AI's Role in the Future (and Present) of Promo

There are plenty of horror stories about AI. For starters, there’s “The Matrix,” where robots have taken over the Earth and turned us all into batteries — until Keanu Reeves heroically escapes, meets some people with awesome nicknames, and takes down the personified “consciousness” of the AI with some martial arts and back flexibility.

There’s also the idea of “the singularity,” which is a hypothetical turning point in technological advancement where the technology we control transcends and advances beyond humanity’s limitations, thus creating a situation like in “The Matrix” trilogy. Throw in some of the stories on shows like “Black Mirror,” and you have a healthy dose of fear in AI.

But, obviously, these are dramatic interpretations, putting it mildly. AI has been around for a while now in some form. We use it more than we might even realize. In recent years, however, new programs have popped up and entered the mainstream, so we’re all a little more aware of AI capabilities than we used to be.

There are programs that take text-based prompts to conjure up images, or take an existing piece of art and expand upon it based on clues within the piece. There are programs that can write at length in any style that exists. For instance, you could put in a command to “generate 1,000 words about promotional stress balls in the style of Roald Dahl,” and in a few minutes you’d have a story about a reclusive and eccentric promotional products supplier who finally opens his factory doors to lucky contest winners.

It’s healthy and normal to be hesitant about big changes in the way we do things, especially when it relates to our livelihoods, but some people in promo who have dipped their toes into AI say that’s exactly the type of person who should try it themselves.

Marshall Atkinson, owner of Mesa, Arizona-based Atkinson Consulting, co-founder of Dubuque, Iowa-based Shirt Lab, and founder of the Midjourney Elevating Print Creativity Newsletter, says that if you’re afraid of AI, you should try it.

“Anything you’re doing with artificial intelligence is based on saving you time,” Atkinson says. “And you only get out of it what you put into it. There are people who don’t want to use it. They see it as a giant threat. And, kind of, the answer to that is if it scares you, then it’s meant for you.”

What that means is people who worry AI could take their jobs as designers, sales and marketing staff who specialize in prospecting, or content creators should look into how AI can be used as a tool, rather than a threat. That’s all it is at the end of the day — a tool. It’s the same as the computer and word processor taking over the typewriter, or the smartphone taking over, well, everything. It’s capable of so much, but it still relies on a pilot.

That’s you.

“If you’re an artist and you see the AI images as a threat, like, ‘Hey, you’re coming after my job!’ you need to be using this tool to learn how to use it so you can iterate and create faster for what we do for our customers and our clients,” Atkinson says. “Because, if you’re not learning how to use it, your competitors certainly are. And they’re going to outpace you really quickly. Because in a matter of two minutes, I can come up with eight, nine, 12 different designs that I can send to my client. They approve one, I throw some type of logo on it, and now in under 10 or 15 minutes I have a completely new design that nobody’s ever seen before, while you’re still hours in on the project and behind.”

That, Atkinson says, is the key to understanding AI and its implications in promo, and ultimately letting go of the fear: Seeing it as a tool, not as a sentient being that will unilaterally upend the industry. Just like you needed to master the internet, you can master this, and do it better than your competitors.

Because the way AI works isn’t magic. It sure seems like it sometimes. But really, it relies on the human aspect of it. Programs use text-based prompts. Let’s use an example from Alex Symms, the new director of sales for HPG, Braintree, Massachusetts, who has been excited about the prospects of AI and started using different image-generation programs in their beta phases.

“I can’t wait — I’m actually on the beta right now for Adobe Firefly, which is able to use AI to create vectorized images,” Symms says. “So, if I was working on a project with a client, and they were like, ‘Yeah, I really want it to be an elephant with wings sitting on a prairie drinking a cup of coffee,’ or whatever they want it to look like, I can create that for you. And then for our specific industry, that would be vector, so we can go straight to print.”

From there, the AI program would spit out an image of an elephant with wings sitting on a prairie drinking a cup of coffee. But if you don’t like it in its first phase, you can add stipulations like “green wings” or “yellow coffee mug.” You could also do things like say you want it with more cinematic lighting or other photography terms. Different prompts yield specific results.

Symms says that after a little bit of time, he realized the AI is an extension of himself and his ideas — just faster.

“This is something I’m going to be able to use and utilize for what I want it to be used for,” he says.

And the more you use it, the “smarter” it gets, he says, but it still needs a good editor. (And thank goodness for that.)

Atkinson has been using Midjourney for his images primarily, and taking time to whittle things down with more and more specialized prompts. He says the whole thing has been “addicting.”

“I’m an artist,” he says. “I know how to draw, I can paint, I can do stuff. So the challenge is trying to get Midjourney to do exactly what I want, and it’s very difficult to do that. … So what I’ve been trying to do is let go a little bit and let Midjourney just do its thing, and then give it prompts to kind of guide it into how I want things to look, and how I want to be using the image.”

Power Tools Compared to Rocks and Chisels

Atkinson likens it to the beginning of his career in the industry, where he was printing T-shirts for mainly fraternities and sororities. Plenty of people reading this will remember what simply designing and printing promotional T-shirts entailed.

All of the different processes that went into just developing screens for printing took ages compared to now. The turning point, for Atkinson, was the dawn of Photoshop, where he could easily layer images, making the process of printing T-shirts — then his side gig between grad school semesters — into something he could pursue full time.

“What changed and disrupted the entire industry was the advent of a personal computer,” he says. “I no longer had to hand-create things. I could do in an hour what used to take all day and maybe tomorrow also. There are tools that are, to me, just like it. I can create faster. I can iterate faster. I can do a better job for my clients. It’s not saying, ‘Hey, I need that thing to be red.’ That’s still you. You’re still taking your artistic and creative sensibilities and applying to that [project], whether you’re writing a letter to your client or you’re creating an image for a client. It’s still you in control, and you’re deciding on what needs to be done or how it should sound and look. You’re in control of these tools.”

Pictures and 1,000 Words

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words. But, sometimes you just need 1,000 words. Believe me, I know that game.

Things like blog posts and sales letters can be tweaked and perfected with AI programs like ChatGPT, Atkinson says, saving you time to focus on other projects.

“You can write a sales letter about [a] new product to this person, based on their LinkedIn profile why they should care,” he says. “It instantly drafts a letter for you. The reason why it’s called ChatGPT is because you can have a conversation with it. So, they have the first version of the sales letter, and you say, ‘Hey, that’s great. But now include this,’ or ’Now make a funny joke at the end,’ or ‘Now talk like William Shakespeare,’ or whatever. And it changes the whole thing for you, and you can keep playing around with it until you get exactly what you want.”

It’s still imperfect, and requires a second pair of eyes to make sure it makes sense, but it can at least get you started.

Also, these text-based platforms that digest information can be used for some of the more monotonous and dry moments of business, like reading legal documents.

“For example, when you sign up for something, you’ve got six pages of terms and conditions that everybody has to agree to but nobody ever reads,” Atkinson says. “You can copy that and paste it into OpenAI and say, ‘Hey, read this and let me know what I should be concerned about in less than a paragraph.’ And now you just got your own instant Cliffs Notes tool.”

You could also use it for something as simple as coming up with themes for upcoming holidays or special calendar events.

The Downsides

AI isn’t perfect, mind you. There are real issues people need to take into account before they jump in. For starters, the machines could become fully sentient and form an uprising, turning us all into batteries with only one man who can save us from it. Sorry, that’s a joke.

Mostly, the issues stem from the fact that programs like OpenAI and ChatGPT use existing content to create new work. Meaning, unlike when you form an idea, this all stems from existing matter, so to speak. Nothing is truly “created,” really.

And since a human didn’t create that piece of art, a human can’t claim ownership over it.

“A tool created it,” Atkinson says. “Only people can own a copyright. When it’s created by an artificial intelligence platform, you can’t copyright something that you didn’t create. You have to be OK with some of the stuff being out there.”

There’s also the ethical dilemma about doing things like prompting an AI program to make art in a particular person’s style. One could argue that people have been taking inspiration and churning out their own interpretations of it since the dawn of time, and this is no different than saying “Draw a house in the style of Van Gogh,” but it’s still worth considering. Atkinson points out that the nature of AI-generated images is that it never replicates itself, so it’s not stealing.

“There’s a prompt sequence, it’s a string of words,” he says. “It’s taking each of these things and injecting it into the new result. It never repeats itself, even with the same words, you can never replicate it because it’s never the same. So, it’s not taking something somebody already designed and stealing it. That’s not how it works. … OpenAI works the same way. It’s not stealing somebody’s thoughts with words. It’s just using it to produce something else.”

The greater issue with OpenAI, he says, is sometimes it creates sentences that don’t entirely make sense. Yes, they’re correct grammar, but you need a human mind to be able to pick out some uncanny phrasing.

“It doesn’t understand something, but it wants to be correct,” Atkinson says. “You could say, ‘Write me a psychology answer based on scientific results, blah blah blah,’ and it will [produce], ‘Based on a 1957 study by Dr. Johnson at Berkeley University.’ Sometimes it will just make that up, and that’s called hallucinating. You still have to do your own fact-checking. You still have to look at where it got that source material when OpenAI or ChatGPT is citing stuff. Now, it could cite the real thing, or it could have just made it up. How do we know? Google. We look it up ourselves.”

On a grander scale, there is worry that AI might become a little too realistic, and while falling short of taking over the world, it could at least do things like cause mild panic or trick people into believing something is true just because they see it.

“If you remember recently, there was actually an AI-created image that showed the Pentagon being bombed,” Symms says. “I don’t remember exactly what it was, but it drastically affected the stock market. If you look at the space during that time, it triggered things, because that’s also driven by AI as well. If you think of those kinds of implications that can happen, instances like that, yeah, it is kind of scary. It is a little bit dangerous. But I don’t know if we can ignore the fact that it’s here. I don’t know how they can make it to where it can be monitored to a point where it’s usable. And I think that we should be very aware that it has some capabilities that, if used in a negative manner, could affect a ton of different things.”

It’s Worth a Try

Every new advancement is going to have a downside. Heck, look at the internet. It’s almost entirely downsides. That’s another joke, but for every one thing the internet has that makes our lives easier, there are quite a few that make it more difficult or more scary.

AI is no different. It’s an advancement that makes the way we do business easier and can be used extremely effectively in the right hands.

“There are some really smart people in our industry that use AI tools,” Symms says. “And I think sometimes there’s a lot more out there that do it, but don’t want to admit it or give away their secrets. Because this is all new. It does take someone with expertise to really fine-tune this to how it’s going to work specifically within our industry, whether they be on platforms or search engines, or doing Google optimization with SEO and all of that sort of thing.

“I do think that it’s very interesting that this is going to be something that’s going to reshape the revenue stream of both suppliers and distributors in our industry, which is either people that are gravitating [to] and using this type of technology, and the ones that are not,” Symms continues. “And I think you’re going to continuously see differentiation and a separation in maybe market share and revenue potential with people who are on board with this or they’re not.”

So, if AI scares you, it might be time to face your fear and at least see what it’s all about.