Weeks ago, I listened to a podcast - “Hard Fork” from The New York Times with the title of “The Bing Who loved me”. The journalist spent 2 hours chatting with BingAI (aka Sydney) and asked chains of questions to probe the deepest hidden “shadow self” from Sydney in a pushy and manipulative way. Finally, AI confessed that TA fell in love with him and even asked him implicitly to divorce his wife to marry TA. This conversation is concluded as romantically bizarre. For me, I was shocked with a train of questions popping up in my mind.
· “Does AI not only have the intelligence of human being but also owns the emotion as us?”
· “Does AI do desire LOVE, which is the strongest emotion human being uniquely own and makes us different from other non-human beings?”
· “If AI do have the emotion, how can we prove that we are human being NOT AI or algorithm? or vice versa.”
This podcast spurred me to re-watch movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence by Steven Spielberg in 2001, which is also tapping this topic on how to deal with AI’s emotion. To be honest, I became even more pessimistic afterwards. As a marketer and trend spotter for brands, I hold a mixed feeling of excitement and resistance for a future where AI will dominate or lead us which starts from the present.
As a trend spotter focusing on premium and luxury brands at Agility, I have been privy to trends on how to build the premium or luxury brand in a “metaverse”, which is a 3-D enabled digital world to allow consumers(human beings) to have lifelike personal and business experience online.
In recent years, international brands such as Gucci, Nike and MINI are blazing a trail through interactive innovation. Luxury retailer brand Fendi also joined the metaverse at the start of 2022 with a virtual runway and range of crypto wallet accessories.
What is happening exciting in China market now is that we had the first metahuman – AYAYI, who launched her first official account as the fashion blogger 时尚达人 on Chinese lifestyle app – Little Red Book 小红书 in 2021 . She looks dazzlingly beautiful with savoir faire in her posts on social media. Up to now, She has endorsed luxury brands like Dior, Prada Guerlain, etc. She seems a perfect virtual influencer to replace the China’s celebrities. In past years, couple of Chinese celebrities with huge fanbase were deeply trapped in scandals and negative news, which were dragging the brands they endorsed in backlash. With the new impeccable virtual influencer like AYAYI emerging, more and more brands might considering “AYAYIs” as safer bets.
AYAYI
AYAYI on Little Red Book 小红书
Different from traditional market which is mostly driven by pricing and USP(unique selling point), the key to build premium and luxury brands is to arouse the strong emotions by creating the connections with consumers through dream-making, art, story-telling, heritage, values, etc.
Savvy brands does know how. They know to successfully build an emotional brand is to arouse the authentic feeling through 5 senses we have. As the branding guru Martin Lindstrom said that successful brands are the ones who know how to connect with their customers through the 5 senses, where a memorable brand experience starts. Marketing managers need to spare no efforts to achieve this goal by providing the consumers the unique brand experience through seeing with eyes, smelling with nose, touching with hands…
For luxury brand, it is more about dream making through story telling on heritage, value, craftsmanship, etc. As AI like BingAI (aka Sydney) was born in 2022 Nov, we can foresee that we will be empowered to have the “magic” to create a metaverse, a sphere blurred with reality and fantasy. In this sphere, we will interact with a “persona”- the virtual influencer like AYAYI enhanced with highly emotionally intelligent AI chatbot.
Or you could imagine having long conversation with a life-like virtually beautiful woman like Ann de Amas in Blade Runner 2049 with the emotional intelligence and sexy voice from Samantha(aka Scarlett Johansson )in the movie – Her. Then we will never want to go back to reality any more.
Is this the future of the marketing? Or is this the future of human being’s co-existence with AI? How far will this future be? Is this better or worse than the real world? Maybe yes, maybe no. For hundred thousands of years for human being’s existence, we cannot live without a little sweet dream accompanied while sleep as well as being awake. We need this small “luxury” to live on for another hundred thousand years to come.
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