Originality Will Set Brands Apart in the Age of Generative AI

Generative AI (GenAI) stands to impact society in a myriad of ways – some of which have been identified today, and many of which have yet to be discovered.

The fields of marketing and communications will be changed in profound ways. Generative AI (GenAI) is revolutionizing how we create content, from text and images to even video.

This unprecedented access to content generation greatly accelerates humanity’s ability to create vast amounts of AI-generated or enhanced content. In fact, brands that have jumped to incorporate GenAI into their marketing efforts are able to create this content today, including somewhat primitive, but rapidly improving, video content.

Soon, this content will fill every digital channel. This will pose a significant challenge: how will brands cut through the noise and capture attention?

The answer lies in originality. This could mean thinking up and writing about new ideas, unearthing connections across sectors or fields, or bringing emotion, feeling, or storytelling into your marketing and communications.

GenAI still has a role to play here – it can take on the commoditized, repetitive tasks of editing, preparing, and posting your original content (as it did for this blog post).  And it can help with brainstorming around your original ideas, creating possible alternatives that can lead to additional original content.

I often work with clients and other leaders on the topic of differentiated positioning for their organizations. How do you stand out from the crowd? It can be easy to conform to the status quo in your competitive set – to tout all the same features and benefits. To truly stand out, a brand must be relentlessly focused on both what its consumers or customers believe and want, and how to deliver on those expectations.

One fear that I have around the application of GenAI is that it will be deployed by well-meaning marketers and communicators to perpetuate this “sea of sameness” – in essence, every team will be using the same playbook.

Thus, I come back to originality. The winners will be the individuals who can create original ideas, and those leaders who can create an environment where those original ideas are successfully integrated with emerging technology like GenAI. They will not only stand out, but will build deeper, more meaningful connections with their audiences.

Looking to start using AI in your marketing? Here are some tools to check out:

• Ella from Atomic Elevator: templated prompts for common marketing activities (best suited to marketing and communications practitioners)
• Claude: Can go beyond content writing to create visualizations of inputs or ideas
• Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot: ideal for simple content creation

Plus, a great podcast that covers the application of AI to marketing is Marketing Against the Grain.