Betting on bots, clumsy teenagers…and Andrea’s ads
Artificial Intelligence might be about to become the next big brand tool – but where do agencies fit in, wonders Dominic Mills – plus: why Facebook has forced media owners into a tailspin
The bots are coming. Those of a misanthropic bend of mind might like the idea that, in the not too distant future, they will be able to avoid many human interactions and deal instead with bots – bots of any kind really: chatbots, service bots, assistant bots, flight-booking bots and even driver bots.
Others will hate it, and cite Japanese robotics professor Masuhiro Mori’s Uncanny Valley concept as a warning of the pitfalls.
Facebook is certainly betting on bots as the next big brand tool. A couple of months ago it opened what you might call a bot store – a place where consumers can download Messenger apps enhanced with chatbot AI skills.
These, effectively, are automated response mechanisms that, over time, learn more about the individual customer and therefore become more personalised. Big brands are jumping on this: Sephora and North Face have them; Amex has just launched one; and even dear old RBS is trialling one called Luvo.
But, in this brave (though scary to many) new world, where do agencies fit in? After all, in an AI-driven world, who needs the insight and creativity that is the ad industry’s main calling card.
Not so fast, says Mindshare. We’ve got a stake in this game too.
Huh? I must confess I was surprised when last month Mindshare released a detailed report into the world of chatbots. You can read the full version here.
After all, I thought, what on earth has this got to do with media agencies? Haven’t they got better things to do – like solving ad blocking and fraud?
But you can see how Facebook is thinking: the ability to link customer data with their social media interactions gives it even more leverage in the fight for consumer time and advertiser budgets. And where Facebook goes, so too do media agencies.
So Mindshare’s findings – you can read a summary on Mediatel by futures director Jeremy Pounder here – are highly pertinent for any client wanting to get a foothold in the world of chatbots and AI.
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If you take out all the hype about chatbots, they are in essence another touchpoint in the consumer journey. They can be part of a brand’s delivery or fulfilment operations, a service offering or a discovery mechanism.
At the heart of it is customer data, and that data can be integrated into a CRM offering or used to sharpen up targeting via other media or channels. Chatbot data could, over time, become the cornerstone around which comms strategies are built, and used for purposes as varied as discovery, acquisition or, via offers and loyalty programmes, retention.
So, yes, this is fair and square in the territory where media agencies sit. Mindshare and its peers can play another vital role too, which is to remind clients of the human element.
Technologists often get carried away with what they are doing, and forget that, in the end, it is human interactions that matter most.
Mindshare is offering a healthy corrective. It might be nice if some creative agencies got involved too.
Google and Facebook: clumsy teenagers
At the RBS media conference last month, Guardian Media Group CEO David Pemsel used a great analogy, comparing Google and Facebook to clumsy teenagers bumping into stuff and inadvertently destroying everything around them.
Now, if Guardian editor Kath Viner is to be believed, Facebook has gone from clumsy to malevolent. At the ISBA lunch last week, she described Facebook as a “mutual challenge” – a euphemism, if ever I heard one – for the newspaper industry.
Well, hooray. At last a media brand has woken up to the damage their reliance on Facebook reach is causing them. I suppose there must have been a time when they saw Facebook as helpful – generating lots of extra reach and some cash – in the same way a drug addict finds their dealer is helpful.
What they thought was co-dependence (i.e. Facebook needed their lovely journalism to populate the feed as much as they needed it) has turned out to be a chimera following the latest change to the algorithm to favour ‘friends-and-family’ content.
The change seems to have put media owners into a tailspin, as Viner’s response indicates. But I don’t really see why they should be surprised. Facebook is optimising the content experience for its users, and if that means tweaking content priorities, then that is the way it is going to go.
US media commentator Michael Wolff describes the wake-up moment for media owners in his usual trenchant style here. Worth a read.
Andrea’s ads
That Andrea Leadsom, eh? I’m told that fresh from her Brexit triumph, she jetted down to Cannes to collect a Gold Lion for her contribution to Adam&Eve/DDB’s John Lewis creative effectiveness winner, not to mention a few lions in categories as diverse as creative data, and best use of creativity to enhance a dull CV.
Then she whizzed back to do backing vocals for Florence and the Machine at their recent Hyde Park gig.
Rumour too has it that, using her experience at Barclays and Invesco Perpetual, she is also advising RBS on its upcoming rebrand.
I’m just hoping that, with all her talents, she can find time to broker a peace in the ad-blocking war.
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