Join the CEO of CMA, Alison Simpson, as she teams up with Scott Pinkney, the SVP and Executive Creative Director at Publicis Hawkeye Canada, for an exhilarating dive into generative AI's impact on the creative process.

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Speaker 1

Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, CMA CEO Alison Simpson.

00:00:22:20 - 00:00:42:27

Alison:

Today on CMA Connect, we're talking about AI from a creative angle. Every week brings many new AI tools, including many that are really focused on creative on production. So it's not all that surprising that marketers are increasingly looking to their agency partners and creative teams to understand both the benefits and some of the challenges and most importantly, how best to leverage AI.

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Alison:

So today I'm joined by Scott Pinkney, a leading creative strategist, brand ambassador and relationship marketer. Scott's held senior creative roles in New York, the UK and Toronto. He's the SVP and executive creative director at Publicis Hawkeye Canada, which is a customer engagement agency. Thanks so much for joining us on CMA Connect today, Scott.

00:01:04:21 - 00:01:18:00

Scott:

Thank you, Alison. Excited to be here. It's an incredible topic, it's an exciting topic. It's one that's having a lot of discussions both in the boardrooms and, as you can imagine, in the creative departments of a lot of agencies.

00:01:18:17 - 00:01:35:22

Alison:

Absolutely. Well, you're definitely known as a creative powerhouse in the marketing profession. And you're also a very much an early adopter of new approaches and technological tools. So can you share with us a bit about when and how your team began using AI tools and how your use of them may have evolved or expanded?

00:01:36:29 - 00:01:57:11

Scott:

Yeah, definitely. Well, first of all, I think it's important to know that I'm not a technical guy. I do consider myself an early adopter because when new technology comes, I can usually see it pretty clearly. I can see the opportunities and I get really excited. The beautiful thing is I have all those technical minds back at the agency and those data gurus who just really know how to make it happen.

00:01:57:11 - 00:02:16:13

Scott:

So I get excited. I'm like, Oh, we can do this, we can do that. I'm like, Well, how do we do it? So definitely excited about what's happening in the world of AI. I think we all know that it's here. It's going to change the way we do everything. It is impacting every aspect of our lives, both at home and also from a business standpoint.

00:02:16:25 - 00:02:29:29

Scott:

But interesting enough, what really excites me as a creative person is what I call and I think we all call the game changer, which is really kind of generative AI And really how it's being integrated into the creative process, which is pretty thrilling.

00:02:30:18 - 00:02:45:20

Alison:

That's such a great point, generative AI, as we're hearing so much about that now and it's fairly new, but itself has been around for a very long time. So why don't we take a quick pause and have you share the different types of AI? Because I know you've been an early adopter, long before generative AI as well.

00:02:46:18 - 00:03:06:01

Scott:

Well, thank you very much. And I think it is really important if you think about, you know, AI and machine learning has really been part of our lives for years, right? When you're shopping online, using Google Maps, searching the Internet on your phone, even ordering food, right. Like AI is always working behind the scenes. And it's been around for generations. You know, as I mentioned then, you know, enter generative AI, right?

00:03:06:01 - 00:03:25:22

Scott:

And wow, that's what's really, really amazing. And interesting enough, I did a presentation when they came back from Cannes, judging the creative data category, and I thought it was really important to kind of level set with my team. So I'll kind of do a really kind of really quick, quick recap. Funny. Nope. I thought, you know, I'm going to ask ChatGPT to give me the definition and the first definition.

00:03:25:22 - 00:03:49:23

Scott:

I had no idea what it was talking about. So I said, You know what? Give me the definition. But as if you're talking to a grade school student and now this is what I got back, and I thought it was really, really important and clarified the differences. So let's talk first about artificial intelligence. And basically what it said is AI is like giving superpowers to a robot so that it can think, learn and solve problems almost like humans do.

00:03:50:07 - 00:04:11:18

Scott:

This robot can talk like you, understand pictures and even make decisions. That's why it's been around for a long time. Then you move into machine learning. This was a definition for machine learning. So machine learning is a special skill we teach to the robot. Instead of telling exactly what to do, we show lots of examples and let it figure things out on its own.

00:04:12:07 - 00:04:31:02

Scott:

It's like teaching a dog new tricks by showing it how to do that. So think about machine learning, especially in my space of 1 to 1 relationship marketing, trigger based marketing. If the consumer, you know, if then else, if the consumer does this, serve up this, that's what machine learning is. You know again as you mentioned, thank you very much, we are a center of excellence for CRM.

00:04:31:09 - 00:04:55:21

Scott:

So that's been kind of part of our lives for a long time, kind of doing the hard work behind the scenes. So when you think about platforms like Salesforce and Braze, those learnings have already been built in. But now the big difference is, is generative AI and that's really where it kind of gets exciting because we're now seeing that come not only into play in the platforms that we're using to communicate with consumers, but even the creative process itself.

00:04:55:21 - 00:05:13:25

Scott:

So from a general AI sampling, and if we just pivot there for a minute, it's here. And, you know, it's a bit scary for creatives, you know, you know, whether you like it or not, it's going to impact how we work, how we communicate. So, you know, finding the right balance between humans and robots is going to be our challenge.

00:05:13:25 - 00:05:39:06

Scott:

And we are already bringing it into our lives, you know, ChatGPT, Dolly, Midjourney. These are all early out the gate and communicators and creators are already using it and the stuff they are creating is absolutely amazing. You know, I heard a speaker at Cannes and he said that science fiction is now reality. So, you know, you think about those old science fiction movies and you're like, how's that ever going to happen?

00:05:39:15 - 00:06:05:11

Scott:

Well, generative AI is now allowing whatever we can think of, can now be created. So we're bringing it in to the agency. We're using it in different areas. I mean, and there is also this this wonderful thought around creative interplay, right? The magic of the interplay between AI and human creativity. And again, you know, for a lot of creatives, this is challenging.

00:06:05:11 - 00:06:34:10

Scott:

And it's there's this feeling that I'm losing my ability to be creative. It's writing copy, it's generating imagery. And that is kind of a daunting thought. But the reality is, if we can find the way to really marry true creativity with what technology can do, great ideas are being invented and coming off of Cannes. We'll talk about that a bit later I hope, is wow, the work being done is like you can think it, you can now create it.

00:06:34:10 - 00:06:49:28

Alison:

And you're so right in calling out that it is daunting for creatives, for marketers, for business people overall. So how have you gotten comfortable with that and helped your team get comfortable with seeing that opportunity and getting over some of the intimidation and daunting nature of it?

00:06:51:15 - 00:07:17:09

Scott:

It's still ongoing. You know, different conversations with different individuals. There's actually a really interesting quote, i just wanted to share it because I loved it when I heard it. And the one thing I have been doing. As I mentioned, I'm not a technology guy, but I am reading every article I can around AI and different perspectives, so that I can really inspire my team. You know, as a creative lead, my job is to inspire, is to inspire my teams to do better thinking, to work with the strategy teams.

00:07:17:22 - 00:07:33:06

Scott:

And even when new tools like this come in is how do we best use it and implement it? So this quote was great because I heard it and it's something that I'm trying to instill with my creatives, which is, it was by, I'm not sure I'm pronouncing his name right but it was James Magda. And he was talking about how AI and creativity kind of come together.

00:07:33:06 - 00:07:53:08

Scott:

And he said creative people thrive in times of change. They're often the first to try new things, reinvent the rules, push the boundaries and expand possibilities for everyone. Well, that's kind of the positive side. But then he went on to say to anyone who is curious but cautious, which I think a lot of people are, you've just got to get started.

00:07:53:13 - 00:08:17:21

Scott:

And that's what I keep telling everybody, you have to play with the tools, get in there, play around with Midjourney, get into ChatGPT, in fact just start using it in your daily life. How to put together a meal for a family, like start using it in ways where you don't think it oversteps into true creativity that we put in front of clients, but that it aids us in creative development.

00:08:18:13 - 00:08:32:08

Alison:

That's great advice, Scott. Thank you. Now, AI can certainly help marketing teams leverage data in real time and improve efficiencies and the results of marketing operations. Are you using it to analyze your own data or customer interactions that then feed the AI engine?

00:08:33:15 - 00:08:52:24

Scott:

Yeah, I mean, the personal answer is absolutely. I mean, if you think about CRM, it's always about creating, you know, meaningful relationships with consumers, right time, right message to kind of, you know, drive the desired action. We've always relied on data. Data is our secret weapon. It's in our DNA. But to be successful, it's always about crunching data.

00:08:53:14 - 00:09:17:18

Scott:

It's always about analyzing data. It's always about getting the right data to the right place at the right time. So AI is helping us do that in a much faster away. You know, as we talked about a bit earlier, machine learning and traditional AI was already built in some of the platforms we're using. But the speed in which we're able to get insights, the speed in which we're able to analyze data and put it into action, that's what's really exciting.

00:09:17:28 - 00:09:37:10

Scott:

And I'm sure you've all heard the new phrase generative CRM, right? It's that new, you know, it's promising to revolutionize how we interact and engage with consumers. Right. Its ability to generate content in real time. Right. A consumer does a particular thing. They say a particular thing about a particular product. And then we're used to ads being served up when we look it up.

00:09:37:10 - 00:09:56:12

Scott:

And now it's going a bit further than that. It's talking to you about their product, it's responding to queries you made. Chatbot, right, they're going to get more sophisticated. So we're starting to leverage all of these different tools and across different clients where as you can imagine, different clients are at different stages of their kind of data maturity.

00:09:56:12 - 00:10:16:01

Scott:

So the ones that are really advanced, we're really activating it right away. For some of the newer clients who are investigating because again, this happened so fast, like the difference between when I was in Cannes in May, where every, every conversation started with, oh my goodness, are we going to lose our jobs? Here we now are in October and we are moving, we are adopting it.

00:10:16:01 - 00:10:34:22

Scott:

We are bringing it into play. And as they mentioned, it's it's part of discovery. It's part of research. It's part of targeting, it's part of measuring, it's part of media buying, it's coming in to the creative product, you know, how do we, how do we be more efficient with our writing pool? When does it make sense to lean on ChatGPT?

00:10:35:12 - 00:10:56:26

Scott:

When does it make sense to lean 100% on a human? So we're solving those things right now. We have a lot of use cases going on and we've been seeing a lot of success. But, you know, it's always you know, it's it's not flawless. Like we know, you know, there's there's a lot of brands that have made bad mistakes using generative AI that has backfired.

00:10:56:26 - 00:11:14:11

Scott:

So we need to be very cautious and we need to continue to be cautious and we need to test, learn and optimize. So I feel like we're still in the early days and we know that technology is only going to get more advanced. So, you know, we got to jump on that train because it's left the station and we're going to see where it takes us.

00:11:15:04 - 00:11:36:27

Alison:

And a willingness to experiment and know that some mistakes are going to happen. Life is not flawless, so it makes sense that something that's moving as quickly as generative AI the mistakes can happen at that faster speed as well. So just making sure that you're being, taking measured rest wherever possible and then learning as we go, that's we're all figuring out together in many ways.

00:11:37:12 - 00:11:51:10

Alison:

Now, you mentioned Cannes, you had a great time judging there and I'm sure you were exposed to AI infused work. Are there examples that we should all be looking to coming out of the judging at Cannes that really resonated for you?

00:11:52:08 - 00:12:11:29

Scott:

You know, that was such an amazing experience. That's my second time judging, actually, my second time at Cannes. And the first time was actually was the first year they did the Direct category, which was interesting. You know, fast forward now to 2023, I'm in the creative data category and the awarding jury and it was amazing. I think it was certainly eye opening.

00:12:11:29 - 00:12:31:17

Scott:

Like I knew that I was going to go in there and see, you know, incredible cases from the round the world using data. What I didn't expect is over 50% of the cases had machine learning and AI. Well, there's two cases that I definitely want to share with you, and I love the fact that you used the word infused.

00:12:31:20 - 00:13:01:22

Scott:

And that was certainly no exaggeration. It was literally infused in and brought to life. A lot of the work that was awarded that we fell in love with, that used machine learning, it amplified the idea. It allowed the brand to bring the idea to life. It wasn't the idea. Ideas are still formed by human thinking and ingenuity and understanding of the brand, and understanding of humans.

00:13:01:22 - 00:13:19:06

Scott:

But it supercharged the creative team and the agency to be able to deliver it. And the first one was the Stella Artois probability that actually was the Grand Prix for creative data. That was an easy one. It was a no brainer. It was created by Gut Buenos Aires and the campaign was absolutely amazing. And I'll talk a bit about kind of what the idea was and then kind of how they used the data and were able to pull it all together.

00:13:19:23 - 00:13:50:04

Scott:

So, you know, one of the things is, Stella Artois, long long history. Based on their history and understanding of the brand, they concluded that there's a probability that the beer portrayed in historical art pieces throughout Europe like Manet, Van Gogh could have been a Stella Artois. Love that idea. So brilliant. So what they did was they superimposed on top of these beautiful fine art paintings, a percentage indicating the probability that the people in the picture were actually drinking Stella Artois.

00:13:50:19 - 00:14:14:02

Scott:

So how do they use it? How did they use AI and machine learning? The data points they used to create this campaign was amazing. And it was all based on an algorithm that analyzed the year the artwork was painted, its geographical location, the shape of the glass, which was just incredible that was being used. Even the color of the liquid inside the glass and then the distance between the artists and the original brewery.

00:14:14:09 - 00:14:34:16

Scott:

This was an integrated campaign. They pulled it together in such a beautiful way. The percentages of probability were from like 22% to 70. They were never 100. They didn't claim it, but it was always, Hey, it's a probability. Doesn't matter. They owned it. But what a great example of that idea wasn't generated by AI. It was powered by AI. It made it possible.

00:14:35:00 - 00:15:01:23

Scott:

Could they have pulled this off on their own? Probably, but it would have taken crazy amounts of time and resources to do what AI was able to do. So that was the first campaign that we fell in love with. I'm going to show you another Grand Prix, share with you another Grand Prix, which was in the creative effects, this was also using generative AI and you know in such a unique and special way with Shah Rukh Khan.

00:15:02:01 - 00:15:23:04

Scott:

The ad was done by Cadbury by Ogilvy. And I love the problem and they did have a real problem, right, coming off the pandemic. It was really crippling to the economy. But who was really feeling it was small businesses. So in this case, big brands, you know, obviously way deeper pockets. They were equipped to fight back. But the local businesses, small stores, they didn't have the luxury.

00:15:23:21 - 00:15:51:22

Scott:

So they use Shah Rukh Khan, who is the biggest Bollywood star. And he actually became the brand ambassador for thousands of small local neighborhood stores. Well how did they do it? Enter generative AI. They actually created a hyper personalized digital avatar, of Shah Rukh Khan, by regenerating his face, which is data, his voice which is data and would replace the store names in every single ad. Hyper data driven personalization.

00:15:51:22 - 00:16:12:15

Scott:

So you can imagine you're now a small store owner and Shah Rukh Khan is selling it. He becomes the ambassador for your ad and they even took it further. They actually knew they couldn't do it for every store. So they created a platform that allowed small business owners to go in and change and put their names in there and have Shah Rukh Khan basically promote their store.

00:16:12:15 - 00:16:30:24

Scott:

We thought it was obviously brilliant, but AI, the generative AI, oh my goodness, it was flawless. It was beautiful. It was fun, it was engaging. And again, another great example of an amazing idea powered by AI, generative AI, but not created by generative AI.

00:16:31:24 - 00:16:49:06

Alison:

Those are both such powerful examples and to your point, they come out of an amazing idea generated by a human and then they're scaled and brought to life with a speed and a beauty that would be hard to replicate without the technology. So thank you for sharing. Those are both terrific examples.

00:16:49:23 - 00:17:08:09

Scott:

You know, I came back and I did a show and tell and I showed about eight or nine different campaigns because you need to see the possibilities, because the possibilities are very different and very unique. And until you really look at the work and understand it and actually ask yourself, how do they make that? That's a great exercise we're doing.

00:17:09:00 - 00:17:23:15

Scott:

Look at these campaigns and ask yourself, if we were doing that, how would we as an agency create that? Because you never see totally behind the curtain. Once you do that, it starts to unearth other opportunities that you can bring to your different brands.

00:17:24:10 - 00:17:48:10

Alison:

Great point. When you think about earlier conversation around it can be quite daunting, but when you look at generative AI as an enabler, if a creative team comes up with a spectacular idea that we simply cannot afford, now generative I might make it feasible and affordable, so it can absolutely can go from being daunting to quite inspiring when it's viewed as a tool in those ways.

00:17:49:09 - 00:18:11:22

Scott:

And Alison, that is such a great word, enabler, and that's one of the things I've been doing. I'm trying to find like enabler. You know, I heard the phrase co-pilot, right? Your partner, you know, your partner to help you get unstuck. You see it that way, then you start focusing on, wow, what can I do? Yeah, that's when it gets exciting for creatives.

00:18:12:12 - 00:18:14:01

Scott:

Not what am I not doing?

00:18:15:11 - 00:18:23:19

Alison:

So building on that, I'd love to hear from your vantage point, what excites you the most about the continued development of AI?

00:18:23:19 - 00:18:39:08

Scott:

You know, listen, there's no question that AI is going to have a huge impact on our lives. I mentioned this earlier. It's not only at home but at work. And because we're trying to bring those two worlds together, we need to really think about how it's going to impact us everywhere and it's only going to increase.

00:18:39:13 - 00:19:02:19

Scott:

Like we know the technology there's, you know, there's issues, right?

We know there's massive bias with AI. We know that it's only trained on the data that's out there. We know that, unfortunately, there's a lot of bad data out there. There's a lot of back thinking and viewpoints. So we have to be very cautious, but you need to be excited about it, because, you know, it was funny,

00:19:02:19 - 00:19:22:10

Scott:

I was, you know, Googling around, you know, what other innovation had the same impact as AI and there's not really anything. The computer was the closest, and listen, without giving you how long,I mean, I've been in the business for 35 years, but I was here before there were computers. I remember when that box came on my desk and I was like, What do I do with this?

00:19:22:10 - 00:19:39:03

Scott:

Because I love being hands on. I love to open up a Pantone book and lay out the chips, and arriving at the press, and you had no idea what it was going to look like until you got there. So you had to really use your brain and your creativity to be able to visualize something. Then the computer came and now I could play with colors.

00:19:39:03 - 00:19:58:02

Scott:

I can see it in print going to the printers, like, well, it's just like, you know, the proof I have. So I think with this new technology, you have to really try to look forward and go, I can create anything I want now. Like, I can bring any idea I have to life. Again, you need the right people.

00:19:58:02 - 00:20:12:20

Scott:

That's a big one having you know, you have the right technology. You have to have the right people. You have to have the right operations. You have to figure out how to get into your workflow. So, you know, we're still sorting all that stuff. But as we've seen, as we also look at the work from Cannes, it's happening, right?

00:20:13:08 - 00:20:37:14

Scott:

But again, the ideas are always at the core of true creativity and nobody excels better at that than humans. So, you know, we need these tools. They can definitely supercharge everything that we're doing. And, you know, we need to be willing to experiment, you know, new approaches of every part of the workflow. We just have to keep educating and we have to keep talking about it and we need to keep sharing the work.

00:20:37:24 - 00:20:42:12

Scott:

But more importantly, we just need to get in that sandbox and start playing around.

00:20:43:05 - 00:20:56:18

Alison:

You're so right. And we talked earlier about the risks. So any new change comes with inherent risks as well and concerns. So I'd love to hear what concerns you the most about the continued development of AI.

00:20:58:13 - 00:21:32:10

Scott:

You know, it's interesting, one of the things, you know, we always talked about this phrase data wins arguments. The problem now is data only wins arguments if it's the right data and that's the piece that is probably, is the most concerning. You know, you hear everyone talking about AI is going to end... there's a lot of negative conversations, and unfortunately, the bad side of humanity of what AI can do if in the wrong hands.

00:21:32:22 - 00:22:21:21

Scott:

So as brands, as marketers, our job is to make sure that we're always putting truth in front of our consumers, to use data in the right way. So why we have privacy, you know, why we have regulations, so we're going to have to just make sure that we always do our homework. I think there was you know, AI gone wrong examples right now, brands that, ooh, they just got something wrong so we just have to make sure that we are truly recognizing that it's still just a robot, and it has flaws.So we as humans, as creators, as strategists, have to really, really do our due diligence to make sure that the data is accurate and truthful and honest.

00:22:23:09 - 00:22:35:03

Alison:

And the technology also has a bias because it's the data it's drawing from. So that's another area that we as marketers really need to pay attention and be sensitive to as well.

00:22:35:22 - 00:22:56:07

Scott:

Yeah, for sure. There's a couple of case studies at Cannes where they were trying to change the internet where it was blatantly wrong, right? And so there's a lot of retraining going on where we're trying to upload all the correct information to try to change the Internet. But as much as we're trying to change the Internet, there's always bad stuff going in.

00:22:56:19 - 00:23:14:13

Scott:

So again, that goes back to checks and balances, like everything we do right. We still make mistakes as marketers with stuff. And yeah, we got work to do, work to do. But it's exciting. It's, it's, it's a really interesting time to be in, you know, advertising and marketing right now. It's only going to get more exciting, and more confusing.

00:23:15:09 - 00:23:23:20

Alison:

I completely agree with you. Now, Scott, thank you so much for all your insights. Before I let you go today, though, I'd love you to leave our listeners with one final thought.

00:23:24:17 - 00:23:38:22

Scott:

So going back to this notion of, just get in the sandbox, start playing with the tools they are available, many are free. I'm sure your organization is already implementing into your work stream. Just start playing.

00:23:39:06 - 00:23:48:03

Alison:

Very, very wise words, Scott. Thank you so much. It's been a great discussion. I know our listeners have learned a lot from your experience and I hope you have a great rest of your day.

00:23:48:18 - 00:23:50:04

Scott:

You, too, Alison. Always a pleasure.

00:23:51:15 - 00:24:17:07

Alison:

We're just really starting to understand the potential and some of the challenges with generative AI and I'm absolutely excited for how the marketing profession will learn and progress together. And I know you share that enthusiasm. On that note, the CMA has some really terrific generative AI resources that marketers can benefit from that compliment this podcast. We offer a number of thought leadership articles on a wide range of AI topics on our Web site, and we've also launched a new series from our Industry AI Working Group.

00:24:18:01 - 00:24:39:00

Alison:

Plus, we've introduced a number of new AI training courses that are designed for marketers at all different career stages, and they're really helpful ways to understand how AI can make you a better and stronger marketer. So I'm certainly looking forward to all the ways that the CMA will help and to partner with our profession on the generative AI journey.

00:24:39:00 - 00:24:53:13

Speaker 1

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