The Sunny Side Podcast - Insights on Creativity, Marketing and Brand Building

Can Generative AI tools like Google Gemini be the ultimate gardening companion? They can! Generative AI's utility in this field (pun intended) is limited only by our imagination. And I'm not talking about robots, but about the intelligence aspect of "artificial intelligence". We can glean lessons from this for whichever sector we employ AI in.

I evaluated Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Perplexity and DeepSeek for their usefulness in marketing and advertising tasks. Which tools were helpful and which were less so? What were their varying strengths and limitations? Here are my thoughts.

On 13th May 2025, US President Donald Trump and an entourage of US CEOs such as Jensen Huang, Arvind Krishna, Andy Jassy, Lisa Su, Alex Karp, Travis Kalanick, Jane Fraser and Elon Musk visited the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Its Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman took this opportunity to announce ambitious plans to establish the kingdom as a world leader in AI. This included the launch of the government-backed AI company Humain and partnerships with Amazon, AMD and NVIDIA to build an AI Zone. The entry of SpaceX's Starlink and Tesla's robotaxis into Saudi Arabia was also discussed.

By doing this, Saudi Arabia has thrown down the gauntlet in AI and challenged other countries (including my country of Singapore) to rise up. How can we respond?

Last week, BBDO, one of the world's most celebrated agencies, launched a new global positioning: Do Big Things. What's working well about it and what's not working so well about it? Here are my thoughts.

One of the most common conundrums in AI is the ideal level of regulation. Are we regulating it sufficiently to prevent the well-documented risks of AI such as copyright violations, amplification of human biases, and the extreme scenario of an AI apocalypse? At the same time, are we ensuring that a quagmire of over-regulation doesn't strangle this nascent revolution in its crib? That's what we discuss in this episode.

My second book and first novel, The People From Beyond The Mountains, came out recently. Here are my thoughts about this climate change novel and how I went about writing it. Please get your copy from the links below.

E-book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09C38C5G5

Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09BY81SNV

When Coca-Cola fans went to town with memes after Cristiano Ronaldo picked up a water bottle, it showed the power of a brand like Coca-Cola to inspire people to build the brand for them. Is it just a case of lightning in a bottle, or is there more method to fan-driven brand building?

Why do we always need to go back several decades for the greatest examples of advertising copywriting? Has the craft taken a beating in recent years? Or has it simply evolved?

Advertising's portrayal of men gravitates towards two extremes: Powerful alpha males and powerless weaklings. Why don't we have a more nuanced portrayal of men and masculinity?

Ageism in advertising is a topic that rears its head from time to time. What can older professionals do to shield themselves from it? What can they learn from those who have successfully stayed relevant in their 60s and 70s?