Hey 👋

Welcome to Neighbourhood Post issue #056.

Don’t call it a comeback… but did you miss me?

We took a few weeks off to focus on other things (more on that soon…) but your friendly neighbourhood postman is back, ready to deliver.

And I’m picking up where I left off, ruminating on the rapid reshaping of the marketing landscape at the hands of our old adversary, AI. 

Let’s get to it…

AI and digital, in three conversations 💬

Are you bored of conversations about AI?

I kind of am. 🫠

It feels like everything that needs to be said has been said.

So rather than the same boring chat, let me share 3 recent conversations that gave me a really clear view of where we’re at.

Those conversations are:

1. “The Sloppening” ⚰️

2. The competitive advantage 🏆

3. The now and not yet 🔮

The first conversation was sparked when someone sent me this post - titled “The Sloppening”.

It warns of the overwhelming spread of low-quality, AI-generated content.

(You should read the whole thing)

It’s fairly damning: “We've sloptimized ourselves into oblivion”

But it’s also clear: “AI didn’t break things, we did.”

We’re the pilot, AI is the plane.

Applying marketing expertise and strategy is crucial.

As a digital agency, we’re developing an approach that gets the most out of AI content generation without losing authenticity and authority.

It’s a framework designed to safeguard your brand from the pitfalls of AI-generated content, while keeping innovation and creativity at the core of your strategy.

Spoiler; more often than not it points towards original creativity over AI slop.

Which leads me to the second conversation…

Someone asked me (in a half-polite way):

“Anyone can use AI to create a social media strategy, a monthly schedule, and a month’s worth of graphics and captions in 5 minutes. So why shouldn’t I?”

My answer was easy.

“You shouldn’t, because everyone can.”

When it comes to digital marketing, people wrongly position AI as the clear competitive advantage.

But if everyone has access to the competitive advantage, it’s not really an advantage, is it? In fact it’s the exact opposite - the competitive disadvantage.

In a world of slop, you gain ground by pursuing what AI hasn’t nailed yet;

100% connection, 100% creativity, 100% authenticity.

Supplement it with AI, but start with the human.

It sounds like I’m a skeptic in complete denial.

But that’s where the third conversation comes in:

“One day AI will take all of our jobs, no one will work and the government will have to fund universal salaries for everyone.”

It’s true. AI will take 80% of all jobs that don’t require manual labour (those are for the robots to take.)

When that happens is less clear.

Probably not before 2050, but who knows?

At the moment we’re living in the now and not yet.

We know the way things are going, and I’m not naive enough to think that very soon AI won’t be producing slop, but content that is 100% creative and 100% authentic.

But that moment is not today, and we shouldn’t pretend it is just because we can all turn ourselves into Disney Pixar characters at the drop of a prompt.

Here’s ours btw (sorry Matt and Mark):

We’re prioritising how to get the most out of AI now, and also preparing for future developments.

If you want to do the same, it looks like two things:

• Become an AI-Augmented Marketer – Learn AI tools like ChatGPT, MidJourney, and AI-driven analytics.

• Stay ahead of AI developments, ethics & regulation – know what’s here, what’s coming and what won’t stay.

That’s all for today.

What do you think, more AI or less AI in future newsletters? I wouldn’t be offended either way:

See you next week.

✌️

Before you go - we’ll never use these newsletters to directly sell you our services, but we’re always here if you need any expertise or support 👍