"AI-enabled" is the new "award winning"

AI is only a differentiator if you aren’t using it.

Since most agency problems are caused by - and can be solved by - the agency’s marketing (or lack of it), a lot of my consultancy work with marketing agencies ends up covering their segmentation, targeting and positioning.

Basically, which grouping(s) of brands do we do particularly good work for (and I do think that the best grouping is rarely “industry” or “sector”) and why should they choose us over every other agency they could work with (and be willing to pay more for us than they’d pay for them)?

I’ve helped a handful of agencies to reposition themselves in the last few months and one question has been pretty consistent: should we say we’re “AI-enabled” (or “AI-first” or “AI-powered” or some variation)?

The fact that this is debated every time should tell you something: if everyone is AI-enabled, then claiming to be AI-enabled doesn’t help brands to make a choice (and it isn’t worth a premium).

I could leave this article right there but, as a bonus, I’ll list 5 other terms that are equally unhelpful:

1. Award-winning: the obvious one. I’m a fan of awards (and I’m fond of reminding people that Rise at Seven won 74 of them during my tenure; about one every two weeks)...but there’s a ceremony most weeks and most ceremonies have at least 30 categories, so most agencies can claim to be award winning and it doesn’t make your agency easier to choose or worth more. Most agencies can’t claim to be the “Best Ecommerce Agency” or have the “Best Financial Services Campaign”, so there’s your pay dirt (Rise at Seven could claim to be the Best Large Agency at the UK Search Awards, UK Content Awards, European Content Awards, Global Content Awards, PRmoment Awards, International Content Marketing Awards and the DADI Awards at the same time and were never eligible for the Best Small Agency categories because we outgrew them in our first year…so think outside the box)
2. Fastest-growing: not many agencies claim to be the fastest growing anymore, because there’s less fast growth to go around but, Rise at Seven competed with a handful of other agencies that claimed to be the “fastest growing” and, at the time, I thought that was a hard claim to corroborate…using headcount as a proxy for growth, agencies that claim to be the “fastest growing” and have fewer than about 30 staff obviously aren’t…and it’s worth asking the question whether it’s even a good thing? Brands do want to work with agencies that are growing (meaning they can afford to retain staff and are invested in their own futures), but they also question how you’re going to maintain service on their account if the growth continues. How are you finding staff quickly enough to support that growth?
3. Strategic/creative/data-driven/gets results: unlike all those other agencies, we’re creative…that’s subjective. You’re inviting a client to judge that and the only way they can judge that is if you do some creative for them, for free…which is the opposite of a price premium. When you’re thinking of the adjectives you want to use, ask yourself: what irrefutable proof do I have? Agencies like Uncommon (and Rise at Seven) are less likely to need to give away free creative ideas because you’ve seen their work and you’ve probably heard about the results. How are your case studies looking right now?
4. We have the best team: when I was a brand planner, I was simultaneously working with two brands (a company that installed boilers and a company that ran petrol stations) who both said “it’s our people that make us special”. We soon found out that their competitors also had special people who made them special. The same is true of you. If you really do have people who are leagues ahead of the competition, don’t assume that you can demonstrate this to a client during a 60-90 minute pitch…how does your sales process enable your best people to build relationships with the client?
5. We work with ambitious clients: many agencies have failed to identify what their best customers have in common and so have settled on “ambitious”. See also: “brave”, “bold”, “change makers” and probably 10 more words that don’t mean much. Whichever segment you choose; name it, and put it front and centre on your website because you need the right clients to read it and exclaim: “that’s me! This agency couldn’t be talking about anyone else.”

I try not to pick fault with my clients’ propositions; I pick fights with their competitors. Let me know if you want to start throwing your weight around.