I only have a few minutes to write this.
Remember when the sign that a business was “official” was that all their social channels, their website, their email template, and print collateral all matched? Same colors, fonts, graphics, logo, and style of speech? And the brand’s “voice” was clear and consistent because of brand-based copy writing?
This was a sign to new audiences that you could afford to work with a designer, a creative, a marketing maven perhaps. This consistency was a sign that you’d invested in your business enough to craft a coherent visual presence, IE a brand, and help that brand speak across many channels. It showed that you’d brought in other people to help you elevate your businesses personae, and they provided stylistic services, making you appear more elevated than maybe you even felt.
But now, AI can crank out matchy matchy digital stuffs, and deliver engaging content just like that.
The output is reasonably okay-looking. Definitely self-consistent. Even the writing isn’t bad…
Yet, because it is now ubiquitous, is this type of visual consistency still of value?
If anyone can use AI to crank out a matchy-matchy brandstuffs that contains perfectly optimized CTA’s, copy writing, and graphics, and even automate lead gens and funnels, tracking people’s behaviors on the digital marketplace, then what’s it really worth? And to whom?
See, you can get on the leading edge of AI, and exploit the tools right now to maybe make a mint. But it has to be soon. Because the market will be glutted with this Fast Food Branding, and people get tired of fast food fast. It just doesn’t satisfy.
On the other hand, if you appreciate a slowly-crafted, human-made, soulful content, and authentic materials, maybe even the surprises your audience on occasion, you need to try something different.
Maybe you could try working with digital artisans, or at a minimum, stop giving yourself a hard time for not having your digital stuff “just so.” Maybe you need to stop getting caught up in sales pitches, the classes, the endless templates and customer service calls, and instead see the underlying mechanisms of the digital landscape, and choose how you’d like to engage from there.
So what do you do instead? If you want to win at this game called digital marketing?
I’d say it is to choose one medium of communicating that matches to your personal style, your highest principles, and maybe even showcases all your rough edges too. And, go honest with it.
Because rough edges are not a failing, they are the indicator of what lies beneath, a real person with a real point of view. And that point of view is more valuable than any standardized style-sheet or fancy AI output.
AI output is boring, because it is derivative.
So, when you give yourself a hard time for not having everything “just right,” I want to encourage you to look again, and say how perfectly right it really is. For you. For your company. For right now. For real.
Have a great, authentic kind of day. Maybe even without selling anyone one freaking thing. Just sayin’
FOOTNOTES & SUB-SUBTEXT 😉
I believe I’ve written about this before. Feel free to have a read here.
