S3E01 – What Did ChatGPT Do To Digital Marketing?

ChatGPT: Unleashing Creativity or Taking Over Jobs? Join Subha and Hasita as they explore the impact of generative AI tools like ChatGPT on content creation, business strategies, and whether it’s a game-changer or just a shortcut for writers and marketers alike. Discover the exciting possibilities and the challenges that come with embracing this innovative technology in their insightful podcast. Tune in to the latest episode of the Good Damn Marketing Podcast now!

Discussion Topics: What did ChatGPT do to digital marketing?

• An Instance Of Using ChatGPT Badly for Marketing
• Linkedin and ChatGPT
• Ai Tools Can Be Used For Benefits Too
• How Is ChatGPT Impacting Our Day-to-Day Lives?
• ChatGPT as a Conversational AI
• How ChatGPT Can Help You In Numerous Ways
• Is It Worth Teaching The Team To Use The Tool?
• How Can You Be a Good Thought Leader If Your Thoughts Are Coming From ChatGPT
• ChatGPT and Education
• Why Shouldn’t You Stop The Usage Of ChatGPT in Organisation
• ChatGPT and Safety of Data
• Did Subha Expect ChatGPT To Become What It Is Today?
• Should You Replace Your Team With ChatGPT?
• Closing

Transcript: What did ChatGPT do to digital marketing?

Subha Chandrasekaran: Welcome to the Damn Good Marketing Podcast. Hasita, my favourite pastime is finding Instagram bloopers and sending them to you when I’m not sending memes. So this one’s quite a riot, a calming gel pen they say. What do you think of when you think of a calming gel pen that reduces dark circles and pigmentation?

An Instance Of Using ChatGPT Badly for Marketing

Hasita Krishna: Oh, right. You mean the cosmetic pens, the ones you use while going to bed, I’m assuming.

Subha Chandrasekaran: Yeah, or a concealer maybe. And then you say, okay, let me read a bit more. Some poor marketing intern has written this copy, and then you realise, oh yeah, it is a marketing intern and maybe not a human one because it says that the pen will glide effortlessly across the page. And that it’ll unleash my creativity as I jot down my thoughts.

Hasita Krishna: Oh, damn, they took the pen quite literally, didn’t they?

Subha Chandrasekaran: Poor ChatGPT has not seen a calming gel pen. It had no precedent, I think. It took it as literally as it could, but that’s what happens when you combine interns. A lazy marketing effort maybe, or just a very over-enthusiastic attempt to use ChatGPT.

Hasita Krishna: I’d like to be kind about it, but yeah, it’s interesting because I think there are examples and there are anecdotes of people thinking about whether they should be replacing the entire marketing team. Especially digital marketing and creative teams with ChatGPT, or, let me expand that ambit a little bit.

You have generative AI tools for making images today as well, making presentations, and pitch decks. There’s a tool for everything, pretty much, right? CRM sales it’s endless. So should we really be replacing all of this effort with ChatGPT?

Subha Chandrasekaran: And it’s interesting also because when you hear from the other side I met a writer recently who swore that ChatGPT can’t replace her unique touch and flavour.

But of course, design, if you give it the right prompts, I’m sure you can get some images. And then I met a designer who said, nothing’s gonna put me out of business, but I’m sure.

Hasita Krishna: But the writers are going down.

Subha Chandrasekaran: I’m sure that’s like a dead job now.

Linkedin and ChatGPT

Hasita Krishna: I wish. That’s interesting, right? I think any new tool in the system always exposes our inherent biases. We are both very excited about it. If you go on LinkedIn, can you even breathe without seeing a single mention of ChatGPT?

Subha Chandrasekaran: And it’s never a single mention, right? It’s the 10 tools that will save your life, and it’s the 25 AI somethings that will revolutionise your business.

Hasita Krishna: Most people use ChatGPT but do you know how many of them use it?

Subha Chandrasekaran: And I’m guilty of saving so many of those links that I’ve never gone back to look at.

Hasita Krishna: Let me burst your bubble and tell you that maybe they were written by ChatGPT.

Ai Tools Can Be Used For Benefits Too

Subha Chandrasekaran: But having said that, there’s the complete flip side and I think both of us are very intentional users on ChatGPT for our businesses, and in any kind of group of small business owners or women entrepreneurs I do sense a lot of excitement. 

Maybe finally there’s something that can fill the gap that we feel as business owners, that there’s so much we want to do, can’t find the right person, can’t find the time and energy to give them that brief and get it done. And maybe getting on this bandwagon will fill all those gaps overnight.

Hasita Krishna: And which is where I want to clarify in terms of where my chips fall as far as when ChatGPT is up in the air is concerned, they actually fall. In reasonable places. This is not an episode about dissing the use of generative ai.

I just wanna make that very clear. We also work with clients in the enterprise AI space who are now thinking about how some of these models can be used in a business context. So there’s a huge conversation that’s happening, right? As much as we see, a one-off, like a ChatGPT. And the interesting thing is it’s not even the first large language model.

There’s lots of research being done around it, but the interesting thing to me is that. While we think about it as individuals, the work that we do with ChatGPT is going to have larger ramifications. So I think what we should be talking about, Subha, really is how do we leverage and make the most of it?

Because you can’t take a tool. It’s like saying, the internet has been invented, but I will not use it. It’s not going to work like that.

Subha Chandrasekaran: No. There are huge upsides to getting familiar with the tool and the entire concept. In a way, creating personas that the tool is writing, for or on behalf of.

It also opens up your mind and it really helps in generating your own ideas. Because finally, you’re prompting a system and the system is saying, Hey, this could be looked at as A, B, C, and D, and, C and D you might not have thought of otherwise. Exactly.

Hasita Krishna: And the interesting thing to me is also that Google has now come up with a course on how to prompt engineers, right?

So clearly the world is headed in a direction where AI is the norm, right? And I think sometimes we also assume that just because of prompt engineering, there’s a name to it, we don’t know how to do it. It’s just a question of A, remembering that it’s a system, and B, using our own knowledge and expertise and then seeing how best to use a system to level that up, I think.

How Is ChatGPT Impacting Our Day-to-Day Lives?

Subha Chandrasekaran: Correct, So how are you seeing ChatGPT really impact your day-to-day creation efforts?

Hasita Krishna: So interestingly, I get asked that question three times a day cuz everyone is curious now, right? You’re an agency. You’re in the business of creating content to some extent.

How do you do in the context where you’re so replaceable? I think it’s just honestly made our lives and work a lot better because the day it came out, or maybe even within the week, if I’m being more practical, We had an internal discussion and we said, if it exists, and if it’s doing a good job of being a brainstorming vehicle, it should be used.

And I think there’s one article on Moneycontrol where the author talks about how different people from product marketing, digital, software services, content creative, how are these people using, ChatGPT as a tool, and we’ll put that in the show notes as well. But what’s interesting to me is that there’s an equal mix of fear and hope, right?

I think a lot of founders, business owners are asking the question right now. I want to use this. I know there’s a use case for this. A, I don’t know how to use it. B, I’m worried about the ramifications of not knowing, right? I think that’s what it comes down to, the more intentional side of it.

Subha Chandrasekaran: The good thing is, and I think more people like you should put it out there that you are using it because somehow I feel it started with this,

Hasita Krishna: Replace the agency narrative, right?

Subha Chandrasekaran: That’s what everybody jumped to. Let’s get rid of these people that we don’t wanna deal with. But also I think, it removes that. Under current circumstances, using ChatGPT is like using a cheat sheet or you are taking a shortcut, which you wouldn’t otherwise take, or you’re taking an illegitimate shortcut in a way.

I am paying you as a writer or as any, anything actually right now you can use it in multiple ways, but I am paying you to do things as a human. And are you short-changing me? By using a tool. And so if more and more creators and those who are using the tool effectively could come out with one, own it.

Hey, I do use it and this is exactly how I use it. I use it to brainstorm. I use it to generate ideas and that is 20% of what I do, which not only means that I still have to do 80%, but it’s freed up 20% of my time.

Hasita Krishna: Absolutely. So yeah, let’s use this podcast as a platform and I will tell you I do use it.

In fact, I use the latest version. I’ve paid for it. I’m very happy with it. And about 20% of my time definitely is saved because of ChatGPT. In fact, I have written a piece on how ChatGPT can be used as a brainstorming engine, especially also Subha in a context where now we are a very small team.

I may not always have another strategist in the room to brainstorm with, but I want to be able to look at my ideas from the outside- in. It may still be my thinking, but I need to see it in a form and format that’s not familiar to me. And that’s where I find ChatGPT to be insanely valuable. And I think especially in that example, the creative input in terms of this is A, this is B, I’ll put these two together.

The A and the B were supplied by me. And that’s, I think, The true nature of human potential. If I could do that and I could do more of that.

Subha Chandrasekaran: Exactly. Why are we shying away from it? It’s like moving from, it’s a stale metaphor, but it’s like moving from the calculator to the computer.

And really exponentially increasing capability, but also the time that you’re creating for something else. Absolutely. So if you can use this tool to do good work, Which also means you have now more time to do better work.

Hasita Krishna: And that is exactly what it is, right?

The output that we’ve received from the writers where we’ve said, Hey, ChatGPT the outline. It’s a case study. A case study always follows some structure. You decide what you want to add and remove, but at least let it do the job of thinking for you in terms of best practices, and then you populate, right?

There have been use cases where we’ve probably not received the best brief from the client where we’ve written the entire article, we’ve put it on ChatGPT and said, how can I make this article better? And now we have to understand. This is where I think sometimes we forget and it’s so easy to forget because it’s talking to us. That’s conversational AI, right? ChatGPT is trained to talk.

ChatGPT as a Conversational AI

Subha Chandrasekaran: The chat in the gpt.

Hasita Krishna: Not to know. So we have to take that feedback with a little bit of cognizance, but some interesting insights have come out, in terms of, if a big four consulting firm published this case study, what else do you think they would add to it?

No, that’s a prompt that will give you some purely solid output. So you had a great experience. I think we should use it and we should use mid-journey and we should use everything else as well.

Subha Chandrasekaran: And I think perhaps wearing my coach hat, but it also means that it’s okay to admit that you don’t have all these perspectives and you don’t know everything.

So if as an agency, as a writer, as a consultant, or even as an employee let’s say you are working in a particular industry it’s okay to admit that I don’t know everything. So I’m using a tool to trigger ideas, to trigger thoughts, or to refine what I’ve put down

Hasita Krishna: My thought process.

Subha Chandrasekaran: Because otherwise, it feels like now that I’ve used the tool and experienced it, dismissing it is. I won’t say arrogance, but it’s like saying, Hey, how can this know more than me? But you don’t know everything

How ChatGPT Can Help You In Numerous Ways

Hasita Krishna: And it knows other things, whether it knows more or less.

Again, it’s a subjective call that I think we all have to take, but it knows things that we don’t know how to do, which is to type at the speed, which it does. Reasonably cognizant answers, right? And then we can improvise, right? We exist.

Subha Chandrasekaran: And I do think those who are youngsters in the space of any kind of work, it’s a great tool to help you learn more about your own work and the industry that you’re in and the kind of the way you should be writing or what’s good writing in that space.

Not just from, not everybody’s publishing articles and blogs, but even your internal communication can be better or memos that you put up can be better.

Hasita Krishna: More structured, more streamlined. I’ve also found it a very good way of basically processing summaries of very long articles, which we don’t have the time to read and just copy, paste the whole thing, and say, summarise.

These are the three things I want to know. What does the article say about it? So it may not be the most effective way of reading a whole piece, but it’s definitely a great way of understanding what that

Subha Chandrasekaran: True I’ve used it as a quick and easy Google, if you may, so when we were travelling and I said, gimme a quick, brief history of this city.

And you get the main highlights in one paragraph. Rather than a page of links and then saying, which one do I go to? And then I read the whole thing and then summarise it in my own hand.

Hasita Krishna: And come to your own conclusions, right?

Subha Chandrasekaran: We are coming back to our dear intern and their cosmetic gel pen. Why don’t you prove to us that you are human and not a bot? Go to any platform that you use for podcasts and please subscribe to the damn good marketing podcast. You won’t regret it.

Hasita Krishna: Definitely.

Is It Worth Teaching The Team To Use The Tool?

Subha Chandrasekaran: Would it be worth your while to invest in teaching your team how to use the tool?

Hasita Krishna: That’s an interesting question. Because I think everybody needs to explore and learn it and make it work in their own use cases and context. The guardrails I would set whether it’s the context of my own work or even in client work is to not go too far away from the brand language of things, right? There’s a reason it’s been built. They’ve been talking that way for a while. So it’s important we continue to work with that. And the easiest way to do that, I found, is to just open a new chat window on ChatGPT and tell it. This is how we speak.

This is an example of language we can and cannot use. This is how we think about campaigns for them. We don’t do flamboyant, we don’t do exuberant. So whatever it is, what is that guardrail that you want to set? And also maybe tell it, the creatives will have bright colors or it’ll be muted and dull.

So you think about that while you’re writing. And then get it to write. I think also the question that a lot of people are asking in that context is, can I replace human effort and therefore maybe human revenue? With a tool like this, I think it’s like a pen, right?

If you want good handwriting, you have to go to a calligrapher at least in today’s day & and age. Now, three months later we listen to this episode, what will the world look like? We don’t know. Things are moving very fast, but I think today, I would think twice before replacing the person entirely with ChatGPT.

Subha Chandrasekaran: No makes sense. And I think maybe that’s an interesting piece of advice or a nuance that you do have to take the effort to tell the tool. Who you are or in whose voice you are writing or what is the kind of context or background?

You don’t just go and say, write an article on X, Y, Z. Listen, I am this person writing for this kind of audience. And hence, what would be a good outline?

How Can You Be a Good Thought Leader If Your Thoughts Are Coming From ChatGPT

Hasita Krishna: And in saying that, you bring up an interesting nuance on thought leadership, right? How can you be a thought leader if your thoughts are coming from ChatGPT And I don’t mean that as an individual, any organisation for that matter?

And I think this is a problem we are solving on a daily basis. In fact more and more now, the need for content that speaks to a certain audience and that has authority is only growing. One way of doing it, I’ve realised, is to let the leader or the founder, whoever’s the person speaking or representing the brand, put down their thoughts on a subject and then use ChatGPT to find facts and statistics to either support or deny that conclusion.

ChatGPT and Education

Subha Chandrasekaran: Yeah, that’s interesting. And back to your question of, should a leader use this for their thoughts, et cetera. I think that we both read an article recently on how ChatGPT is really revamping education. Right space. A lot of homework and a lot of essays are being written by this tool.

But I think what really caught our attention was that it is also something that you can’t ban. That’s not the answer, to say that. Okay. All students ChatGPT’s banned and it’s been created. And has a certain purpose and it has a certain, it adds something to the entire content generation space.

So it’s about maybe teaching them how to use it. And saying, Hey, you can say, go write an essay, and the tool will write an essay. Do you wanna really stop there? Why don’t you use this too? Trigger ideas for you. Why don’t you brainstorm it? As you said, it’s conversational.

Why don’t you chat with this tool? And, come back with something that is more you and more unique because it has triggered all these ideas in your head. That’s true. Coming back to the leaders like, It’s really about flipping the question and saying, why is your leader not using exactly? Why is your employee not using this to better understand a concept or to get there? Get first-cut feedback. If I am going in, if this is the audience that I’m writing for, am I going in the right direction, et cetera?

Why Shouldn’t You Stop The Usage Of ChatGPT in Organisation

Hasita Krishna: And the problem with saying, denying it or hush hushing it is that people may end up using it anyway, and that is going to cause problems at an organisation level, which are much bigger, honestly.

Because these are tools that are, whatever you chat with, it is used as its training data. For it’s furthering its knowledge through the conversation that it’s having with you. So do you really want an employee to secretly go ask for something that’s proprietary to you and then it becomes common knowledge on the internet?

So it’s rather, I think you set policies, set guidelines around the use of AI in the context of everyday work and you just roll with it and it, I think companies of all scales and sizes could really benefit from a policy of that nature, which says this is sensitive information, this is not sensitive information. And this you can use in the context of.

Subha Chandrasekaran: I would honestly prefer the team member that says, Hey, this was the brief, and ChatGPT and I came up with these ideas together. Which one should I explore more? Or which one should I deep dive into? And then, I’d rather that be and as you said, I don’t want them hiding.

And pretending it’s their work. And then you are maybe rewarding the wrong result or person, I don’t know. It’s a very murky space still.

ChatGPT and Safety of Data

Hasita Krishna: This brings up a lot of safety aspects of data privacy downtime. The considerations are endless. A lot of companies work with information that’s very proprietary to them.

Exposing it is not always in the best interest. And if you use ChatGPT in its original form & format, that’s what you’re doing. So now it’s time for the topic. And before we move to that, may we please request you to subscribe or hit the follow button so you never miss another episode. So Subha, tell me this when ChatGPT first made its appearance on the LinkedIn scene because that’s where everything always seems to happen. Did you think it would take on the life that it has taken on right now?

Did Subha Expect ChatGPT To Become What It Is Today?

Subha Chandrasekaran: Honestly, I didn’t. Knowing me and knowing us, I jumped onto the bandwagon immediately. It was a new toy and I had to try it out. And the first, one of the first few prompts that I gave it was to write. A college application essay Oh, wow. In the persona of my daughter. Because she was going through the process at that time and I was just amazed. That could have been written by her. That could have been a 17-year-old with that particular hobby or interest describing it in great detail. And so I was hooked because very clearly, they were onto something.

Something that Yes, is it dangerous and can it go can it be misused? What can’t be? So you have to, I think, really get your hands dirty and see what it can do.

Hasita Krishna: Honestly, the biggest misuse of time is social media, so we don’t really say no to it.

Should You Replace Your Team With ChatGPT?

Subha Chandrasekaran: I think on that note, I got onto threads today.

Hasita Krishna: Oh, damn.

Subha Chandrasekaran: One more place I shouldn’t be, but I am.

So let me put you in the hot seat. Do you think I should replace my digital marketing team with a paid version of ChatGPT? $20 and I’m done.

Hasita Krishna: With the oversight. Honestly, I think we all know this. There is no free lunch, unfortunately. I think this is really a great opportunity to ask better of your creativity.

Because the baseline is being taken care of. Something can produce something that’s not the job anymore. How do you make it impactful? How do you make it different? Unique. I think it’s time to level the jobs up of everyone involved in the system, honestly.

Subha Chandrasekaran: And don’t mistrust those who are using it.

Hasita Krishna: Yeah, that too. Come, let’s have a chat. We’ll figure it out. Like what is the resistance to it? Let’s talk about it. We’ll find out.

Closing

Subha Chandrasekaran: Awesome. I think there’s a lot to take away from today. Really folks, if I had to summarise, which I’m not too good at, but I’ll try to cause the mind does wonder.

But I think the simple question is, how do I use ChatGPT to make my life easier? And when I say me, it could be whatever profession that you’re in. It’s definitely a great starting point and a great tool to brainstorm. It definitely does help you process a lot of information faster, so you know, if you’re doing research or if you’re just putting things together to kickstart some conversation you can get specific information, but you do maybe have to fact-check it.

It may not be recent. It may sometimes be wrong also. As Google found out in a very live launch. And maybe you can also get more efficient and productive, which is man’s purpose on earth anyway. Productivity if I integrate it with other tools.

Hasita Krishna: In fact, there are some interesting ways to integrate ChatGPT with other tools, and interfaces.

And yeah, it’s just the beginning of Generative AI. I think the ability to have a conversation with the system that makes sense must be the greatest innovation of our time. And maybe three months later, I’ll say something else, but for now, this seems like such a big deal. That said, yes, there are some considerations around safety that we have to be cognizant of.

And I don’t just mean data safety, human safety as well, which quite frankly, I don’t think anyone knows enough. So let’s leave that to the experts and use it the way it’s meant to be used.

Subha Chandrasekaran: Very true. So see you on the other side of that.

Hasita Krishna: Thank you so much for tuning in to today’s episode of The Damn Good Marketing Podcast on all things ChatGPT I know we took some time to come up with this episode because we wanted to try things out ourselves and really have some proof of concept before we tell you what’s a good thing to do and what’s not a good thing to do.

We hope you’ve taken away an immense amount from this episode. If you have any questions, do find us on LinkedIn and reach out. A lot of the links and commentary will be in the show notes as well, and you can read those articles. You can find ways to do the dance with ChatGPT if I could put it that way.

And have fun doing it.

Subha Chandrasekaran: Yeah, and if you’re stuck you can always just ping Hasita and she’ll get onto a chat about ChatGPT. Bye.