'GUIDED MARKETING' WHERE BRANDS MAY CHOOSE CUSTOMERS

AI in branding is at the stage of weaponisation today. Every marketing company that wants to be the best at branding is already rejigging its marketing team

- HARISH BIJOOR

WE live in a brand-cluttered world. A world where everything and everybody is a brand today. My definition of a brand is simple. Uncomplicated. No jargon. “The brand is a thought. A simple thought that lives in a person’s head.” Brands are, however, not simple. They are complex. Complicated even. Brand complexity arises from the fact that this simple thought that lives in one person’s head is different in every other head. As many heads, those many thoughts of the same brand. And this complexity is what a brand manager deals with every single living moment.

The better brands are more of a single cohesive thought in people’s minds, and the lesser brands are those that are widely disparate thoughts, different in literally every head they live in. And just to clarify, brands are really not about those who buy them at all. Brands are, really, just owners of the mind. Brands occupy a very vital portion of the mind. And the fight is for this valuable piece of mind. A forever fight.

The year 2023, in many ways, has been the year of AI. The biggest newsmaker of the year is ChatGPT, and the 4 lakh-odd applications it has spawned (either as a subset of its offerings or as competitive responses) point to the fact that AI is everywhere in our midst today. In a world of business laden with data—none of which were ever optimally used—machine-learning mechanics and AI offer the ability to make use of this large ocean of data to market just about anything. Let’s remember the world is all of 8 billion-plus people today, and there is a demand for just about anything that can be marketed intelligently and intuitively.