Advertising is happening faster thanks to artificial intelligence.
Now marketers can produce ad copy, graphics, videos, social media posts, ideas for landing pages, and campaign variations in mere minutes. Work that once required a specialized team can now be done using only prompts and proper tools.
It sounds like a massive benefit.
However, there is a downside to that.
As soon as everyone starts producing top-notch advertising, top-notch advertising stops being a competitive advantage.
A true competitive advantage might start looking like this:
Trust.
Advertising Is Becoming Cheap
In the past, great advertising required plenty of resources.
Companies had to hire designers, copywriters, photographers, video editors, marketers, and even agencies.
Generative AI changes the game.
Now a small company can experiment with dozens of different headlines, visuals, and campaign concepts without wasting weeks creating all of them.
A larger company can go further.
Messages can be personalized, performance analyzed, and different variations created for different audiences in a huge quantity.
The outcome is simple:
There is going to be more advertising than ever before.
And that introduces a new issue: attention.
Increased Amount of Information Doesn't Bring Increased Credibility
Consider a social media feed overflowing with perfect-looking ads.
They all look professional.
They all are optimized.
They are all personalized.
At some point, their quality becomes not surprising.
Questions can start appearing from consumers:
"Is it even credible?"
This is because an ad can make a promise, but the experience of the consumer will make him believe this promise or not.
A company can use AI for virtually any advertising message it wants.
However, no matter what AI it uses, it cannot provide instant credibility through years of positive experience.
Trust Is Built Based on Post-Click Experience
A brand builds its credibility based on consistency.
If a company says it makes reliable products, it needs to be reliable.
If a company promises to respond quickly, it should really do that.
And if a company cares about its customers, it should show it in actions.
Advertisements draw the attention of potential clients.
Their experience decides whether they stay or not.
This is why customer experience becomes even more important due to AI.
AI May Increase the Value of Authenticity
However, there is a paradoxical point.
The higher AI technology progresses in creating realistic marketing, the higher the value of genuine signals may increase.
People may want to know:
Is this authentic?
Is this true claim?
Is there a real person on the other end?
Does this product actually work?
Is the brand consistent outside marketing?
This does not mean that people will stop using AI.
It means that companies will have to use AI technology while maintaining their communication based on authentic knowledge, products, and customer experience.
AI May Help Create Better Customer Experience
AI is not an enemy to trust.
If used right, it will help build the relationship with customers.
Companies may use AI to:
Answer customer queries fast
Analyze customer reviews
Offer personalized suggestions
Identify customer problems
Optimize support process
Generate educational materials
Test different messages
Understand customers' needs and behavior
The key difference lies in the following:
AI has to enhance the customer experience, not create an illusion of such experience.
The Loudest Brand Doesn't Have To Be The Winner
When the creation process is almost free, creating more content won't make any sense.
It could have hundreds of posts per week but will still not be able to build an audience.
Why?
Because people do not want more communication.
People need a reason to believe.
A reputable brand does not have to start from scratch and convince every single time.
Reputation has some value of its own.
This is a huge competitive advantage.
What Should Marketers Focus On?
AI can handle the majority of production tasks.
It leaves marketers time to concentrate on what cannot be automated:
Proper positioning.
Understand what the brand is about.
Experiences.
Create experiences that match marketing messages.
Credibility.
Be able to back-up claims with data and transparency.
Consistency.
Make sure your brand experience is consistent.
Relationships.
Build a community, not just gather impressions.
This takes time.
And this is exactly why it is hard to compete.
The future of brand competition
I do not think we will see less ads.
We may even see more of them.
But AI will change the value of advertising.
If creating an ad that works is essentially free, the ad itself becomes more abundant.
Reputation becomes scarcer.
Customer trust becomes scarcer.
Authentic expertise becomes scarcer.
Relationships become scarcer.
And that's not something that can just be conjured with the right prompt.
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Conclusion
AI can help amplify a brand.
It can accelerate marketing efforts.
It can make personalization more cost-effective.
But it can't instantly make a brand credible.
Which means I don't think the most valuable brands in the future will necessarily be the ones making the most ads.
They'll be the ones people trust enough to buy without being constantly convinced.
AI can create noise.
Trust creates loyalty.
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