. And, um, if I look back when I first started my career at British Gas, um, the rock stars of British Gas were the Brand team. And I remember I just moved up the ranks a bit, end up in the Brand team and they just were about to fly off to Cape Town to film the advert and had like, flying kettles in the air weekends. Ah, set in Cape Town. I was like, lucky people. Then I got to make my first A.D. six months later, which was in a warehouse in Croydon. I was thinking, something's gone wrong here. But at the time you didn't really need the debt. You got your brand tracking a few months later. But the rock stars were like, look at this ad, it's on tv. It's amazing. I really think that shifted where I think the access point of, I, uh, guess power and influence is what data have you got as a marketer to go, is this working or isn't it? And what can you tell me whether it's going to work in advance or not? So, uh, at uh, both TSB and Boots, we started using System one. System one have really grown in terms of what they're able to do, but that uses eye tracking to check. You put an advert in front of an audience, even rough edits or, um, animatics, and it'll tell you the brain pathways of what people are thinking. Love, hate, disgust, loathing, whatever. But also at the end they do a survey. Key takeaways. That's a brilliant example of science driving art. So what's the data behind it? And also at the end gives an indication of short term and long term sales impact. So I think the role of CMO has become far more about the story you can tell with data and how data and insight is powering your decision making to give a business confidence, particularly when you're doing big investments. When you're looking like a Christmas campaign, you might be putting 8 to 10 million into that. And previously you'd sit six people in a room, feed them sandwiches, uh, give them some beers in three locations in the country and go, we've got it, we've got the campaign. Whereas now I'm like, oh no, actually I'd really want to check is every aspect of that working? And that eye tracking was so powerful and we fundamentally changed and re edited some of the boots adverts on the back of that favorite, um, example is a summer ad from two years ago. We filmed more than we needed because we were going to do some more direct response edits. And we had a scene of a guy waxing his chest. It was really painful to watch it and he had to do it over and over again. So his chest was like raw. And so I was scarred thinking, I really hate that shot. And we had a lovely shot of a couple, uh, who were going out on a first date in one, one of those sort of wheelie things that spins around at Fun Fair.

Speaker B: That's great.

Speaker A: That was in the edit. The System one tracker was literally. It was like we put people in a coma with that shot of the couple. They hated it. So re edited and put the guy with waxing his chest, it went like this. So, yeah, yeah. So maybe we all like seeing people in pain waxing their chest, I don't know. But that tracking, just to show engagement, that data is so powerful to, uh, unlock better performance. So I think that matters more. You have to be able to talk the language of the business, the data and show what you're doing lines up with that data more and more.

Speaker B: Well, hello there. Hello, it's your host, Sam here. Now, I won't keep you for long. If you've been inspired by what you've been listening to today and you'd like to find out what type of data storyteller you are, why not go to our Data Storytelling scorecard? Just follow the link to data-thetelling.scoreapp.com. that's ScoreApp with two P's. Answer 12 simple questions and you'll instantly be served with a scorecard that tells you exactly what type of data storyteller you are. Now back to the action and our brilliant guest, a former guest on this podcast, Mark, uh, Evans, who was at the time, he was the CMO at Direct Lines, uh, he characterized some of the old fashioned views of um, uh, the marketing department as being the coloring in department. But I think that, which I think that is long in the past. But that point you make, I can see from where I'm sitting on this stage. Another former guest, Stephen Waddington, trained as an engineer, applying engineering rigor to communication. I think it's so encouraging to hear that thinking about, um, inside large organizations, most recently Boots, where AI adoption. Where would you say AI adoption is genuinely happening fastest? Is it, uh, I'll give you a cornucopia. Customer service, Insight, media, creative, reputation management, or somewhere much less obvious.

Speaker A: No, I think, I mean the pressure point was definitely, if I look at Boots was really on marketing and digital. That's where most of energy was. And I sense most businesses I talk to, it's sort of starting there and rippling out. So in digital the energy was just around making the experience better. You know, can we make it easier using AI for someone to find what they're looking for, particularly at Christmas, because often people don't know what they're looking for. Can I make gift finding much easier and better? Great. I think AI is brilliant for that on your website, um, and particularly in the app as well. And then you have loyalty cardholders. We have. Boots have 17 million active cardholders, 85% of them are women actually. To get that audience to shop around and find the best deals in the moment. AI was becoming invaluable for that, um, and also particularly about giving people the right offers at the right time for uh, the Advantage card, then it really was creative development. So how do we speed up, uh, what we're doing that once we've got the core idea, or we're running a more basic campaign which is as simple as pollen count is high, or can we use AI to produce that and do that faster? We had an internal studio we Were moving much more into things like digital screens in the stores. Can we speed up the process of doing that? So that was where we were seeing the real benefit. I think the challenge was, uh, and I trying to juggle this is. And this may well be the same in the world you're in. It's a pressure point between effectiveness and efficiency. And I was very much riding the wave of this is going to make us more effective and see it through. I was finding it quite hard to say. And if I did this thing, I don't need X number of people in the way I've had before. Um, and I think I haven't quite mastered how to tackle that bit of this tool is going to remove all these tasks. The way we were able to put in was way more that this makes us just a lot better at what we do, a lot faster at what we do. And we could see the results come out smarter. And it means we can get to stuff we've never had a chance to get to before.

Speaker B: There was a great panel earlier on, uh, at the AI PR conference, uh, that was talking about, uh, the way that, focusing particularly on creative development, uh, and you touch on that there. And clearly we're seeing AI generate copy, visuals, media plans, synthetic audiences, campaign analysis and so on. We've also heard a lot about humans in the lead, humans in the loop and so on. Where would you insist on human judgment or would it be kind of across the board?

Speaker A: Um, I mean, I think you always need a degree of it. I think in a marketing team, like air traffic controllers, people that if you're putting a brief into an AI platform that you've got oversight of, is the creative matching the brief? Am I happy with it? You definitely need that level of oversight and understanding. And I do really. I really like synthetic audiences. My experience with them has been largely positive. Um, but again, I still think you need someone to interpret and go, is this data telling me? I really want it to. So I think if you're a marketing manager today, I think your role will be shifting more into that air traffic controller role of actually, I'm mastering all of these things, but actually I need to have oversight over is this meeting the quality bar and is this strong enough for what I need? And then you lift that up into larger campaigns like a Christmas campaign. I can't imagine a day when you literally press a button and say, oh, I want to sell some Dior Sauvage and a couple of gift sets and number seven and just going to press the button and put the kettle on and 10 minutes later is my campaign, you know, level of thought and uh, craft that needs to go into something like that. I think you need way more strategic oversight. So I would put it by size and scale of campaign but at some point you always need some degree of oversight across what you're doing. But AI should be that enabler, as I was saying a minute ago, to really speed up what you're doing, make it sharper, smarter, better. And a business like Boots and anyone here working in retail, retail is in my view all about speed. Particularly at Christmas and Black Friday you're trading, you are ah, either uh, one and lost in the moments of a day. So to be able to turn creative around, ideas around, respond to market trends, respond to price drops and wider, AI can be absolutely invaluable in that process.

Speaker B: Quite so, quite so. Now you've talked about uh, working with some of the largest, uh, holding companies, uh, agency holding companies and so on and you've led big organizations with large, I mean enormous, the biggest agency ecosystems. How do you think AI is going to change the relationship between brands and agencies in the next. Well, I'm not going to give you a number of years because it'll change tomorrow, but in the years ahead, head

Speaker A: I think it's going to fundamentally change. I think it's, but it's got to be thought about in the context of all the ways of working and I worry because I see too many AI tools out there that just about here's this tool and actually you know, I take a different example but I've put the Adobe platform, I uh, love Adobe but there are other platforms are available, um, but put it into three different businesses and where those implementations tend to fail is because the business doesn't change how it operates, they just sort of get put in and I think it's got to fundamentally change. But the conversation is more a bit about the entire ways of working between marketing agencies and media, the whole ecosystem. Because if you don't fix all that, you can buy something over here and think, well that will replace this, that and the other, but it probably won't and it will cause you problems down the line. So where I'm seeing people win, are they thinking about the entire ecosystem of how we get things done? You know, so coming into University of Nottingham we've got an internal studio and work with them to go actually how are we or aren't we using AI and how will that fundamentally change and improve how we get work out the door and what we do? It's not, oh, let's get some AI. It's can that really strengthen, improve, can it speed up what we're doing? Can we get better version control? Can it cut, uh, our costs? What can it do? Um, and then I think as a client for brands like Boots and a company I'm working for now is thinking about, well, what sort of work do we want done and can we do that ourselves or do we still need real help to do that? So if I was still wearing my boots hat, back to, uh, uh, campaign example. If I was doing a campaign that's about earwax removal m everyone's favorite topic, um, I'd argue you could probably do that with some photography and using AI quite easily. But if it's a Christmas campaign where everything, I mean boots, 40% of the boots profit is made at Christmas. So if you get it wrong, it's not like you've just messed up an earwax campaign. It's literally all gone. So for me, that's again, where I would want more agency input. Um, so I think as clients, you're in a strong position, but you got to be really clear, what do you want? The answer can't just be, I want some AI. It's got to be, how do I want to change the way I work and what do I want from agencies? How can agencies help me with that? And what are all the processes connected with that? And then there's a reskilling and retraining of the marketing team or the comms team. You know, if, if I'm moving marketers from being a marketing manager to more of an air traffic. I need to find a better title in air traffic controller. But if the role's evolving, how am I helping my team go on that journey? I can't just plug some kit in and go, off you go. Actually, if it's changing the way we work, then that's a fundamental rethink. Um, and I think that's where I, that's where I focused on the energy.

Speaker B: Very good. Now listen, this is AI for PR conference. We're not just talking about marketing. We're focused at this conference on AI for pr. What do communicators do you think still underestimate about reputation in an AI mediated world?

Speaker A: I think I've not seen any howlers yet. You'll be pleased to hear. Um, reputation can be so fragile and I think, um, I'd just be very thoughtful. I mean, I think if I look at this, just a small example, but, uh, one of the things we did At Boots is there was a trend. I think it was over a year and a half ago now. It was like a day or so where people were creating themselves with little action figures on a card. Whether you remember those, we might have all tried to go at doing them in the room. It was like the thing, everyone was doing them, you know, here I am and it's my little kit bag. And we did one of those. And the backlash we got was, was immense. It was people saying, oh, God, you're doing creatives out of the job. You're killing the industry. How dare you use AI? And that was interesting. It's like, golly, that's just one post based on something everyone else is doing. So I think it's having our eyes open on AI could be really powerful. But there is a school of thought and there is an element of backlash of, uh, are we just being seen to be being lazy or are we removing people's jobs? Um, so I think being very thoughtful around, there'll be ways to use this or to flag that you used AI, but thoughtful out ways you don't. And back to my earlier comment for Boots, I'd hate to think we end up sort of killing off the creative industry or the modeling industry, uh, indirectly or directly would be awful. And I think there would be a swing of backlash to that. So as brands, I think we need to be incredibly thoughtful about that. And the approach and the other bit which everyone will be grappling with will be things like copyright. You know, am I using something? Am I really clear that I own the copyright? It's really original material, all of that is. And there are many court cases in the states, aren't there, with AI platforms and Disney and wider, that we're probably all aware of being very thoughtful about all that. So navigating that too. Um, so, yeah, I'd be thoughtful about all that. Uh, not to, uh, overly hesitate, but just think, if I'm using AI, can I justify and explain why I'm using it and in what role? How's it balanced with the other stuff I'm doing and where does that lead me as a brand?

Speaker B: We've had a couple of really interesting sessions today talking about using AI for measurement and also measuring the impact of communications through AI. You've spent years defending and arguing for increased marketing investment, uh, in boardrooms, in the C Suite. In your experience, has AI improved marketing accountability or simply created new dashboards and a whole new set of noise?

Speaker A: Where I've seen it's best, it helps the day to Day get better so the noise is more, we can produce these reports faster, smarter, better. Uh, we can answer these questions and we don't need to generate more unnecessary work. Um, I think where it's created noise is back to my earlier comment is there are, how to phrase, uh, this politely. In any business you'll find the people who want to be the AI expert, particularly in the board or um, uh, around the exec table. That's where it creates noise is. You just need one bright spark who's read an article in the FT or wherever and suddenly they are the AI expert, expert and off they go. So I do think I do. There's a job we could all do genuinely. I'll use a Boots example, a minute of just educating our exec teams on what is AI, what are we doing, where's it all going? So uh, for the Boots exec team, slightly different example but everyone was thinking they were experts in social media. So I got, I got the team we worked with at TikTok to come in and explain TikTok to them. That sounds basic but we are now of what's TikTok? How does it work, how are we engaging with TikTok? And it shut down all the TikTok noise. Um, and actually it's just really important because there were people on the execs who genuinely thought they were TikTok gurus who weren't on the platform, had never used it, but suddenly they read a couple of articles and they were like, oh, we know this TikTok thing. And I think it's the same with this is if you've got those voices, it doesn't half help to take someone to one side and say uh, it's so great you're really passionate about AI, as am I. Love to spend some time chatting through what the team are doing. And this is where agencies can be brilliant to go in and run workshops on this is it, uh, this is what we're doing, this is what it means. Don't underestimate uh, the power of doing those sor of things to educate boards and exec teams because there will always be someone as a self appointed expert who genuinely doesn't know a huge amount.

Speaker B: Now you've expressed concern about doing kind of creatives out of work. Um, one of the very current and ongoing debates that we've heard aired here today is what happens to entry level jobs? What happens to um, is it even possible to get an entry level job if lower level tasks are, are uh, hived off to AI? What skills do you think a 25 year old comms professional should build now that will mean that they will be in a decent place when they're at your stage in your career.

Speaker A: Yeah, I got it. I really hope we don't end there because I think we have to create that future pipeline of talent. But roles are clearly going to look different. Um, I think actually just being well versed and understanding AI is a really good starting point. Um, my daughter's 19, she's at university in Canterbury, she's studying, uh, media and communications. This is live theater for her and I'm just encouraging her. It's interesting. She's more anti AI than I am, which is fascinating debate at the dinner table. Um, but I'm just saying to you, you've got to come through all this understanding these tools, how to apply them and the pros and cons and how you would and wouldn't use them. So having really good skills and ability I think is obviously super, super helpful. But I do think there's onus on us to shape what those jobs look like in the future. And I think that's around what are those emerging new ways of working that we don't accidentally fall way of working, but actually we actively lean and encourage it and go. Actually this is the evolving role of AI in our organization. These are the ways we're going to operate, how we're going to use AI, uh, therefore, which levels do we need people to do what and how are we going to encourage that training and bring it through? So I think it's really a deliberate move and particularly in my current role and my previous role, that was my thinking in how do we get roles ready and lean into that and actively change things, um, rather than have it done to, to us.

Speaker B: Perfect. Now I have a couple more questions before we open it up to the floor. Um, this is, uh, the data malarkey podcast. Malarkey, a much underused word. Um, what's the worst misuse of data or indeed AI that you've witnessed during your career?

Speaker A: Ooh, there's probably just, I think there's just too many examples where, um, I don't know, I love social media and I just still see just generally just too many things that just don't like, look quite real or authentic from brands. So I won't call any brands in particular, but I just think, I think we're just too smart that we could see through those sorts of things, I think. And so I still see brands, I think getting it wrong where they could have had a Bit more craft to it and there's not enough sort of thought gone into it, um, in terms of AI imaging. Um, and I guess, yeah, I mean the only examples I give are more personal ones I found where if I hadn't checked something properly, I would have ended up in a bit of hot water with things I've quoted or used. So it's just general, watch out.

Speaker B: That's really very good. And finally for me, what's your most unfashionable opinion about AI in marketing and communications?

Speaker A: I think, I guess because I'm straddling both ends, I tend to find I meet uh, counterparts who are, uh, either one or the other. Well, it's sort of fighting to resist or just leaning all in. And I'm trying, rightly or wrongly to sit in the midst of that to go, go. There's a world of opportunity here, but let's also fight and protect what really matters in the industry that we're passionate and care about and the skills we need for the future. So I think it probably is a bit unfashionable to go. I could see a world where those things could coexist. I think one school of thought would say you sort of push one way or the other, um, the AI, just the fact there's brilliant conferences here and so many of you in the room is the genie's out the bottle, isn't it? It's not going to go away. We have to lean in. But I get excited and I hope this isn't unfashionable about. We have the power of the people in this room to shape the future of the industry. We're not sort of passengers. We can guide it and direct it. That's why I think what's so powerful, the collective thinking, but also the individual responsibility we've all got is mega. It's exciting.

Speaker B: Perfect. Perfect. So let's open it up to the floor. Uh, Andrew, are you uh, able? I have it here.

Speaker A: Very good.

Speaker B: Do we have some questions for Pete from the floor? We have some questions again, if you can say who you are, who you're with and ask the question. Yeah. Hello, I'm Jonathan Bunn from MetLife. You gave some really good advice to a 25 year old about AI. I'm asking for a friend here, advice, um, to a 55 year old, ah, comms function leader about AI.

Speaker A: Well, that's a great question. Um, never too old for 55. I think it's um, I, I say similar thing. I would learn as much as you can if I look at my own journey over the last 18 months has been starting from nothing, going how do I learn really fast and actually how can I? I'd start by using the tools if you aren't already in your everyday life. So a really simple example is I had no idea where this hotel was at all so I basically used ChatGPT to go what's the nearest tube station I'm coming from uh Victoria. What's the best route down? How far a walk is it away? After this I've got to go somewhere else for a University of Nottingham event tonight which is really exciting. That's at home. How do I get there? Best tube. So the more use it in your everyday life just to ask questions and for me the simplest thing is I'm hopeless at planning my journeys around London. Literally I'd no idea where things are which is useless isn't it? I've worked in London for years. But that, that basic thing is really really helpful. Um and then you'll just find gradually you just get more and more confident in the use of different tools and you'll find the ones that you like. I mean I, I rotate using ChatGPT, Copilot and uh Gemini. Um, other tools are available as we've heard today. But it's just helpful to go getting a feel for these tools as they learn and get to know you. Also things like you said, setting up different news alerts and so on. So yeah, play a bit, create stuff, try stuff out and in the agency I worked with before my current job we did some co pilot training and we had to create uh an image of three camels uh in the desert with four pyramids behind them and a pool of water. Those sorts of things are of like get play around with that. I'd like an image like this try on different platforms. Get get versions change these sound like basic baby. They're really important just to get encouragement of getting to know the tools, get to know how to prompt it. Um and it is worth giving AI a role. I gave a bad example where AI got it wrong clearly as a copywriter. But I've had examples where I've had to do some strategic work for some brands in the last year. Go imagine you're the top strategist for XX consulting firm and do it and the quality of that response is better than just tell me about this obviously check it again. But all those things become really helpful. Just start to use it more and more in your day to day and then work out how it does or doesn't work. For you. You can then apply it and as you've done today, go to events like this, really important. So, yeah, and I can relate. I'm on a similar learning curve and journey curve to you and we're not too dissimilar in ages, so it's lovely to get that question.

Speaker B: I think, uh, we have, uh, come to the end. Listen, thank you so much for your time, uh, with us today. Thank you, Pete. Um, if only there were more people with your approach to using AI and machine learning to make sense of the smog of information that surrounds us all today, particularly the cmo, there would be rather less malarkey, rather more marquee, uh, in the world of marketing communications, and there would be more data driven common sense. Pete Markey, thanks for joining us today.

Speaker A: Thanks, um, so much for listening to Data Malati, the podcast about using data smarter. If you've enjoyed, if you enjoyed this latest episode and, um, liked what you've heard, why not subscribe and leave a review on the podcast platform where you found us? Do share data malarkey with your friends, colleagues and collaborators.