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Special Report: ‘Avoid AI marketing slop by keeping human voice’
Travel Convention speaker to offer solutions to AI conundrum, reports Ian Taylor
How can a business stand out when all use generative AI to craft messages to consumers? That is the question behavioural psychologist Nathalie Nahai will address at Abta’s Travel Convention in October.
Nahai suggests businesses can choose to “give people what they’re familiar with”, as generative AI will do, based on their past behaviour, or can choose to surprise people – but that requires human thought.
She said: “When lots of companies are using AI to personalise interactions, how do you persuade people to use you? What psychological principles can you use to craft marketing messages that AI can’t produce because it makes predictions based on what has gone before.”
Nahai aims to highlight some trends that “haven’t yet been picked up by tech companies” and “ways in which companies have got customer sentiment and values wrong”, noting: “Companies come out with apps to do stuff people don’t need help with.”
For example, she pointed to an advertisement in the US which urged consumers to “use our AI agent to book a restaurant because we’ll order your favourite food and book a table inside if it’s going to rain”.
Nahai asked: “How many people use an app to order their food in advance at a restaurant? Going to a restaurant is about getting to choose what you want. You might go to a favourite place to order your favourite meal, but they’ll know that because you’re a regular. You go to a restaurant and think ‘What do I fancy?’ Also, no restaurant is going to sit you outside in the rain. It’s just stupid.”
She said: “Don’t rob people of the experience.”
Nahai added: “Travel is so personal. Many of us want to escape daily life or the humdrum, and that is going to look quite different for some people to others.
“You can give people what they’re familiar with, what they feel safe with, or ‘interrupt’ them. I might have expectations about where to go, but an unexpected, compelling advert might be enough for me to think about a brand I’ve not encountered before.”
Asked about under-the-radar consumer trends, she suggested one is a “desire for immersive experiences that aren’t mediated by technology”, arguing: “There is a reason why the use of phones is banned at some gigs. The whole point of being at a concert is that you’re with other people having a collective experience. You can’t replicate that through a screen.
“A generation of people have grown up not knowing anything other than a technologically mediated environment. Not being welded to their phone is going to be a discovery for them.”
Nahai characterises AI-produced content as “AI slop”, saying: “Everything sounds the same, looks the same, reads the same, the tone is the same.
“If everyone is optimising like this, maybe what you need is human thought, voices, stories – something personal that is unique.”
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