AI and Marketing: Lessons I Have Learned and How They Can Support Homebuilders

Including what Jurassic Park has taught me about the misuse of tech (and it has nothing to do with releasing dinosaurs into the world!)

The Era of AI in Marketing.

One of the ongoing challenges in marketing right now is the rate at which AI is shaping the way we communicate.

It is both exciting and frustrating – so much of what we thought we knew about marketing is now being reevaluated.

SEO is no longer search engine optimisation, it’s search everywhere optimisation.

Everyone’s a potential wordsmith now ChatGPT can craft content in your brand’s voice.

And lead generation at scale is more accessible than ever – in theory at least.

But that theory is part of the problem.  Although these things are technically just a few clicks and a prompt away, how do you leverage them successfully so that it’s not just more noise.

Just as marketers are becoming more accustomed to using these tools, consumers are becoming more fatigued by them.  And that is because AI is often misused as a tool for speed and convenience rather than impact.  We need to remember that some things haven’t changed in marketing and sales – one of which is that empathy sells.  Flashy visuals or tightly written copy will only get you so far if it doesn’t have personality or a message that resonates with your customers.  Basically, strategies that use technology to understand customers, and then create appealing content that reflect this understanding, is a best of both worlds scenario.

 At Classic Folios and Spaciable, we have embraced AI with cautious enthusiasm.  We have used it to refine processes, open up new possibilities and, as to be expected, made a few missteps.  From a marketing perspective, this has been a time of constant experimentation and learning, often going down rabbit-holes of online discourse and webinars.  What is clear is that AI isn’t a phase, as some early cynics dismissed it as.  With that in mind, it is crucial for companies to have a strong grasp on how it can elevate their strategy, and from an individual’s perspective, how it can help them achieve more with their time.

Here, I have outlined a few lessons based on my use of AI so far and how it jives with my notion of conventional marketing.

My background is in film, so I’ll use a movie analogy for the first lesson.

Lesson #1: Marketing in the AI Age is a Lot Like Jurassic Park

For decades, practical effects and otherworldly film sets were the norm in Hollywood.  Think about how many people are still reluctant to go in the sea after watching Jaws 50 years ago!  The 70s and 80s were arguably the golden age for practical effects, before new technology in the 90s and 00s saw CGI rule supreme.  But despite the advancing technology, franchises like Marvel overusing CGI meant some of the magic was lost in recent years, perhaps due to the rule of diminishing returns.   The CGI started to look so polished, it lost a bit of its humanity.  And then nostalgia set in.  Anniversaries and reboots reminded people why they fell in love with films like Jurassic Park – it tapped into their imagination but also made the impossible feel tangible through a mix of practical animatronics and CGI.  The combination of human craft and technological vision helped build a world that felt within reach – for both the audiences and the actors, eliciting an enduring emotional response.

As CGI fatigue and nostalgia set-in, the 2020s has seen a box office return of practical effects, from miniatures in the Dune films to the use of real fighter jets in Top Gun: Maverick, and perhaps most famously, the explosion sequence in Oppenheimer.  Granted, these films all had the budget to make these practical challenges possible, but the impact they had on audiences shouldn’t be understated.  Simply put, the stakes are higher.

Bringing the analogy full circle, this is where modern day marketers can learn from Jurassic Park.  Whilst it might be tempting to get swept up in what AI makes possible from a purely technical standpoint, customers – like audiences – still crave respond best to emotion.  If you can combine craft and creative guile with AI, you are onto a winner.

Another challenge, another film analogy – sorry!

Lesson #2: Early Adoption Can Backfire

Consider CGI in films from the 90s and early 00s.  A real mixed bag, and when films got it wrong, they have been remembered for all of the wrong reasons.  Even Bond wasn’t safe with Die Another Day.

But the technology improved and the FX crimes became more infrequent, which meant the guinea pigs stood out all the more.

This feels a bit like the current state of play with AI.  The technology is advancing rapidly, which means the software you are using today could look glaringly outdated within months.  Take software like Midjourney for example.  The early versions were groundbreaking at the time – creating images from text – it felt like the dawning of a new age, and it many ways it was.  But when companies started posting images of people with six fingers or a cast of background characters who all shared the exact same puzzled expression, it became clear that the technology was still in its infancy, and an overreliance on it could do more reputational damage than create opportunities.

Months down the line and several versions later, Midjourney has become a frighteningly realistic image generator, suggesting patience and low stakes experimentation is a better play than going all in too soon.

This isn’t always easy.  New tech is exciting, and it is easy to get swept up in the hype when we see new software advertised.  But those subscriptions quickly add up and you realise that whilst the promise is there, it might not yet be quite fit for purpose.  A lesson here is that perhaps it is sometimes best to take a backwards step and monitor how quickly certain tools evolve, before you risk putting all of your eggs in one basket.

Lesson 3: Imperfection is Relatable

This one might be a bit controversial.

We all strive for perfection but how often do we achieve it?

But with large language models, like ChatGPT, everything is so perfectly worded, it becomes a bit sterile.

Now, I’m not advocating for grammatical mistakes and spelling errors as a marketing strategy.  But a bit of spontaneity or freedom should not be sacrificed in favour of a perfectly structured piece of content.  There was a viral campaign advertising a graphic designer position at a company – it escapes me who, and in the spirit of imperfection and spontaneity, I’m not going to ask ChatGPT and lose my train of thought!  But it was all over LinkedIn.  It was essentially a screenshot of Microsoft Paint and a crudely scrawled message saying ‘Looking for a Graphic Designer’ or words to that effect.  It is funny, ironic and above all else, relatable.

If AI alone had been tasked with creating that campaign, odds are, it would have been based around persuasive copy that tapped into the main things we are led to believe jobseekers want to know – salary, location, responsibilities, career progression, etc.  The design, ironically, would have been crisp, on-brand and formatted in a way computers understand the human eye to best follow.  On paper, the perfect ad.  In reality, an ad that gets lost in the tall grass of thousands of competing ads that say much the same thing in various different ways, bringing to mind the Mitchell and Webb sketch (“every football team will be playing football several times and in various combinations…every kick of it massively mattering to someone, presumably”).

A strong and easily employable example of imperfect marketing is the use of smartphones to record impulsive videos – the relatability and authenticity resonating with consumers to the point that 63% prefer it to polished, heavily produced video.  This is particularly effective in the TikTok age, where it can be difficult to discern what is a paid ad and what is just an enthusiastic endorsement.  For companies targeting Gen Z, this should feature prominently in the marketing strategy.

Lesson 4: It Levels the Playing Field for SMEs

Critics will continue to dismiss AI technology as human displacement, and time will tell how accurate those fears are.   As my earlier lessons will have given away, I’ve seen too many dystopian sci-fi films to dismiss those fears entirely.

But the reality is for SMEs, AI opens up opportunities that were simply not feasible before.

Whether that’s scaling outreach, creating custom videos or carrying out market research, £19.99 monthly subscriptions help sole traders and SMEs operate at a level that helps them compete with the big hitters.

Video is a great example.  Unless you had all the gear and know-how in house, outsourcing video production would put a serious dent in your marketing budget.  It would look great and the ROI might make it worthwhile, but the upfront cost could make it a non-starter for many companies.  As mentioned above, unpolished videos are increasingly popular on social media, but some brands are well-served by the occasionally slick video, especially one that can be reused across multiple platforms.

With tools like Google’s Veo 3, those kinds of slick videos are within reach for SMEs with a modest marketing budget.  That’s not to say they automatically turn every marketer into Martin Scorsese.  Making a video using these tools can be infuriating at times, as the software struggles to interpret prompts, odd inconsistencies appear and credits get gobbled up as you desperately chase what you thought was a relatively straight-forward 8 second clip.  Throw into the mix the fact that you will still need to have some basic editing ability and you quickly realise that a fair bit of work still goes into these videos.  Will they look as slick as something a professional videographer can make?  Probably not.  Will they still have that uncanny valley sheen to them?  Evidence suggests so.  But the technology is improving every day and the fact that Veo 3 enables users to create dialogue shows the progress being made since the early glitch-ridden attempts at text to video generation.  Whereas SMEs once relied on generic stock libraries to add some visual gloss to their marketing, they can now retain creative control over the exact nature of the content, whilst making engaging videos that help them go toe to toe with large corporations on the timeline.

Freepik is a great tool for getting started on video generation – it brings together multiple video generation tools – each with their own niche, including Veo 3, in a single suite, so you can experiment and find what works best for you.

Lesson #5: It Inspires a New Type of Creative Thinking

It’s easy to say AI stifles creativity.  In some ways it’s true.  Photographers who wake up at 3.30am to drive to a beach in hope of catching the sunrise mirroring off the water’s surface might be tempted to lob their Nikon Z 611 against the wall when they see an influencer getting thousands of likes on Instagram for a sunrise ‘photo’ that took all of 20 seconds to generate on Midjourney.  But the reality is that people appreciate art not just for the moments in front of the lens but the unspoken human subtext that exists beyond the frame.  Knowing the sacrifice the photographer has made to capture a unique moment in time.

It would be fair to say that generative content and man-made content serve two very different purposes, which will become more clearly defined in time.  Whilst content creators may lean on generative content now for quick wins, encroaching on artists’ devotion, fans will grow tired of the lack of story behind the work, and generative content will become more of a corporate tool.  Its limitations will be dissected by artists, videographers and copywriters, who will be able to refine their own approach and sell the added value of their services.  Just as the Mona Lisa is valued at around £790 million, yet postcard prints are sold for £2.99 in pretty much every art museum in the world, people yearn for the real thing.

Just as generative content can inspire artists to focus on the humanity in their work, it can also spur marketers on to think on a scale that budgetary limitations would have cordoned off.  Instead of rolling out the same carousel of smiley stock images that are ten a penny on LinkedIn, we can now think more metaphorically, creating eye-catching visuals that are the ideal blend of ambiguity and specificity. 

No two images need look the same.

What if, instead of a static screenshot, we had our app open on a phone as it flew through a development?

Or instead of a flat site plan, what if customers could view a timelapse video of the entire construction of the development before ground is broken?

And it’s not just limited to visuals.  AI encourages creative thinking right across the spectrum.  Instead of generic outreach, use Perplexity to conduct research that would otherwise take weeks and thousands of pounds to carry out to help you better understand the needs of your customers.

How Can Homebuilders Apply These Lessons?

And it all leads here.

How can homebuilders leverage AI in their marketing strategies to attract more buyers and tenants?

Let’s start from the visual perspective.

CGIs are already a vital part of marketing for homebuilders – an essential way to generate interest at the earliest stage of development.  Homebuilders are in a fairly unique position where buyers invest months before the product is ready.  This initial level of artifice gives room for AI to help bring the marketing to life without raising questions over the absence of in-situ content.

As construction progresses, conceptual, AI-generated imagery can be combined with site updates shot on iPhone, providing that ideal combination of raw, unfiltered transparency to build trust and the polished vision to build excitement. At completion, photographs can be placed side-by-side with the CGIs to demonstrate how the finish product remained true to the vision.

From a lead generation standpoint, software like Clay enables your sales team to generate personalised messaging en-masse, creating a sequence of messages that plucks data from a CSV via merge fields.  Multiple personalisation fields can increase reply rates by up to 142% but can be time-consuming to do without the proper tools.  Clay also has a ChatGPT integration, meaning messages can be composed using a combination of prompts and merge fields, empowering sales teams to write thousands of unique emails in minutes.  Through a combination of Zapier and ready-to-go APIs, these messages can then be sent via WhatsApp, SMS and email.

We are only just scratching the surface on ways AI can be used to support homebuilders, as the technology evolves everyday.

And love it or hate it, it is clear that it’s here to stay.  Therefore, finding ways to make it work for you is essential in order to keep pace with competitors.

At Spaciable, we are exploring ways in which AI can streamline processes for homebuilders and enhance the resident experience without sacrificing the bespoke, personalised service we pride ourselves on.  Spaciable can be used by homebuilders to communicate with residents, share essential documents and information, and manage buildings and their facilities, throughout the entire lifecycle of a residential project.

To learn more, please book a demo with our Head of Partnerships.