Will ChatGPT and Sora Disrupt the Marketing Industry? Will AI Make Marketers Obsolete?
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The marketing industry is frequently disrupted. The last disruption came with the emergence of ChatGPT and Midjourney, when many claimed that copywriters and graphic designers would soon lose their jobs.
This time, the disruptor is Sora. Many believe Sora eliminates the difficulty of video production, and roles like directors, editors, and cinematographers will soon be out of work.
There is some truth to the idea that these AI tools are disrupting the marketing industry. The tools mentioned above significantly improve the efficiency of creating copy, posters, and TV commercials (TVCs). In some cases, they can even complete these tasks directly. Over the years, the marketing industry has largely relied on these three main tools—copy, posters, and TVCs—and many marketers wouldn't know what else to do without them. Some companies are hiring prompt engineers, which means these companies do not need professionals skilled in specific writing or design—they only require individuals who excel in conversing and interacting with AI.
This trend suggests that copywriters and designers in the marketing industry may indeed face unemployment.
However, based on my observations, while the marketing industry is experiencing a downturn, very few people have lost their jobs directly due to ChatGPT. Most marketing agencies are using AI to assist marketers rather than replace them, as AI, despite its capabilities, still relies on humans for certain core tasks. In my daily work, I interact with numerous marketing and advertising vendors, and I often gather insights from them. Through their feedback, I've noticed a recurring issue: even though they all serve businesses under the same client, the working methods, efficiency, and results vary significantly depending on the person they're dealing with.
Some individuals can articulate their requirements with exceptional clarity. Vendors immediately understand what needs to be done and how to do it just by reading their brief, ultimately delivering results that satisfy the client. Others struggle to convey their needs effectively, requiring multiple phone calls back and forth, yet vendors still can't grasp what the client truly wants. Naturally, the final outcomes are far from satisfactory.
We can think of a brief as the description of requirements when communicating with AI. Skilled and experienced individuals can clearly explain what they want to AI, and the AI can provide appropriate results based on their prompts. However, those with lower proficiency and less experience find it challenging to describe their needs accurately to AI, making it difficult to obtain the desired content through AI. Creating a brief may seem simple, but it actually reflects the client's understanding of multiple aspects including the market, project, leadership, and target audience. This is the core of marketing. Let's examine whether AI can replace humans by looking at specific marketing work modules.
Marketing work may appear simple on the surface, manifesting as copywriting, posters, and TV commercials. However, the most crucial element behind it is strategy. All experienced marketers understand one truth: if the marketing strategy is wrong, no matter how touching the copy, how exquisite the design, or how compelling the story, it will all be meaningless.
If you ask ChatGPT to provide a marketing strategy for a specific brand, it would be incapable. If forced to give one, it would most likely produce a media strategy. Answers like the following example would completely fail to meet requirements. Strategy requires insight. In the first episode of Mad Men, Don Draper, while devising a strategy for a cigarette brand, visits a bar and converses with a bartender to deeply understand consumers' motivations and their emotional connections with the brand. This scene showcases Draper's advertising acumen and how he draws creative inspiration from everyday life details to resonate with the target audience—something ChatGPT is clearly incapable of.
For marketing, the correctness of a strategy determines whether the marketing goals can be achieved. In terms of formulating marketing strategies, the gap between AI and seasoned marketers is vast.
Beneath strategy, let’s now discuss the specifics of copywriting, posters, and videos. ChatGPT can now assist marketers with many text-based tasks, especially for relatively structured content like press releases, where it can achieve over 60% completion. However, it still cannot directly provide copy that fully meets all requirements.
For example, crafting a brand slogan may seem simple, but it involves aggregating the needs of the market, consumers, and executives. In such cases, AI cannot accomplish the goal. As shown in the example below, you can ask ChatGPT to generate as many results as possible, but these results are unlikely to be directly usable.
The human role here is to engage in multiple rounds of communication with ChatGPT, helping it understand market changes, consumer needs, and executive requirements. Based on this, AI provides references, which you can then refine and optimize. AI has indeed greatly enhanced designers' efficiency in visual design. Taking e-commerce image production as an example, I have a friend responsible for creating images for a brand. In the past, through traditional agencies, producing a single image could cost ten thousand or even tens of thousands of yuan. Now, with AI technology, he can produce images in batches quickly at a cost of 1,000 yuan per image.
Recently, the header images for some of my WeChat articles were all created by Dall-E, and these images have basically met my requirements. The image below with the theme "AI Replacing Visual Designers" was generated by Dall-E.
However, not all images can be directly completed by AI. For example, brand posters related to brand image require designers to first extract the unique characteristics of the brand and then express them artistically. Most posters also need suitable copywriting. Such requirements are definitely beyond AI's capabilities. Currently, most brand posters on the market are not made by AI. Some posters may utilize tools like Midjourney for assistance, while the few that are AI-generated often prioritize hype over practical utility—typically labeled as 'AI-generated' to spark industry discussions.
Take this AI-created advertisement as an example. Regardless of its quality, the core message 'Storewide 50% Off' is certainly not something AI could have conceived.
A more suitable application scenario is marketing proposals. When service providers pitch to clients, AI-generated images can be highly effective. Proposals often require visual examples to strengthen persuasiveness, but commissioning original designs from professionals may not be cost-effective—AI presents an ideal solution here. Since the emergence of Sora, there have been constant claims that professions like directors and editors will lose their jobs. Judging from the finished videos produced by Sora, it can generate videos up to one minute long with high completion. Shots that previously required live filming or special effects now seem achievable by Sora.
However, for videos, the core competitiveness lies in the story, not the visual presentation. For example, Jia Zhangke's Xiao Wu had a relatively low production cost but became a classic in film history due to its rich storytelling and profound meaning.
Many of Disney's classic films endure primarily because their original stories are moving, not because of their special effects. History has repeatedly proven that no matter how impressive the special effects are, a weak story will result in a poor film. Marvel has produced numerous works, but the ones that truly stand out in memory are those with well-told stories. When mid-length videos first gained popularity a couple of years ago, Banfo Xianren's works achieved exceptionally high view counts on Bilibili. Looking back now, his videos could easily be produced by AI, as they primarily consisted of copyright-free memes. The content of these videos could be considered rough, but their excellent scripts made them appealing to audiences. He himself has stated that the core competitive edge of his videos lies in the scripts.
Sora presents an advantage for creating short videos on platforms like Douyin and WeChat Video Accounts, enabling content creators to produce material rapidly. However, there are two aspects where humans remain irreplaceable: first, as mentioned, the script—without a good script, it's impossible to create a quality short video.
Some might suggest using ChatGPT to generate scripts, which is certainly possible. This leads to the second point: what kind of script do you want ChatGPT to produce? Determining what makes a script capable of creating compelling content is crucial, and this is where a creator's ability to select topics becomes vital—an ability that AI currently lacks. To draw an analogy, suppose you are the head of marketing at a company, overseeing employees such as copywriters, designers, and photographers. Your most critical capability as a leader is understanding the market, making strategic decisions, and then delegating execution to your team.
You can think of copywriters, designers, and photographers as AI tools. However, if you cannot clearly define goals and strategies, effectively communicate them to your team, or accurately articulate your needs, your employees (or AI) won’t be able to deliver suitable results.
As previously analyzed, ChatGPT and Sora won’t render marketers obsolete—at least not experienced ones—because the strategic thinking, market insights, and ability to clearly articulate requirements behind marketing are capabilities AI currently lacks. However, these tools indeed enhance marketers' efficiency. Those proficient in using them can quickly widen the gap with others.
There's a saying that if you can utilize ChatGPT-4, you've already surpassed 90% of people, as accessing ChatGPT-4 isn't straightforward. If you can consistently apply ChatGPT-4 in your work, you're likely ahead of 95% of people.
A seasoned marketing professional, if adept at using AI tools, is equivalent to having copywriters, designers, and other staff at their disposal. Tasks that previously required a team can now be accomplished by one person. For such individuals, technology multiplies their output efficiency. In contrast, junior marketers often lack strategic thinking, insights, and the ability to clearly articulate requirements, making it difficult for them to fully leverage AI tools. The gap in experience and capabilities is inherent, and the difference in technology utilization will only widen this divide further.
Therefore, ChatGPT and Sora will not make experienced professionals and those skilled in leveraging AI unemployed; instead, they will enhance their advantages.