Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the next frontier of marketing, it has the potential to overhaul the way marketers learn about their business and customers, according to industry academic and digital media authority, Dr Karen Nelson-Field.
Speaking as the keynote address at the AdNews Media Summit this morning, Nelson-Field says the technology is rapidly evolving to address a major challenge marketers and advertisers face: research.
“In medical research the path to application can years,” Nelson-Field says.
“They are focused on replication and extension; they look for significant sameness across multiple sets of data and this takes time. Good research takes time.”
“In our industry, where research is largely unregulated, research can be turned around in days, sometimes even hours.”
Nelson-Field quoted former Leo Burnett president Bob Barocci who, in 2012 said that the problem in modern marketing is that the advent of digital, has meant “the rate of change is happening ahead of learning”.
But she says advances in AI mean that marketers are able to learn faster than the rate of change.
“It allows us to look for consistent patterns across multiple sets of data quickly, in real time, at scale,” Nelson-Field says.
“Will inconvenient truths surface in the next phase [of learning]? Absolutely. Should “snake oil” salesman be worried? Yes they should. Because there are fewer places to hide in the age of AI.”
In March this year, Nelson-Field announced she formed a joint venture with Jemsoft AI leaders Jordan Green and Emily Rich to work on a number of advances in marketing, including media measurement technologies and real-time media research solutions.
The joint venture, is called Media Intelligence Co, and sees Nelson-Field combine her knowledge of digital media and consumer behaviour to Jemsoft’s computer vision technology called Monocular API.
Monocular API is a computer vision algorithm, which allows the computer to scan environments and learn.
Nelson-Field says the impact of this technology and other advances in machine learning has the potential to radically change the marketing landscape.
“In the age of AI media research not in real time is redundant,” Nelson-Field says.
“It’s not to be snobby about it, but the reality is we can do it quicker, we don’t need to rely on respective data.
“We can do it in real time and react to customers in real time as well.”
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