Before you rage against the machine, rage against your brand book
We all know AI has rapidly infiltrated the marketing world. The future is uncertain, but there’s no use denying that it’s here, it’s shiny and it’s already cranking out content faster than you can say “test and learn”.
Tom Wenborn, boss of creative in Thinkerbell Melbourne, explores.
Think about it. AI can now churn out thousands of variations of an ad. It can test them, optimise them, and basically train itself to be a brand’s own marketing department. Sounds efficient, right?
Well maybe not, if you haven’t laid down the foundations of how your brand should go to market.
Without a clearly defined brand world, identity, visual language, concept construct, tone of voice, all those AI-generated assets risk being as generic as Puma’s first completely AI generated film.
And, in a world where everyone’s got AI, how is your brand going to stand out?
Many marketers are obsessed with tactics instead of strategy. The situation we’ve found ourselves in is a perfect example. We’re all getting starry-eyed over the shiny new tools, but we’re forgetting to build the clear and distinctive framework that’s going to fuel them. It’s like buying a megaphone before you’ve figured out what to protest – you’ll just end up shouting nonsense.
Branding isn’t just about making content, it’s about making content that is recognisably yours. If your brand world is vague, AI agents will just generate chaos. And in a crowded marketplace, chaos is just more chaos. But if you’ve invested in defining your brand world over time, creating deliberate memory structures that represent it, perhaps the machine can recognise you.
A good test used to be Googling your brand and having a look at the first 50 images of the results. Do they look consistent? Recognisable? On brand? If so you probably have a well understood brand world.
Another fun test today is asking AI to create an ad for your brand using very rudimental prompts. Is it consistent, recognisable and on brand?
Even the machine knew to include a meerkat in the Compare the Market example.
Or could it be for any brand if you swapped out the logo?
The real challenge here is crafting a brand world so clear and distinct that AI agents (or whoever is building the assets) can’t help but create something that is fueling the brand, and dare I say it, not a waste of money. You need to be firm, consistent, and very, very clear.
So, before you dive headfirst into the AI uprising, stop and think. Have you really defined your brand? Have you documented your visual language, your storytelling themes, your unique tone? If not, now is the time.
Tom Wenborn
Because in an AI-powered future, the brands that win won’t be the ones with the most noise, they’ll be the ones with the most coherent, recognisable ideas.
They’ll be the ones who raged against their brand book before they raged against the machine.
Tom Wenborn is chief creative tinker, at Thinkerbell.
