AI, digital strategy and marketers

AI does not replace strategy.

Mark Ritson recently shared some fantastic insights about what marketers get wrong about AI.

I wanted to summarize some of the key points that truly resonate with the way we think at Boguslavsky & Co, especially with the focus on understanding marketing fundamentals and how to apply AI to these:

Marketers overestimate how well they know the customer journey. He argued the touch points a company thinks matter and the ones that actually matter are "completely different," and his advice was: "Don't assume them. Don't write them down. Don't copy your competitors."

The biggest AI opportunity isn't advertising or performance marketing in itself, it's product & pricing. There is opportunity for brands in using AI for pricing strategy / synthetic market testing, not just content generation.

Knowledge matters more with AI, not less. As tools get faster, output quality depends more heavily on the person directing them. Marketers who don't understand fundamentals are less likely to know what to ask, how to evaluate the answer, which will lead to digital strategy being built on weak assumptions.

"The old rules still apply." Ritson's final diagnosis was that AI is powerful, marketing is changing, but the fundamentals hold.

Key areas where we can bring value in the sphere of digital marketing transformation:

•  Validate brands touch points and customer journey by utilizing trend analysis and consumer behaviour psychology.

• Part of our work is on a digital strategy that unites the business positioning (read our case study doing exactly this for an Oil & Gas client's internal knowledge platform). Strategy work isn't just campaigns, it's organizational alignment

• Our strongest differentiator as a digital strategy agency is the merging of extensive digital marketing experience with technology. AI doesn't replace strategy.