Top challenges

Across disparate challenges, AI remains a consistent thread

Rather than uncover a single ominous challenge keeping marketers awake at night, the AMP24 survey revealed a relatively even spread of challenges across three areas: improving content quality, keeping up with innovation, and deriving more value from owned channels. While these challenges may seem unrelated, they all have one thing in common: You can mitigate or even solve them by understanding and fully utilizing AI.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way—strategically and intelligently leveraging AI will certainly help quell any sentiment that you’re falling behind or need to be more innovative. But mastering AI isn't just about staying ahead; it's about enriching our ability to produce high-quality content at scale—content that is essential for maximizing the impact of owned channels.

We could go on, but you get the idea: The potential impact of AI is so multi-faceted, it no longer makes sense to think of it as a separate project or the solution to a single challenge. Nor should we view it as a replacement for any person or task. In 2024, marketers must explore how humans + AI can collaborate to improve everything we do. The scale of AI is unbelievable, and the depth of human creativity is infinite—imagine what happens when we bring them together. Human + AI is the future.

Can AI reliably deliver great content?

Our survey reveals that marketing and communications professionals will engage more strategically in content marketing for 2024. Competition for content downloads and engagement—already a fierce arena—will only grow more intense, with the brands that reliably create high quality, engaging content rising to the top.

AI has the potential to unlock new frontiers of content creation—and provide a compelling advantage for content marketers who leverage it effectively. But while AI algorithms can churn out data-driven insights and generate content, they lack the nuanced finesse that only a human touch can provide. The soul of storytelling, the art of empathy, and the instinct to connect—these are uniquely human attributes. As we embrace AI, we must also safeguard the essence of our narratives.

To thrive in the modern era, companies must venture beyond formulaic content, daring to create fresh narratives that ignite conversations and fuel discourse. They must embrace the risks of authenticity, boldness, and vulnerability. Only by creating content that is exciting, informative, and valuable to their target audiences can marketers break through the noise to capture audience attention and inspire true engagement.

Content is king–but is it marketing?

More than 55 percent of those surveyed for AMP.24 consider the creation of higih quality content the year’s top marketing challenge. Unlike traditional marketing, which focuses on interrupting consumers with promotional messages, content marketing aims to educate, entertain, or inspire. Which begs the question: is it marketing at all?

Ultimately, the words we use to refer to content marketing matter far less than the results. High-quality content plays a vital role in educating audiences, simplifying complex topics, and demystifying emerging trends. It also allows organizations to showcase their expertise, share insights, and offer solutions to complex challenges within their industry. By consistently delivering customer-focused content, brands can position themselves as trusted authorities, earning the respect and loyalty of audiences. These capabilities can be put to work for any industry or client, but they are what makes content marketing so important—and effective—for complex marketing verticals like B2B technology.

For brands and marketing teams building and executing content marketing strategies, the watchword is “relevance.” As marketers, it's our responsibility to cut through the clutter and deliver tailored content experiences that meet our audience's needs at every touchpoint. By understanding their journey, pain points, and aspirations, we can build meaningful connections that drive loyalty and advocacy for years to come.

Creating great art with AI: It's all about collaboration

While we are excited about the potential of AI tools to augment our ideas and designs, we recognize that there will always be multiple factors influencing human creativity that AI will never have.

For example, humans are moody creatures. One minute we jump for joy, the next we slump over and scowl. Unlike AI, we have emotions, good and bad, that inform and shape our ideas. Further, we experience the world through five senses, while AI can only take in data and transform it into more data. We can feel a breeze, smell a flower, watch a sunset, hear a train, taste ice cream, etc. Even the simplest sensory experience creates a complex and interconnected web of “data” within our brains—one that is far too complex for even the most sophisticated AI platform to understand.

That isn’t to say April Six is shunning AI. We use AI tools in multiple ways today, and we’re working hard to formalize our process and strategy—while keeping a vigilant eye on regulatory compliance and our clients’ policies and wishes. We’re excited about the possibilities of AI, but we acknowledge that it can only deliver great art and advertising when we put our knowledge, creativity, and expertise behind it. We are already finding smart ways to work with AI that truly augments our creative work, rather than replacing it or doing it for us. The beauty of AI as our collaborative partner means we can remove barriers, explore new and interesting places, and set our creative minds free.

Great gen AI ingredients don't always yield great content

Thanks to the rapid evolution of generative AI technology and tools, today virtually anyone can create professional-grade text, imagery, audio, and video. But like every breakthrough tool, gen AI is only as good as the person (or team) who wields it. And that’s especially true when it comes to executing effective content.

In today’s era of powerful gen AI tools, all it takes is a few simple keystrokes to generate a wide range of media: copy, code, visuals, motion graphics, music, and more. It feels almost like magic—but there’s a catch. These components are only isolated ingredients that must be properly combined to complete an effective content piece, which can be quite difficult. In fact, it’s often impossible, as the generated media may be in formats that are not compatible.

So how do we merge those ingredients into powerful, persuasive content that tells the right story in the right way with the right voice? This is where the real magic comes into play: the human element. Humans have the innate ability to take a set of diverse ingredients and deconstruct them, reshape them, and optimize them to fit a nuanced brand positioning, narrative, and visual style. AI tools can generate ingredients that are absolutely mind-blowing—but if we depend on AI to put them together, we wind up with a final dish that even the dog will refuse.

When is the right time to introduce AI into a workstream?

If you are experiencing the following challenges at your organization, it might be time to consider implementing an AI-powered solution:

1.) Your creative is stagnant. Reinvigorating campaign concepts can be a daunting task—especially if traditional brainstorming sessions are yielding familiar ideas. Generative AI can serve as a creative catalyst that analyzes data on target audience, brand values, and competitors to suggest new messaging tacks, social media strategies, and even campaign creative. The most promising suggestions can then act as launchpads for further creative development.

2.) You need personalization that scales. Manual personalization has difficulty keeping pace with today’s demands and marketing budgets. Generative AI offers a solution by analyzing vast datasets to identify individual preferences and purchase behaviors. This translates to highly targeted content, product recommendations, and marketing campaigns delivered seamlessly across all channels—all helping to foster brand loyalty and drive conversions at an unprecedented scale.

3.) Repetitive tasks are devouring your productivity. AI-powered tools can generate draft content, personalize marketing materials at scale, and even create initial ad copy variations. This newfound efficiency allows marketers to shift their focus from the mundane to strategic camp mundane to strategic campaign development, data analysis, and the creative ideation that fuels successful marketing initiatives.

Getting the most from AI means being more human

There’s a vast web of narratives being spun around the implications of AI technology. Some are rooted in fear, some in skepticism, and some are plain dystopian. While no one can be sure what AI will become to the greater ecosystem of humanity, we do know that AI is fundamentally shifting what is possible in the world of connected customer strategies.

Our AMP.24 survey revealed that many C-level marketing executives are aggressively pursuing AI for content ideation and development. In our agency work, we’ve also noted interest in using AI tools to improve web and content strategies in areas like SEO, keyword research, and page indexing. And we’re already seeing how AI can improve results across the buyer’s journey, with companies like Netflix, Amazon, and Spotify leveraging AI to analyze huge amounts of data on user behavior, preferences, and past interactions to predict and present highly relevant and personalized recommendations.

While AI offers vast potential in these areas, the journey is not without challenge. As we deploy AI to automate, we must also invest deeply in understanding human nuances and emotions to ensure our AI counterparts can emulate them convincingly. It's a delicate blend of technical capabilities with the art of conversation, of building talking robots that don’t talk like robots. In the end, AI will only be as good as the intelligence and expertise we put into it—but not taking advantage of the AI tools at your disposal across your creative and strategy teams is an opportunity marketers can’t afford to miss.