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AI or not AI?

ChatGPT has ushered in a new age of thinking and working – bulldozing everything in its path on the way. From 0 to 100 seemingly overnight, ChatGPT smashed into our work and study lives like Microsoft’s paperclip had taken all the steroids in the world and was out to settle old scores.

That change in behaviour has left creative communities worried their services won’t be needed any longer and this existential fear has shaped the way many approach ChatGPT, including an inclination to discourage people from using it.

We’re not here to do that. It’s a genuinely useful tool, but not an all-in-one solution. The trick is getting it to work for you.

Creating Structure

As more and more people use it, we’re becoming more familiar with the style of writing it delivers. And that style is…fine. There’s a good example on this very site.

What you get is competent text, which will always be the case because the program is by its very nature derivative. It will scan whatever information already exists, to ‘learn’ and then spit out a response to your query – and that will be shaped overwhelmingly by the sites the platform was trained on, with patterns and biases occurring.

So ChatGPT is absolutely not where you should turn for original, thought-provoking, genre-bending copy. But that’s also the trick to using it effectively: if ChatGPT’s good at doing the grunt work, let it!

A Good Start

Say you want text for an audio marketing campaign. Prompt ChatGPT with your info, as a basic example: a (radio) ad to promote (car sales) with a focus on (customer service and low prices) in a (friendly) tone.

What you get back won’t be amazing, but it will be a start. From there, you can customise the messaging to suit you and your business; or take it to a local creative writer with any further brand elements or distinctive assets you want incorporated. They can finesse it for your chosen media outlets and target audience.

ChatGPT can whittle a slab of marble into a manageable, human-like shape. But to get David, you’ll need someone who really knows what they’re doing.

Just One Tool

ChatGPT is a useful tool, but it’s only one tool – not an entire toolbox.

Use it to help shape your ideas, but remember it can’t do everything, understand everything, or think for itself. Good strategists, writers, producers and media professionals are still an incredibly important part of an effective marketing campaign.

And at the end of the day it’s not about being the quickest or cheapest advertiser on the block – it’s about being a successful one.