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Album 6 Track 7 - What's Poppin? AI: Behind the Bot · Brands, Beats & Bytes

• DC: Let's go. Brand Nerds. Back at you with a What's Popping version of Brands, Beats, and Bytes and we are going back into the crates to look at albums of the past. Some wax today, Brand Nerds we have with us someone who has been a brand nerd guest on our beloved podcast. He came to us on our first album, Album One: Track Three, when we were recording these podcasts. On the beautiful campus of Stanford University, Palo Alto, but that's not the reason why we brought him back. It was a lovely show. The reason why we brought him back is because of, uh, something new, but not really that new that many of us marketers lt feel like we need to know about. But we don't, which reminds me of a quote from, uh, uh, an executive that I used to work with. He will remain a name because he may not want folks to know this, but he said this to me LT. He said that, by the way, if I say anything and you don't know what it means, I'd much rather you say, Hey, I don't know what that means, then suffer silently in stupidity. Okay. Okay, I get that. So, uh, so LT, this is a subject where we kind of don't really know it and we need an expert and we don't want our Brand Nerds to suffer silently and stupidity. LT, who do we have in the building today? LT: D, that's a great setup. We have our great friend Seth Greenberg with us. Welcome, Seth. Seth Greenberg: Thanks, Larry. Thanks, DC. LT: So, so, uh, as DC alluded to, Seth was a previous guest. And it was Album One, Track Three. And if you haven't listened to your auto, it was really great. DC: Uh, classic, classic. LT: Totally. And in that, you know, Seth dropped some great knowledge on marketing brands, and also, by the way, how to win radio contests. And you have to listen to that to get it. It was really, it was really fun and amusing to hear that. But anyway, won't go into Seth's full background again, but we'll tell you that for the past few years, Seth has been a very successful tech CMO, investor, and advisor, including his most recent stop as CMO of Veritone, which is a public company on NASDAQ. And in their first sentence of their About section, they say, quote, "Veritone designs human centered AI solutions." So, truth be told, Brand Nerds, to many of you avid listeners, and we do appreciate you out there, AI has come up a lot on different episode tracks, and every time it has come up, and I have spoken with Seth afterward, he will say something like, Hey, really enjoyed your conversation on AI, and I would really like to, you know, offer my, a few words on this. To which I have said back to set. Uh, you have to come on, which is why he's here. And I also know in a nice way you were saying there's a whole lot you two are missing here. So here we are, as DC alluded to. So, Seth, we really wanted to start off with one question for you. And that is what it's one question and we'll go into, I'm sure a lot of tangents. That's what won't be a problem with you. Um, what should marketers and all of our Brand Nerds know when it comes to a I? Seth Greenberg: It ain't going away. So that's one. That's the one first thing. So deal with it. There's, you know, we, so this conversation we can zoom in, you know, we can zoom out. We can talk, uh, at any type of level that you guys want, but this is the new normal. LT: Right. That's interesting. I'm glad you said that first. Uh, do you want to add anything to that? DC: I, I, I do. Um, sometimes when a new normal happens, uh, Seth and, uh, and LT, it is difficult for us to let go of what was the old normal. LT: Right. DC: And so given the new normal, and Seth, you rightly say it ain't going nowhere. What's some old stuff we might need to be letting go of that we think we shouldn't. Seth Greenberg: Um, I guess a hundred percent control and, you know, I'll try to give examples as I, as I go, but, uh, and, you know, this is, this is for the Brand Nerds. Right. So for me, as we have this conversation, I'm going to keep myself, um, honest by knowing my audience. Um, I want to speak to Brand Nerds. Okay, so there's different types of audiences that need to be educated. This is for the Brand Nerds, um, and my background, um, and you can go back to, you know, Album One, Track Three, dust off the cobwebs and, and hear my background. So I'm not going to go back into that, but, um, I've been a brand nerd. So I am one of us. Um, I worked, uh, in, at Intuit, uh, timely. Now with this being, you know, Q1 at, at, uh, TurboTax. Mm-Hmm. I worked at QuickBooks as a Brand Nerd. I got my first, uh, opportunity to be CMO after Intuit at LifeLock. And, uh, as a brand nerd and, um, and then I flipped to the other side. Um, and so I, um, uh, actually, um, uh, became, uh, I went on to the vendor side, not the Brand Nerd side. Still vendors have Brand Nerd, you know, vendors have brands. Right. It's different than your audience mostly. Right. Cause you talk a lot about, you know, Coca Cola and, and, you know, I, I, I listen to every episode of your show. So not a lot of vendors, not a lot of vendor marketers on there. So for me to be a marketer at Altrix, which is data science and analytics. And Veritone, which as you said, Larry, we do these solutions for brands. I can see it on both sides. And so it's really, um, an interesting perspective to try to, um, learn and educate one of the reasons why, um, I joined this company. Uh, was, um, because I wanted to learn myself, I knew that if I'm the filter and I don't know jack about AI, I, I'm going to be an expert or a lot more knowledgeable by the end of the year, you know, and so I took, I've been there for a year and so now I'm, I've done my job and I'm kind of phasing away and advising this company now. But, you know, to answer your question, DC, I think that, um, uh, one of the things that I, I experienced as a marketer happens before a vendor this time is we want to do repositioning. Okay. So we want to reposition Veritone, so we're not everything to everybody. We want to be, you know, um. everything to three different verticals. So it's not like ChatGPT. That's just like a platform that everyone in the world can use. This is specifically for media entertainment. It's for government and, um, it's for, uh, hiring solutions. Okay. So those are the three verticals. When we, you know, when I've worked with my traditional agencies that I've worked with for years and years and years, and we had a bake off and did all the normal stuff, how do we tell our story? And one of the things that I was hoping for is, how are they using AI? If we're going to, you know, try to communicate, um, how great AI is and how it can solve, uh, a lot of problems and how different it is, how are the agencies, these, you know, traditional brand agencies using AI to stand up our new positioning to execute our new website and things like that. So I've had like a front row seat and had some expectations and hopes that we can all learn and accelerate together. But long winded answer is it's slow. There's a lot of, you know, um, the way that things have done, the legacy is kind of like, um, a habit, that, um, I think you need to like pull a plug or force yourself to change the way that you're doing things. And I'm, I don't suffer for fools. I don't think that that's necessarily a great thing because I'm impatient. That's why I'm not a golfer, but I just, I just want to see change happen faster than people are comfortable changing. LT: Very interesting. Did you catch that? Uh, and Brand Nerds, this is really for you. I know DC heard this. That the reason Seth took this job, and by the way, he told me this before he took it, was he wanted to really lean in and learn right in the belly of the beast. And I don't mean that in any pejorative way, right, to really get jumped right into the fire of AI to really understand what this was all about. And there's no better way to do that than to go work for, you know, a company that's obviously a leading company as it relates to AI based solutions. So that's what Seth has done. And I think it's a It's super cool. Uh, D, anything to add on that? So Seth, I have a follow up question. You've set this up. Great. It's here to stay. That's wonderful. Uh, and you have spent this time, you know, dedicated in the confluence of marketing and AI. So what should the Brand Nerds lean into if they're saying it's you're saying it's here to stay? What should they really lean into and really stay? Understand about it as they lean into it. Seth Greenberg: So there's a external facing AI and I'll give you some examples and there's internal facing AI and inherently when we talk about Brand Nerds with a capital B. Um, you think about, you know, the, uh, the right side of the brain, the right brain, you know, that type of, are you right brain? Are you left brain? Are you qualitative? Are you quantitative? You know, so, so I, I think that that's too simplistic these days. And, um, there are certain things that Brand Nerds, if I'm going to, you know, answer the question, take it literally, can lean into on the, um, production side of things, on the development side of things, um, on the creative side of things as well. Um, but ultimately, if a CMO is listening to this, they're going to be more than just a Brand Nerd, right? They're going to make sure that they're a marketing ops person. Is, um, keeping them on track and that they can prove, uh, customer acquisition costs and lifetime value and show their CEO or their CFO, um, the, the, you know, the budgets that they're getting, um, are optimized and things like that. Um, so, so, um, I'll give you a couple examples. Um, there's, uh, 1 of the beautiful things of, um, just diving into this world. Is that I get to, um, help learn and then teach as well. And so, uh, one of the things that I've done along the way, since we last talked is I've joined, um, some companies, some startups. And it's funny because some of them didn't position themselves as AI, um, and then I came along and they're like, you know what? That's that's more than a trend. That's here to stay. How do we incorporate what we do? And so if I'm a Brand Nerd, I would look at, like, one of my startups and this is public facing. I said, there's some public facing things and there's some internal facing things. The internal facing things is so much easier because that's. Um, that's about, um, operational excellence and efficiencies, and you can, you know, gain 15 to 25 percent or whatever, you know, however, um, you want to look at it in terms of being more efficient. Um, and, and, um, doing a lot of things, um, uh, through AI, uh, quicker, faster, a lot more mundane things. And, you know, again, I'll give you some examples, some real examples. Um, the company that I want to reference right now is one of the companies that I advise, um, called Data.World. That's the URL, Data.World. And the outward, uh, application that they have, if you go to Data.World, they make it pretty prominent. So they started out as a modern catalog. It's, you know, they'll take all of your data and they will help you, um, uh, be more effective with it and utilize it. And, you know, uh, have anyone at your whole enterprise, no matter what department you're in, have the right access to it that you give the permissions to. But when it's infused now with, um, AI, the outward looking, um, uh, module is called Archie. That's the name of their AI bot. You can go to Data.World and it's pretty prominent on their site. It's a prompt. It's like ChatGPT and it's specific to Data.World. It's almost like, and again, this is for the Brand Nerds, you know, brands, as you're driving traffic, you need to convert that traffic. These are the, the, the SDRs, the sales development reps, right? So the prompt is like your first line of offense. You can ask it anything and, um, if it doesn't, if you're asking, if you're trying to trick it and ask silly things, it will recognize that, but, um, you know, I just encourage you guys to just go there and try yourself and, and ask it anything. It's, it's basically like getting a knowledgeable support person on the phone and it's evolved past like these, like generic chat bots that we're all used to. That's an example of an outward thing. So I'll pause there and I'll give you some examples. Of inward things to any questions on that. LT: D, any question? DC: I don't have any questions, but I have a quick comment when I first heard the word Internet. I didn't know exactly what it meant, but it sounded like a category. Then after that, there were all these brands that popped up that were leveraging the Internet and I never heard Archie. But artificial intelligence to me is a category similar to Internet. I know ChatGPT as a brand. And now I'm hearing Archie, so that's just interesting to me. Seth Greenberg: Yeah, yeah. And that's Yeah, great flip. That's their own. Um, uh, they're leveraging some other technologies and creating their own. Um, you know, large language model that's specific to their like, um, to to their enterprise. So, um, they, you can control. Um, what you want the responses to be based on the content that you that lives there. Um, so internally again, I'll stay with Data.World as an example. Um, and they haven't really published this, but, uh, I know, you know, Brett is, uh, serial entrepreneur. He's an amazing, um, CEO. Um, he would, wouldn't mind me sharing this, um, to help make people smarter. LT: So what's Brett's last name. You don't mind. Seth Greenberg: That's Brett Hertz, H U R T. Uh, and he started Bizarre Voice. So the Brand Nerds and he, you know, he, he was the founder of that. That's the customer reviews platform that went public. So he took that public, um, uh, Core Metrics was another one. And he, he and his team are so successful. I'm just happy to, to contribute how I can. So internally what they do to, um, uh, make the, their teams more efficient, is they have different tools for their sales reps. They have a prospect, they have, they have this, the thing called prospect researcher, um, and that's where a business development rep and account executive, um, they basically, um, uh, look at the, the prompt will hand, like if they're trying to, uh, to go to LinkedIn. And, um, you know, get some prospects, uh, some leads, they're not just blindly sending out leads, you know, calling them or emailing them stuff. This will help, um, navigate their, um, the, the type of content that they put out there. So, you know, um, if their prospect is looking, uh, for, um, any of the brands that listen to the show to your company. They'll, they'll, it's, it's like advanced, um, ABM, account based marketing, and, um, it will handhold you to fill out the prompts in a way it'll say, okay, now copy and paste a paragraph from their LinkedIn into this prompt. And then it will say, how do you want to, uh, how do you want to reach out to them? Are you, is this a cold call? Is this an email? Are you going to see them at an event? We're going to help give you V1, that's key, the first version of, of, of, you know, we're your Cyrano. We're, we're going to give you something to, as a thought starter, as an icebreaker. And, and it, you know, it levels the playing field. The people that use these tools will be further along than these companies that don't use these tools. LT: Well said. Well said. Uh, see, I want to add something here. Uh, another friend of, uh, of ours who's been on the show, who's a great, has a great ad background and is leaning in all the way is Ed Collins. Ed started a company called Firebase Studios and they are using AI. for, uh, help for the creative side, Seth helping, um, like audio production with voices and it's incredible. And how, you know, both cost efficient as well as speed they can provide. And if you hear some of the voices and they've replicated voices like the, you know, they, they have poetry's voice now, and if you hear Poetry's voice, it's incredible. It sounds just like poetry. That's who we've worked with, uh, Seth. But anyway, so I wanted to give a shout out to Ed because that's again, an AI based, um, thing that's really helping folks on the creative side. That's just another example. Seth Greenberg: Oh, so let me, let me, let me, yeah, let me build on that Larry, because At Veritone, as an example, um, we will get permission from, um, a performer and, um, and it's been public now that one of the key partnerships that Veritone has is with CAA. Right? And so we'll get permission from, um, a talent. To, uh, uh, replicate their voice and can use that with their permission. They get paid and all this kind of stuff. It's all done legally and contractually, um, to do the voiceovers when they can't fly in for it. Um, you look at like, uh, Ellen Kay, who's a radio personality, um, who's in, you know, hundreds of markets. Well, uh, with her permission, we have taken her voice and then in each individual market. Um, been able to replicate, uh, time of day and the weather, the temperature, all that kind of stuff, you know, uh, to personalize that. Um, and then even like the, you know, uh, Vin Scully's, um, uh, you know, family has allowed Veritone to license Vin Scully's voice, right? And you know, it just goes on and on. LT: Wait, hold on a second. That's trippy. And I mean trippy in actually a really cool way. Yeah. Because again, as somebody like Vince going, who was, you know, truly the best at his job for decades and decades. and lived a long, very wonderful life and passed away a few years ago. And with, again, this is key brand nerds with full, uh, agreement, copyrights and everything with the family. Um, Veritone is not just going off and throwing Vin's voice on something. It's done with permission, right? With the family, Seth, am I right about that? Seth Greenberg: 100%. Same with, uh, CBS News and, and, you know, Walter Cronkite, but, but another practical use for the Brand Nerds is, um, one of the things we do is translation, um, with the voice, um, uh, synthetic voice. So if you have a podcast, so let's take it this podcast. I don't know if DC speaks Mandarin. I'm going to guess you don't. Okay. There's no reason we can't clone your voice. With your permission, translate this conversation into Mandarin, and then you can now distribute this and run your ads and all that kind of stuff worldwide. There's no reason why I can't do that, you know, and if you're listening to like a audible book and it's read by the author. Well, you know, why not have the author's voice, similar voice, read it in French and things like that, you know, so I think that there's really interesting practical uses of AI as well. LT: I love that you're bringing these what simple they're not simple. But really practical applications, uh, because that's where this is going. Brand Nerds, you know, and that's, and that's why we're saying, you know, uh, we got to lean in as marketers. We got to lean in and really, uh, uh, dive in and understand it. So with that sort of thought set, you know, where, where do you think people are missing? Or, or missing the mark, or maybe they're leaning in all the way, but sort of not doing things correctly. Seth Greenberg: Um, I don't, I'm not going to generalize and denigrate. Um, so I don't, I think people are just so frigging busy. They're, they're busy. And it takes, it takes a persona to, uh, have that curiosity. If you're someone, you know, I'll do like a Simon Sinek thing. If you're someone who has a propensity and a curiosity to learn and break through and, and, and, you know, like rollercoaster rides and, and, and like having your heart a flutter and getting like out of your comfort zone. Boy, do I have something for you to learn? It's AI, you know, and so, so it's a persona that's, that's like an early adopter mentality type thing. LT: Yep, yep, yep. Very interesting. D, anything to add? DC: Yeah, I'm thinking about, um, a far less sophisticated, uh, thing. It's a software and I started playing with it, uh, 20 years ago. It was Keynote, Seth and uh, Larry. Sure. And I was a PC person, so I only knew PowerPoint and not that much. So I then go over to a Mac and there's this thing called Keynote. And I, I will tell you, uh, Seth and Larry as I started it. I was, uh, to use, uh, Charles Barkley's parlance, I was terrible, but then I kept playing with it and now, while I'm not, you know, graphic designer level, I'm pretty, pretty good. Yep. And so what, what I don't know about the Brand Nerds, cause I certainly haven't done it yet is how valuable is it to just play. LT: Right. DC: In order to get better. Seth Greenberg: You know, um, so, and Barkley always says it in threes, he goes terrible, terrible, terrible, I think that, um, what you said is that there's a learning curve and there's a hurdle, uh, you know, which is like, you know, when my younger son was younger, Larry knows Jonas, um, he said one day I want to learn how to unicycle. You don't just pop on that thing and just zoom away, you fall on your ass, you get the bruises and the band aids and all that kind of stuff and then you've gone over that hurdle, you know, and so, um, I just think that with, um, uh, with, with this, it's, um, it's, oh, ChatGPT is free, just, just get a frigging account and just, you know, you'll be, you'll be amazed at this, like, yeah. You know, this kind of like, this is a lame term. It's like an angel on your shoulder. I've never even said that. It's not even accurate, but it's just like a partner. It's like, LT: I think that's a good parallel. It is. Seth Greenberg: Yeah. Yeah. And so you, you start putting things in there. I even like this morning, I'm like, how can I have an interesting conversation on a brand podcast about AI? I'm like, you know, I'm like, you know, I'm prompting the prompt to give me some talking points for you guys. LT: What did it say? Seth Greenberg: Uh, you know what? Um, let's, uh, let's do it right now. So how can I be interesting on an, uh, on a brand focused podcast? Uh, about AI. Okay, so I typed that in. I hit the prompt chChatGPT to be interesting on a brand focused podcast about AI. "You want to bring a unique perspective on or insight that aligns with the theme of the podcast while also showing your expertise and a passion for the subject matter. Here's tips share success stories, offer practical tips and strategies, discuss ethical considerations, Predict future trends, tell compelling stories, engage in thought provoking discussions, and stay updated on industry news." LT: That's pretty good. Seth Greenberg: Yeah. And there's a lot more density that I didn't read. I just read that the headlines, but you know, this shit's pretty good. Right. We wouldn't be talking about it. LT: It is. That's pretty good. Seth Greenberg: But you know, um, uh, you know, we can veer off, but like my son, uh, uh, has been, uh, like he goes to San Diego state university and he, he knows. It's when to use it and when not to use it. And so, you know, I don't want to go off on the negative side, but I think that college students right now are on top of when not to use it because, um, there's so many ways to get caught and not just get caught up in it, but get caught using it as shortcuts. But you know, it's like, please don't use a calculator as you're trying to figure out what your, you know, your, your loan is going to be, you know, like that type of thing. So. LT: No, you know, you raise a Tim Halloran. I don't know if you listened to that episode. Tim is an old friend and A marketing professor at Georgia Tech, and he's very aware of, as a professor, that, you know, students have this ability and, you know, if you, again, as Tim talked about at Georgia Tech, right, lean in, and, uh, and really, that's the whole point of this, what we're trying to say, Brand Nerds just lean into this, right? Lean into this, of course, there's negative things, there's, you know, unintended consequences that are going to come up. Right. But really lean into this and play and understand it. I think that that's the key part of this. Um, that we're all sort of saying, right? Seth Greenberg: So, so, yeah. So, so let me give you the headlines because I asked chat GPT earlier today. Um, what specifically, um, can a brand marketer do to leverage AI? Okay. So, so now we're hitting, um, the target here, audience insights and segmentation, predictive analytics and trend forecasting. Customer experience enhancement, you know, and there's all like, um, the how to's under that. These are the headlines campaign optimization and ROI maximization, maximization and competitive intelligence. You know, one of the companies that I, uh, am an advisor in, um, and this was like really before the ChatGPT's trend, they, they implemented AI and machine learning early on. It's called Track Street. And so if you're a Brand Nerd and you have a brand that has map pricing, minimum of advertised pricing, um, you can't scour the internet 24/7. You need help. You need machine learning. Track Street is a vendor that has hundreds of amazing brands that you would recognize that, um, that makes sure that there's integrity in the pricing, you know, that looks at all the different online channels. If you're like, you know, uh, a cameraman, a manufacturer or whomever that you don't want, that you want uniformity in your pricing. So, so that's an example of, um, of AI out there to help. LT: Woo. This is great. Uh, Seth, anything to add before I think, uh, or D, D anything to add before we, uh, we sign off here. DC: I got two things. Let's go back to, uh, Steve Jobs, rest in power. He had a quote. About the computer and the way he described it in layperson's, uh, terms. He said, um, the computer is like a bicycle for the mind. So if the computer is a bicycle of the mind, Seth, what is AI? Seth Greenberg: That's the unicycle. That's the unicycle. DC: Okay. Got it. Got it. It's a little harder. Okay. Got it. All right. Thanks, Seth. That's good. Uh, I've got one more thing, but Larry, any, any, okay. Here's the second thing. Um, I've been trying to figure out why are we as Brand Nerds and beyond so fascinated with AI? And I was trying to find corollaries in other areas. And it made me think about superheroes. And so the Marvel Universe, Marvel Universe, by far the most popular of the superheroes is Iron Man, Tony Stark. And so I began to think, why is Tony Stark the most popular Marvel character? Because before the movies came out, he, you know, Iron Man was lower down on the totem pole, if you will, but since the launch of the movies and his was the first in the Marvel universe, uh, MCU, I mean, it's, it's now Iron Man. And here's what I think it is. Tony Stark is, he's a dude and he created these tools to make himself into a superhero. He's not strong like Thor, naturally strong. Uh, I know I'm going to a different area, but he's, he can't fly like Superman. He's like the, he's not the man of steel. He, he, he's fashioned himself into the superhero because of his selection of tools and how to use them. And when I think about the brand nerds out here, I look at AI as another tool to fashion yourself into a marketing superhero. If you don't figure out how to do use this. You're going to get destroyed by the people who do. Seth Greenberg: Um, let me, let me, um, respond to that too before LT goes. Um, I also think that when you talk about Tony Stark, um, and, and movies, Iron Man, we're talking about storytelling. Us brand nerds are storytellers, right? Yes. And so what's fascinating about science fiction, and it's not one of my favorite genres. But it's like, it's a vision of the possibility and there's nothing possible about it. And if you look at science fiction, um, I call it science fact now. It's not even science fiction. It's becoming real. It's becoming reality. LT: Yeah, I love where this is going, you guys. I think we're all, I love the fact that, that we're all really jumping into this. And, and building on what both of you were saying is that at the end of the day, this AI thing. It's so important, but it can't do your job for you, right? It can influence and help catapult you forward, but ultimately almost like your Tony Stark example of Iron Man D it comes back to, it's still a tool. I'll be at a very important tool that will help you as you lean in, but it won't do your job for you. It will help if you lean in, it will help you do your job much better to be that marketing superhero that DC alluded to. DC: Well said. Well said, LT. LT: Anything else to say, Seth, because you're the guru here before we sign off? Seth Greenberg: Well, um, it's, it's, uh, so Google used to be called BARD, it's now called Gemini. You know, it's, it's, uh, it's gonna make people's lives easier. Ultimately, you're the approver, you're responsible for it. It's, Gemini isn't gonna, is not gonna get fired every 13 months like we are. You know, like, like us CMOs. Um, so it's, it's, it's our butts on the line. And, um, leveraging AI to do the best job we can. And, and, you know, um, I don't, uh, be a writer that's not standing, staring at a blank page, you know, you get to, you get to take, you know, uh, first draft and make it excellent, right? LT: Ooh, that's well said. Uh, This has been great, Seth. We're just what we were looking for here. Thank you so much for, uh, for joining us. Yes. Always great. Thanks for listening to Brands, Beats and Bytes. The executive producers are Jeff Shirley, Darryl "DC" Cobbin, and Larry Taman and Hailey Cobbin, and Jade Tate and Tom Dioro DC: The pod father. LT: That is he and a friend of Seth's by the way. And if you like this podcast, please subscribe and share. And for those on Apple podcasts, if you are so inclined, we love those excellent reviews, we hope you enjoyed this podcast and we look forward to next time where we will have more enlightening and insightful talk about marketing.