Speed, creativity and efficiency – how AI is shaking up content marketing
AI has the potential to transform retail marketing for the better, and correct deployment can liberate internal teams and unlock creativity
Reduced budgets. An audience that’s increasingly hard to engage. And a seemingly infinite number of channels and territories to be present in.
There are plenty of things keeping marketing bosses awake at night when they are being tasked with growing the top line while at the same time keeping costs down.
Results from a Gartner survey of chief marketing officers, published in May, show that on a global scale, average marketing budgets have declined in the years following the pandemic. Between 2023 and 2024, budgets fell 15% year on year – from 9.1% of overall company revenue to 7.7%.
Online grocer Ocado Retail said in February it had cut its marketing budget by 25% as part of an “optimisation” strategy.
When it comes to content marketing in particular, the pressure to produce more with less is real.
“One of the greatest challenges today is for brands to create fantastic highly relevant and engaging content that reaches different audiences at scale all the way through the funnel – driving an explosion in the quantity of content required,” says Hannah Rand, a content and creative strategy consultant for global beauty and FMCG brands.
Could AI be the answer? Many retailers are realising the potential huge impact it can have on liberating their marketers to produce compelling campaigns and content that excites and educates consumers.
The Very Group head of brand Katie Kinchin-Smith agrees that creating great content cost-effectively is “an ever-growing problem” but the Very.co.uk and Littlewoods parent company has multiple ways of tackling that challenge.
“Every week it feels like there’s a new channel we have to deliver content for. We’ll be drawing on the expertise of external partners such as creative and media agencies and we’re also really bolstering our internal resources as well,” she says.
''Instead of taking weeks and weeks to brief agencies and receive ideas back, early creative testing tasks can be completed in one to two days''
In terms of attitudes to AI, The Very Group is a retailer willing to embrace new technology and automation as a way to support its teams and bring operational efficiency.
“We have a brilliant internal creative studio – around 140 talented people – and we’re already using innovative solutions to deliver content at scale whether it’s AI-led imagery, using Gen AI model images, or producing buying guides to inspire the customer,” Kinchin-Smith adds. “It really helps with some of the most mundane tasks and frees up resources for people to focus on the important things.”
She says The Very Group is using AI “day to day in our business and embedding it with all colleagues”. Earlier this year, the retailer hosted an AI conference for every employee to attend, looking to educate and highlight the opportunities related to the tech.
Rand, a former global head of content at Cos, says AI is going to be transformational in how retailers and brands brief agencies. She says it will speed up the planning process and free up marketers’ time to spend on the creative process.
“AI is a useful upstream tool for strategists and creators to generate insights quickly, develop storyboards and test ideas with stakeholders,” Rand notes.
“Instead of taking weeks and weeks to brief agencies and receive ideas back, early creative testing tasks can be completed in one to two days. That time gain could be directed towards building better insights, building better digital experiences, social media activations and human thinking.”
''To meet the high volume of content you need as a retailer, you have to be looking at innovation and tech as a way to produce content at scale''
According to Andrew Swinand, chief executive of tech-enabled content production agency Inspired Thinking Group (ITG), automating and using AI to boost operational productivity is essential for retailers swamped with creating content across multiple channels and territories.
“The low-hanging fruit and what people should be focused on is operational AI,” he argues, adding that people have become “over-enamoured” with generative AI rather than getting to grips with the potential of automation to drive business process improvement.
“If you think about AI, it’s simplifying large amounts of information – so operationalising AI to create efficiencies is something every brand can do today for competitive advantage,” he says.
No matter the content type or channel, it 'needs to be on-brand and well produced' (Getty Images/Azman Jaka)
No matter the content type or channel, it 'needs to be on-brand and well produced' (Getty Images/Azman Jaka)
Swinand lists several examples of how operational AI can help retailers, including translating existing ideas into different languages at scale across territories, resizing banners in 3,000 versions, or quickly producing website imagery.
“To meet the high volume of content you need as a retailer, you have to be looking at innovation and tech as a way to produce content at scale,” he adds.
“There are new forms of content automation, digital asset and workflow management that can have a transformational impact – embracing these and centralising around them is an immediate opportunity for retailers to create competitive advantage and cost savings.”
Internal structures
As producing quality content becomes more crucial to retailers and technology capability – particularly AI – continues to improve, organisations will reassess how they run their marketing teams.
As businesses grow, they need support with content production and distribution to avoid logjams in creative output, according to Sue Mountford, chief executive (UK) at ITG.
This year, John Lewis Partnership joined forces with ITG to forge an in-house content production agency. As part of the move, 143 partners working on content for Waitrose and John Lewis transferred to ITG, which sees them embrace the tech-enabled content production agency’s toolkit to produce content at speed and scale.
ITG’s proprietary marketing technology is now helping manage and produce the partnership’s content, including photography, video, digital and in-store communications – and, Mountford says, lets staff get creative and work on what they want to be working on.
''You always get challenges and execs who want a quick return from their marketing – but it’s all about building a brand for the long term''
“The John Lewis Partnership has talented people who have been liberated in their roles to do what they should be doing rather than getting bogged down with processes such as resizing and adaptations,” says Mountford. “It’s exciting when a brand is liberated and I can’t wait to see the results.”
Swinand says the best retailers and brands are realising their marketing teams need to undergo a “bifurcation”.
“Brands need big hero creatives that differentiate the brand but there’s opportunity to automate a lot of the scaled content,” he explains.
“Everything needs to be on-brand and everything needs to be well produced, but there are two different metrics and standards that can be applied. Brands can now use tech to do things efficiently, quickly and cost-effectively.”
Prioritising content
For AI to support content and wider marketing strategies optimally, retailers must ensure they consider content at the beginning of any new campaign, Rand says. She argues content creation needs to be much higher up the marketing director’s list of considerations when developing overall brand strategy, too.
“Content is a bland, clunky word for what is a hugely important part of brand marketing,” she notes, explaining that content “can’t be an afterthought” and must be part of “the long-term brand plan” not simply an add-on once a TV ad campaign has been produced.
“Content stimulates interest – it is an incredible vehicle for bringing new customers to your brand. Don’t silo content by platform or channel – link it integrally to all your brand activations, such as experiential, digital out-of-home and especially ecommerce,” Rand says.
She suggests retailers and brands must consider the long-term ROI of well-crafted educational and entertaining content, which can help bring in customers who otherwise would not have been attracted to a product.
“A fundamental lesson for marketers or brand strategists is no one cares about your product,” Rand explains.
“They care about how it makes them feel; if it makes them look smarter or healthier. They care if it makes their lives easier and their loved ones happier. Customers don’t think as much about your product as you think – to make them care about your brand, you need to demonstrate you care equally about them – do hard work to understand their culture, needs and the things that make them tick.”
''We’ll be thinking about content from the very start of the process. We’ll be thinking how it flows to the website, how it inspires with buying guides, and how we translate it into influencer and social content'
Barbara Horspool, former chief product officer at The White Company who is now working with a stable of start-up companies, says brand and marketing “must have a purpose”.
“You need to be clear what you want delivered wherever you choose to spend,” she says.
“You always get challenges and execs who want a quick return from their marketing – but it’s all about building a brand for the long term. That’s where the investment needs to start with and compelling content is vital for supporting that ambition.”
For Kinchin-Smith and The Very Group, content is king. “You have to bring everything from the brand strategy so every piece of content comes from the same hymn sheet. We’ll be thinking about content from the very start of the process. We’ll be thinking how it flows to the website, how it inspires with buying guides, and how we translate it into influencer and organic and paid social content,” she says.
For it to work effectively, Kinchin-Smith adds, it relies on a combination of internal and external creative support, and a willingness to embrace technology to make processes more efficient.
Just maybe, AI might help overwhelmed marketing bosses get a better night’s sleep.
The retailers and spokespeople quoted in this article were talking at a breakfast roundtable event hosted by Retail Week and ITG on September 26, 2024.
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