This is the first of two posts sharing insights from our 18th annual research project looking at how to accelerate brand strategy with AI. The research used a quantitative survey of 100 senior marketing professionals across the globe covering different sectors. Much has been written about the impact of AI on “downstream” marketing like online video. But our research paper is one of the first to look at the impact on “upstream” brand strategy work.
In this post, we look at the impact AI is having on marketing in general and on brand strategy in particular. We then explore the role of AI at different stages of the brand strategy process.
AI’s impact is big and getting bigger …
AI’s impact on marketing is significant and accelerating. 76% say it will have a big impact in the next 2-3 years, compared to only 19% reporting this level of impact in the past 2-3 years. The remaining 24% suggest some impact in the coming years.
… and marketing teams are playing catch-up
Whilst most respondents see AI as a potentially transformative force in brand strategy, many say current usage is constrained by internal blockers like lack of tech access, training and best practice sharing. A mere 19% feel their team is fully competent to apply AI to brand strategy, with most stuck at Beginner stage. These teams risk being left behind, given the accelerating impact of AI. “More work is needed to unleash the full potential of AI within the Marketing Function,” observed one marketer. And teams can’t rely on agency partners to fill the gap; they are only seen as slightly better equipped (see below).
With output only as good as the inputs, effective AI prompting is becoming a vital skill to urgently build. “We’ve trained all in the team to become experts at AI prompts,” reported Kevin McNair, CMO of KP Snacks.
Creative execution will be most impacted
The impact of AI expected to be biggest in creative execution in the next 2-3 years. A massive 91% say that the impact on communication & advertising will be medium to big, with 85% for media planning & buying and 84% for visual identity & pack design. AI is well placed to generate the large volume of creative assets needed today, from static images to videos, particularly for digital and performance marketing.
Smart brand teams are increasingly going beyond using AI just to save on costs and time. Emerging opportunities to drive effectiveness in addition to efficiency include hyper personalisation. For example,.Mondelez India and their agency Ogilvy used an AI-generated avatar of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan in a campaign to support owners of small local shops (below). Custom ads promoted each store in a hyper-localized approach that helped thousands of small businesses gain visibility.
Brand strategy impact is expected to be significant, with 47% expecting this to be medium/big. However, forecast impact is lower than for creative execution. This reflects a significant variation in AI’s impact at different stages of the brand strategy process.
Brand strategy focus: insight & concept generation
The use of AI in brand strategy varies depending on the stage of the brand strategy process, being bigger in the mid stages of insight and concept generation, where opportunities for time and cost savings are significant.
The first area is culture & market analysis, to quickly generate insights. 79% of marketers are using AI in this role, either experimenting or having fully integrated it. The second area is concept writing & visualisation, with the highest level of both usage (91%) and satisfaction (67%). “We’ve saved £70k on new flavour concept development,” Kevin McNair of KP Snacks explained. “In the past we’d work for 3-4 weeks with an innovation agency. Now, 3-4 people huddle around a laptop instead.” However, only 24% have fully integrated AI for concept creation, with “a risk of generic ideas that fail to fully capture a brand’s essence,” according to Dom Dwight, Strategy & Innovation Director at Taylors of Harrogate.
For example, on a project for a European chocolate brand, AI-enabled Cultural Analysis was used to generate a range of positioning ‘springboard’ areas. This was done at a fraction of the cost and in 1⁄4 the time of conventional research. Over 100 online sources were analysed, using AI to augment not replace human researchers.
In contrast, the two most strategic areas have less adoption of AI (see below). At the start of the brand strategy process, usage of AI for vision & ambition setting is much less common. The same applies at the later stages of crafting the final brand strategy and then aligning teams on action plans. “The sweetspot lies in collaboration,” suggested one marketer. “AI sharpens thinking, but humans make the final call.”
In conclusion, AI is set to have a significant impact on brand strategy, even if this is less extreme than on other more “downstream” areas of marketing execution. However, the role of AI in brand strategy varies depending on the stage of the brand strategy process: higher for insight and concept generation, but lower for ambition setting and strategy alignment.
In our second post we will look at how to blend AI and human talent to accelerate brand strategy. We will also propose a rebooted brand strategy process that harnesses a suite of custom AI “agents”.
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