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Sarah Stringer is the EVP, head of innovation and US media partnerships at Dentsu. She’s joining Marketing Brew next week at our event, The Marketer’s (Early) Guide to AI.
Ahead of the event, we had Stringer tell us a little bit about how she and Dentsu are using AI, and what her thoughts are on its possibilities.
Does your company have policies around using AI? If so, what are the main tenets? Data Safety: There should be no use of company or client data in any public tools. Leverage company sandbox for testing and play. Any output should be reviewed by a human for accuracy and quality. Don’t use personal email addresses if using any systems for work purposes. And you must state if something has been created with AI.
What AI tools are you currently using? In what capacity are you using them? We use ChatGPT via Azure AI and Microsoft Copilot—mainly for work efficiencies, meeting notes, next steps, and the creation of images using enterprise Dall-E.
What is the best real-life application of AI that you have seen in the marketing world so far? Heinz ketchup showing its brand dominance and iconic status so much that when AI imagines ketchup, it’s shaped like a Heinz bottle. At Dentsu, we have also created D.Scriptor, which allows for AI-optimized search terms to improve performance.
There are plenty of proposed use cases for AI, from customer service applications to improving brand voice to analyzing the customer lifecycle. Which applications are most promising to you? Which ones are least promising? AI for customer service and personalized needs is amazing and allows for pinpoint accuracy (given the right training data) for services, terms, and rules with a brand or service. Least promising is using AI as a model versus using a human. We already have a lack of representation in key roles and creativity, and replacing underrepresented talent with AI is a huge issue.
What advice do you have for marketers and brands that are considering using AI but aren’t sure where to start? Start to play, but work with your IT infrastructure team to ensure you’re playing in a safe environment. If you aren’t ready for an enterprise level relationship, play with free tools, but in nonidentifying ways with no real data.
What AI topics are you planning to get into at the Marketing Brew AI Summit? Practical use of AI, and the fact you’ll still need humans. We like to call AI “augmented reality,” as we are being asked to do a lot more with a lot less these days in our daily roles. Automation and AI will help build increased accuracy into our work and also allow us to start from a huge catalog of great work as a jumping-off point.