AI Wrote This Episode Title. Do You Care?

[00:00:00] It is Tuesday, April 2nd. Today AI is writing more marketing copy these days but how many

[00:00:07] consumers can tell that you cheaped out? Also LinkedIn tries its hand at a TikTok clone,

[00:00:14] Amazon abandons one of its most talked about technologies and Google promises to stop

[00:00:20] doing what none of us realized it was doing. I'm Tod Maffin, that's ahead today in Digital Marketing.

[00:00:30] Let's face it, it's a compelling argument. Get AI to write our ad copy. It's faster,

[00:00:36] easier to scale and much cheaper than a human. But can consumers tell that you took the lazy way out?

[00:00:43] As would binder a digital asset management company set out to discover, they gave AI this prompt,

[00:00:50] write 300 words on how to clean your car. Then they gave the same instruction to a human

[00:00:55] copywriter and showed both versions to 2000 consumers. In the results, a crap shoot. Exactly 50% of

[00:01:05] consumers could tell that the copy had been generated by AI. Millennials could spot the fake

[00:01:11] copy the best, previous research just found that group to also be the most likely to use AI tools

[00:01:16] for content generation. The study tested this against both US and UK consumers, Americans were about

[00:01:23] 10% more likely to spot AI copy than their British counterparts. As for which of the two versions

[00:01:30] people preferred, 56% picked the AI-generated article. That was the same for all age groups,

[00:01:38] except for one, and if you think it's the boomers, you're wrong. In fact, people aged 16 to 24 were

[00:01:46] the only cohort to prefer the human written content, though that margin was only 55% to 45%.

[00:01:53] This tested a full blog post, remember? My guess is that far fewer people would be able to figure out

[00:01:58] whether AI wrote a smaller chunk of content like a product description or a headline.

[00:02:08] One of the unfortunate byproducts of the ad platforms obsession with jamming AI into all

[00:02:12] parts of the media buying process is that as they add AI, invariably, they remove direct control.

[00:02:20] You only have to compare what a Google ad campaign looked like five years ago

[00:02:24] to a performance max campaign today to see all the levers which have been removed.

[00:02:28] But when interesting trend in the last half-year or so is the same platforms returning some of those

[00:02:34] levers. Case in point, last week Meta rolled out a new targeting option to its advantage plus

[00:02:40] shopping campaigns. The targeting option is engaged customers, and while this sounds like an

[00:02:47] auto-generated cohort, in fact, it's basically just a new spot for a custom audience.

[00:02:53] To use the engaged customer's audience segment, you give Meta one or more of your existing

[00:02:58] customer audience groups that you feel represent your best prospects, perhaps past shoppers,

[00:03:03] or people who view to products more than three times but haven't bought yet.

[00:03:07] And there's reporting to go along with it under the breakdown menu and demographics by

[00:03:11] audience segments. You'll now see a way to view buy new customers, existing customers,

[00:03:16] and engaged customers.

[00:03:22] Stop me if you've heard this one before. How even LinkedIn is going full vertical now?

[00:03:27] Yes, the business focused social network is trying its hand at the vertical video format

[00:03:31] with a dedicated video feed in the app. And yes, it looks pretty much identical to TikTok right

[00:03:37] down to the placements of those four icons on the right hand side of the screen, a format which

[00:03:42] everyone else, like YouTube and Instagram, also copied. This is only in a small test group for now,

[00:03:48] but that test does give this feed its own button on the bottom row. Tapping on that button gives you

[00:03:54] basically the TikTok experience. Quoting social media today, quote, the question then is,

[00:03:59] will there be enough entertaining business-related content to fill a short form video feed every day?

[00:04:06] I mean, the push will likely be to get more LinkedIn influencers to create videos of their regular

[00:04:10] text updates in order to drive more engagement, which could be good in adding more context and value

[00:04:17] to these updates. But then again, I don't know that all those business inspiration posts are going

[00:04:22] to do as well as video clips unquote. If this all sounds familiar, it's because four years ago,

[00:04:28] LinkedIn tried to copy the Stories format, which at the time had started to pick up steam.

[00:04:35] Then, less than a year later, it announced it was dropping the format. The same thing happened

[00:04:39] with Twitter around the same time, which called its posts their fleets. I for one can't wait

[00:04:45] for the thousands of hustle, bro information marketing webinar pitches. No word on when this will

[00:04:50] roll out to everyone, but you know what will. And probably soon.

[00:04:59] One thing that is not rolling out surprisingly is Amazon's much-bally-hood just walk out technology.

[00:05:06] We saw this tech in some of their concept grocery stores. Cameras and sensors in the ceiling

[00:05:11] tracked what people put in their carts so they just had to walk out and they'd be charged for

[00:05:15] the products automatically. No cashier, no self-serve checkout kiosk. Except it turns out

[00:05:22] it was a lot less automated than we all thought. The information reported that quote,

[00:05:27] the system relied on more than 1000 people in India watching and labeling videos to ensure

[00:05:34] accurate checkouts unquote. So while I got a lot of media attention and half their Amazon

[00:05:40] fresh stores used the technology today, a company executive told media they would be mostly

[00:05:45] walking away from the technology. There will be some places the just walk out tech will still work.

[00:05:50] They're keeping it around and a few stores in the UK. They just added it to some ball parks in the

[00:05:55] US and no word on whether those will stay in place. But not to fear enter dash carts stage left.

[00:06:02] Dash carts are Amazon's new play shopping carts with the screen and product scanner attached

[00:06:07] which let you scan products as you shop. As long as you have an Amazon account of course,

[00:06:12] if you don't, you'll be relegated to a self checkout kiosk. Will that line up be the green text bubble

[00:06:19] of the grocery world? Focus group testing has been a mainstay of the market research world for

[00:06:27] generations. It's helped brands figure out what their logo should look like, what products to drop

[00:06:33] and so on. But sometimes it's hard to ask the tough questions. So now some agencies are asking AI

[00:06:39] to sit in the chairs instead of people. Quoting ad week quote at ad agency supernatural chief strategy

[00:06:46] officer Mike Barrett asked an AI generated persona what the most impactful challenges of cancer are

[00:06:53] informing the campaign for a healthcare brand. It's not the treatment or chemotherapy. The virtual

[00:06:58] cancer patient responded. It's the fact that nobody knows how to talk to you about it. It feels

[00:07:03] lonely and isolating. This insight led to the agency creating 12 AI generated personas for the brand.

[00:07:11] You would never ask a real person that question Barrett told ad week unquote.

[00:07:16] As for how accurate the responses are, one recent study found that data from AI subjects were about

[00:07:22] 75% to 90% on point with what human subjects would say. Supernatural says it's also using AI

[00:07:29] as focus group subjects for products around women's health and fertility.

[00:07:38] Every day we rise, challenging ourselves to work for what we believe in. At U.S. border patrol,

[00:07:46] protecting our borders is more than a job. It's a calling. Agents answer the call

[00:07:53] working together to keep our country and community safe. If you're ready for a new mission,

[00:07:59] join U.S. border patrol and go beyond. Learn more at cbp.gov slash careers.

[00:08:08] We all have that friend who wakes up early to go get everyone McDonald's breakfast for the rest of us

[00:08:13] sleep in. This is your sign to thank them and if you're that friend, this is us saying thank you.

[00:08:22] Just a friendly reminder that right now get any size iced coffee before 11 a.m. for just 99 cents

[00:08:28] and the satisfying sausage McMuffin with egg is just 279. Price and participation may vary cannot be

[00:08:34] combined with any other offer or combo meal. And finally as part of a legal settlement,

[00:08:41] Google has agreed to delete web browsing data it collected from users while they browsed

[00:08:47] in incognito mode. In related news, Google collected web browsing data from us while we browsed

[00:08:54] in incognito mode. And the reason was because of course they did. Google's web browser is and

[00:09:00] has always been a macavellianly brilliant Trojan horse less about providing the world with a safe

[00:09:06] and fast browser more about being able to see where everyone goes on the web and what they do there.

[00:09:13] It's the same thing Facebook did when they bought a VPN service than made it free, then recommended

[00:09:18] people use it you know for safety nevermind Zuckerberg was collecting reams of data on what you did

[00:09:24] off his platform safety I tell you this legal settlement with Google stemmed from a lawsuit filed

[00:09:29] four years ago by three chrome users quoting the register quote specifically the search behemoths

[00:09:35] privacy policy claimed that users could control the information Google collects but as alleged in

[00:09:41] the lawsuit, Google didn't provide the privacy it promised and implied through services like

[00:09:46] chrome's incognito mode. Cromes incognito mode only provides privacy in the client by not keeping

[00:09:54] a locally stored record of the user's browsing history. It does not shield website visits from

[00:10:01] Google. The lawsuit was filed because the plaintiff said the language Google used at the time

[00:10:05] suggested otherwise unquote. For its part, Google called the lawsuit meritless and said quote we are happy

[00:10:12] to delete old technical data that was never associated with an individual and was never used for

[00:10:17] any form of personalization. But that doesn't quite square with the effort the company spent defending

[00:10:23] itself against the lawsuit at one point submitting 4,500 pages in an argument to try to get the case

[00:10:30] dismissed that attempt of course failed. Internal communication revealed through discovery found

[00:10:35] Google employees called chrome's incognito mode quote misleading effectively a lie and a problem

[00:10:43] of professional ethics and basic honesty unquote according to a plaintiff declaration. In the end on

[00:10:50] the eve of the trial, the party settled. In addition to deleting the user data it had collected

[00:10:55] and kept the settlement requires Google to inform users what data it collects on what you do

[00:11:00] and where you go even in private browsing mode.

[00:11:09] I forget follow us on social media we are almost everywhere Facebook Instagram YouTube linked

[00:11:14] in TikTok threads mastered on blue skies Snapchat and Pinterest go to today in digital.com slash

[00:11:21] social or tap the link at the top of the show notes. I'm Todd Mathin thanks for listening see you tomorrow.

[00:11:31] Every day we rise challenging ourselves to work for what we believe in

[00:11:37] at us border patrol protecting our borders is more than a job it's a calling agents answer the call

[00:11:46] working together to keep our country and community safe if you're ready for a new mission

[00:11:52] join us border patrol and go beyond learn more at cbp.gov slash careers

[00:12:00] we all have that friend who wakes up early to go get everyone McDonald's breakfast for the rest of us

[00:12:06] sleep in this is your sign to thank them and if you're that friend this is us saying thank you

[00:12:15] just a friendly reminder that right now get any size iced coffee before 11 a.m. for just 99 cents

[00:12:21] and the satisfying sausage McMuffin with egg is just $279 price and participation may vary cannot

[00:12:27] be combined with any other offer combo meal bottom up up up up