In recent months, artificial intelligence (AI) has been all over the news, with people debating the benefits and risks of it – Elon Musk has even warned that it poses “profound risks to society and humanity.” Whatever your thoughts are on AI, though, the one thing everyone agrees on is that it has the potential to transform every industry. Businesses in the media industry, for example, will be able to change the way they create, distribute, and even monetise their own content. In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at some of the ways AI will impact the media industry in the years to come. 

Content Creation

One of the most significant impacts of AI on the media industry will be on content creation. Thanks to tools like ChatGPT, AI is already being used to generate articles, videos, and even entire news stories. While AI-generated content is not yet perfect, it has the potential to create content that is more accurate, timely, and cost-effective than traditional human-produced content. Some AI tools like Stable Diffusion and Midjourney can create any image based on simple text input, and artists are feeling threatened. Earlier this year, artists sued AI companies for training their algorithms on the artists’ content without permission.

When it comes to written content, AI could help newsrooms by analysing data and automatically generating news stories. This would free up reporters to focus on investigating and writing more in-depth stories, leaving AI tools to handle the more mundane and repetitive tasks. AI can also be used to create personalised content for individual users – by analysing their behaviour and preferences, AI can generate content that’s tailored specifically to them. 

This could include personalised news articles, videos, and even advertisements. Salesforce’s latest tool, Einstein GPT, is able to create personalised content, improving the experience for both employees and customers. Using Salesforce’s proprietary AI models as well as generative AI technology from OpenAI, it can automatically generate new content in real time, from articles and emails to computer code.

Distribution of Media

AI is also set to have a major impact on the way that companies are distributing their media content. AI-powered algorithms can help media companies to better understand their audience and their preferences. This means that media companies can tailor and optimise their content distribution to better reach and engage their target audience. AI algorithms analyse huge amounts of data on how users behave and interact with media – from how long they look at it to what parts of it attract their attention. This enables AI to suggest changes to headlines and images, and even the time of day that the content is published, in order to attract the most engagement. Repetitive tasks like publishing content can be left to AI as well, saving businesses time.

AI algorithms can recommend content to users to ensure they only see things likely to be of interest to them. By recommending more personalised content, AI can help media companies to increase engagement and build loyalty among their audience

Tools like Salesforce Data Cloud help businesses to get a more rounded picture of their customers, powered by Einstein, it collates and updates all of your customer data in real time, so you can make more informed decisions via a personalised and recommendation based experience. 

Social Media

As well as personalising content, AI has the potential to transform the world of social media, by enhancing users’ experience and helping businesses at the same time. Websites like Facebook and LinkedIn have already been using AI for years, recommending personalised adverts and helping users find new jobs. One of the most significant impacts of AI is on content moderation – AI algorithms can help social media platforms to automatically detect and remove inappropriate content, far more efficiently than any human could.

Advances in AI technology have made it easier for businesses to monitor what their audiences are saying and target them on social media. This helps businesses react quickly to any changes in customer demand while observing sentiment to effectively respond to any queries or criticisms. AI tools, like Einstein GPT for Marketing, allows businesses to automatically generate new social media content for their customers based on their behaviour online.

AI also helps businesses to interact with their customers, and offer them 24/7 support. AI-powered chatbots mean that businesses can provide instant customer service, respond to user inquiries in real time – and answer their most commonly-asked questions. These chatbots can be used across multiple channels, including Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp offering customers a more seamless experience no matter how they choose to contact your business. Einstein GPT is able to auto-generate replies for customers, helping customer service team members to respond more efficiently.

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People these days are more likely to trust AI. A study by the financial app Plum revealed that 60% of 18-34 year olds surveyed in the UK trusted AI recommendations on what they should read or listen to – while 61% were happy for AI to make financial predictions for them. 

Although it’s still an emerging technology and new advances are being made all the time, AI is revolutionising every sector, making businesses more efficient and helping to target new audiences. With more advanced AI algorithms and models set to be launched in the near future, it will continue to shape the industry for years to come – and any business that doesn’t keep up could be left behind.

Looking for help embracing the changes that new AI is bringing to the media industry? Get in touch.

Here at Trigg Digital, we support businesses on their journey to go further, faster. It can be difficult keeping up with new technology, but we’re here to help you find the right solutions to make your business more efficient and your customers happier, regardless of whether or not you’re already a Salesforce customer.

Get in touch to learn more…

+44 203 239 8492

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On Thursday 20th April, the Trigg Digital team teamed up with Salesforce to host an exclusive retail media event with market leaders and disruptors, to talk about how UK businesses are leveraging data to fuel growth and reinvent the consumer experience. Keep reading to learn some of the key insights we shared.

What’s the big deal with retail media?

One of the first things covered in the event – hosted by Abigail Byre, Salesforce’s Regional Vice President – Retail, and our CEO, Steven Paul – were the changes to today’s retail and data landscape with the question pondered;

There’s been a big shift in recent years, thanks to low margins caused by inflation, and ecommerce’s growing share of the market. Online sales counted for 14.3% of total retail sales in Q1 2022 – a huge increase from Q1 2019 when it was just 10%. First-party data is far more valuable than ever before, a result of the deprecation of third-party cookies and the increased pressure on companies to protect consumers’ private data.

Retailers are beginning to see the potential that first-party data can provide, especially when it comes to driving customer value. First-party data can help retailers to increase both their own revenue and suppliers’ revenue. When it comes to retailers, first-party data such as user demographics, contact information, search and transaction history, and even the devices they use can help them to offer customers a more personalised experience, increasing customer loyalty and lifetime value. New research has shown that 65% of consumers will remain loyal to companies if they offer more personalised experiences. Retail media isn’t something completely new – it’s an evolution of search advertising and online advertising, but it’s come a long way, and retailers should take advantage of this strategy if they want to stay one step ahead.

Meeting growth expectations is not easy; it requires a careful strategy, expertise and a suite of new capabilities. The retailer, brand and customers’ journey can be fractured, new advertising technologies are constantly emerging, service expectations are high, and there’s increasing pressure to maximise return on ad spend. 

So just how can you deliver a profitable, connected and consistent experience?

Dynamic interoperable workflow management is fundamental to delivering a frictionless experience for customers, retails and brands, to achieve this you must invest in the following areas…

How you… 

… Sell media and manage relationships

… Segment, target, forecast and manage inventory

… Orchestrate and optimise omni-channel campaigns

… Track, measure and deliver valuable customer insights

… Reconcile delivery actuals, invoicing and accounting

How to establish and scale a retail media network

One brand that’s building a sustainable and scalable retail media network is John Lewis Partnership, the largest employee-owned business in the UK with over 21 million customers a year and 8+ million loyalty members. The brand has a huge range of media touchpoints, from print and onsite media to events and social media, out of home and in store point of sale, enabling them to reach customers across their shopping journey and offer a seamless and connected experience.

Jemma Haley from John Lewis Partnership talked about the key learnings on the journey so far. Firstly, to ensure long-term success, retail media must be a strategic top-down priority with a clear vision and accountability. To be as effective as possible, it needs to be integrated across various teams, who all need to be aligned on how they can support retailer trade, customer marketing, and the brand’s overall needs. Also, retail media propositions should all be designed to deliver ‘win win win’ outcomes, which help the customer find what they need, the retailer grow their sales, and the brand understand the impact of the campaign. It’s pivotal that retailers underpin their proposition with customer insights to fuel media sales and planning. Not only can these insights help to measure the impact of campaigns, but they can also help target new potential customers.

The importance of a robust data and partner strategy

Ben O’Mahoney from Ocado was up next a share a perspective on how UK Retail Media has evolved since 2016 from his days at Sociomantic from Dunnhumby to the first party data market shift fast-tracked by GDPR and Ocado’s latest partnership announced in March with the Trade Desk.

Brands in the UK and across Europe have had to be more innovative in how they approach first-party data, because of data privacy laws like GDPR.

It’s important that retailers embarking on a retail media journey think carefully about their data strategy. They need to monetise with meaning and think carefully about how to utilise their assets and their first-party data. Not only do brands need to drive sales, but they also need to enhance the customer experience. Quality is more important than quantity, after all. This kind of approach lies at the heart of a new kind of strategic partnership model between both brands and retailers. 

When it comes to retail media networks, if they’re built on a foundation of privacy and transparency, brands are more likely to improve their relationships with their customers – retail media networks should be built with the customer in mind. 

At the end of the presentation, we were joined by Henry Eccles from Google to share his insights on the retail and consumer goods industry. Through the panel and subsequent Q&A session, we had the opportunity to learn more about our speakers, their professional journey, and their knowledge of retail media, including their predictions for the future.

The demand for retail media networks is huge across the world, and although setting one up can be complex, the benefits speak for themselves.

Whether it’s through enhanced analytics capabilities, understanding consumer demand, or leveraging consumer data – here at Trigg Digital, our retail-media team with all the skills and industry knowledge they need to help set up, scale up or improve your retail media network.

To find out more about how to unlock the power of first-party data and launch your own retail media network, or to learn about our next event, get in touch.

+44 203 239 8492

hello@triggdigital.com 

Make sure you don’t miss out on all the fun at our next Trigg event!