April 10, 2025 • 39 mins
On this episode of Human Centered, host Nick Brunker welcomes Jason Gaikowski, VML's Chief Transformation Officer, to explore how AI is transforming creativity in marketing. Jason describes our industry's "engagement addiction" as creating "junk food for the soul" and argues we're experiencing an "event horizon" - a profound shift comparable to the industrial revolution. They discuss how AI might democratize creativity beyond creative departments, why questions will become more valuable than answers in an AI world, and the imperative to ensure machines work for us rather than the reverse. This conversation challenges us to reimagine our relationship with technology and rediscover creativity's true purpose: improving people's lives rather than simply driving engagement metrics.
Also be sure to check out Jason's new podcast, The Opinion Party!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Nick Brunker (00:02):
Hi, everyone, and welcome to human centered. I'm
Nick Brunker, a managingdirector of experience strategy
at VML and your host for theshow. Thanks for giving us a
listen. Today, we're exploring acritical point, the
transformation of humancreativity in the age of AI. As
AI rapidly becomes marketing'snew operating system in many
ways, we are facing profoundquestions.
Will it amplify meaningful workor simply accelerate
(00:25):
distraction? How do we redefinecreativity beyond engagement
driven tactics to drive andcreate real human impact? To
guide us through thisconversation, I'm so excited to
welcome back Jason Gajkowski,who's VML's chief transformation
officer and cochair of the 4A'sCX Council. Jason recently
delivered a provocative keynoteactually at the 4A's decisions
(00:45):
twenty five event called BeyondCreative, transforming the
impact of human creativity,which as we'll talk about
challenges our industry torethink its fundamental
relationship with technology andcreativity. Jason, welcome back.
Good to see you.
Jason Gaikowski (01:00):
Nick, thanks for having me back. So good.
Always, always a pleasure tospend some time with you, my
man.
Nick Brunker (01:04):
Likewise, dude. Before we dive in, I know
there's been a lot of stuffgoing on in your space. And as
we talked about off the top, yourecently spoke at, that
decisions event in Atlanta. Whatinspired the theme of your
keynote down there?
Jason Gaikowski (01:17):
Well, I mean, you know, the forays, they
always do such a wonderful job,and the decisions event is is
one of my favorites every year.You know, inspiration, there's
obviously so much going on inthe headlines, our industry and
and other industries, about theimpact of AI. And in fact, I'm
part of a team here at VMLthat's charged with helping our
(01:39):
agency accelerate its adoption.So this has put me in a position
to think pretty deeply about howthis particular technology
development may may impactrelationship with tech and and
and, frankly, with creativity.Right?
And so, you know, I think youknow that one of my one of my
(02:04):
sort of go to analyses when Ireflect deeply, you know, is to
think about have there beensimilar kinds of events that
have happened in otherindustries or at different
periods in time? And, you know,this to me seems quite similar
to the digital revolution, theindustrial revolution before
(02:28):
that, the enlightenment beforethat. You know, and what you
what you see over time is wehave these moments where
developments happen. Itprofoundly changes our
relationship with creativity, orperhaps better said, it
profoundly changes what we areable to accomplish using
(02:50):
creativity. And so I thought itwas really, really worth
considering not incrementalchanges to what we currently do,
but how this technology mightradically alter the way we think
about human creativity and andour relationship with
technology.
Nick Brunker (03:05):
I've said something similar, to a few of
our different guests. We talkedto Brian Yamada weeks and weeks
ago now about the the similaridea that we are we are
witnessing potentially thatindustrial revolution like
moment. You described thatmoment as as not a fork in the
road, but as an event horizon, aworld changing moment. What
(03:25):
makes this particulartechnological shift so
significant?
Jason Gaikowski (03:29):
Well, I think that, you know, I think that you
can already see it. And, youknow, I think that it's a
combination that, you know, canbe thought of sort of as
gravity, the weight of thechange
Nick Brunker (03:40):
Mhmm.
Jason Gaikowski (03:41):
With acceleration, the rate of the
change. Right? And so, you know,if we think about the industrial
revolution, the change thathappened to culture and society
unfolded over many decades.Right? When you go from free
industrial society to a postindustrial society, That
happened over, what, four, five,six, seven, eight decades.
(04:02):
And, you know, even the even theeven the digital revolution, you
know, I would argue has happenedlargely within the span of my
career, which is a little bitlonger than I'm comfortable
talking about these days. But,you know, like like, if you go
back if you go back to, like,the late nineties, man,
(04:25):
broadband penetration was lessthan 50% in this country. Mhmm.
Right? The iPhone didn't evencome on board until the middle
two thousands, and so the therate of change, was still took a
couple of decades to unfold.
And I and I think that whatwe're seeing right now with the
emergence of generative AI, Ithink that the changes will be
(04:48):
at least as profound, but a heckof a lot more rapid. So that's
where I think this notion of anevent horizon is, really
enlightening as a as a kind ofmetaphor.
Nick Brunker (04:58):
Yeah. It's fascinating times to live in for
sure. There are a few big themesthat, you had in the keynote
that I kinda wanna unpack one ata time. The first one is about
creativity and and the creativecrisis that might be happening
in in marketing. And in thekeynote, I thought there was
really an interesting sectionand some powerful language you
used around engagement addictionand describing algorithms as the
(05:22):
the new cartels, engagement asthe the marketers' drug of
choice.
Let's unpack that metaphor forus, if you will.
Jason Gaikowski (05:30):
Well, I mean, you know, as you and I both
know, when we when we lookacross industry, the the
addictive metric of choice is inis engagement. Mhmm. Right? And
and, of course, if people aren'tpaying attention to something,
that's really, reallyproblematic from a marketing
perspective. Now,inconveniently, what we've
(05:51):
learned both through boththrough the study of behavioral
science and behavioraleconomics, but also through real
world try and trial and error isthat the things that the human
mind is wired to respond to,danger, anger, outrage,
(06:12):
salaciousness.
Right? Like, I I I talked to Italked to another colleague of
ours in the industry who has a asocial media job as his
responsibility. And he's like,yeah. What really gets
engagement is being unhinged,being salacious and unhinged.
And, you know, the algorithmshave caught on to that.
And right? So so very often andand, you know, Scott Galloway
(06:37):
and others have talked about howgiving our attention to social
media interactions gives us alittle bit of hit of dopamine.
Mhmm. Right? And so we've gotwe've got addiction on two sides
of the table.
We've got marketers who areaddicted to a metric called
engagement, and then we've gotpeople who have become addicted
(06:57):
to the dopamine rewards thatthey get from engagement. Now
this is problematic for avariety of reasons. Number one,
human attention inconvenientlydoes not scale. We are already
beyond content infinity, and sothere is more and more content
(07:18):
competing ever harder and everharder for a finite amount of
human attention. Mhmm.
And that means that the cost ofacquiring attention will only go
up. Right? And it's not gonna goup linearly. It's gonna go up
algorithmically. Now when youplug AI into that equation,
(07:41):
like, the promise of highlypersonalized, highly
individualized content deliveredat scale, right, that becomes
true.
But then marketers are gonnahave this trade off between
engagement and reach. Right? Andand mathematically, where that
(08:02):
leads to is reach approachingzero and engagement approaching
one for every individual pieceof content. Now on the other
side of the equation, we alreadysee that this DOPA fueled
addiction to engagement, it doesin fact tickle the bottom of the
(08:23):
brain stem. It does appeal tohumanity's worst instincts.
Right? Rage bait is a thing.Mhmm. We already know that it
creates divisiveness. It createspolarization.
It creates a fracturing of anysense of shared reality, and it
leads to a place where peopleoccupy smaller and smaller, more
(08:47):
lonely, and more isolatedindividual experience filter
bubbles. Yeah. Right? And that'srather problematic, not just for
consumers, but for the brandsthat that want to do business
with them.
Nick Brunker (09:00):
And what's fascinating and scary about that
is you you compound that realityfrom a technological and
behavioral perspective to thefact that we are still, you
know, a handful of years just,you know, what it would be five
years technically post pandemicgoing through a pandemic where
quite literally we were beingforced to isolate. So not only
is the technology in a placewhere, you know, the signals and
(09:23):
and the way things are wired areactually potentially doing us as
humans a disservice, but we'rewe were also in a in a societal
problem, a societal mess withbeing forced to, you know, stay
stay in homes and stay behindthe screens, and even still
we're recovering from that. I Ithink about how the you were
(09:43):
pulling on the threat of theattention economy and the the
idea that there is the theliteral dopamine hit of likes
and shares. And you referencedit at I thought it was
fascinating. Junk food for thesoul.
So if likes and shares are thejunk food for the soul, what
nutritional value were wemissing in our creative diets as
we we think about marketing inin the future?
Jason Gaikowski (10:05):
Well, I mean, I think there's I think there's
really I think there's reallywonderful work that gets done.
And, you know, what I findfascinating is if you look at if
you look at examples of the mostelevated and celebrated work
that our industry produces, ittends not to be this extremely
(10:29):
hyper personalized,individualized social content to
scale designed for designedaround engagement.
Nick Brunker (10:34):
Mhmm.
Jason Gaikowski (10:34):
Right? It tends to be work as an example, some
work that that our ourorganization was part of, I will
always be me, which, as I'm sureyou were aware, uses technology
to preserve the voice of peoplewhom, due to medical conditions,
(10:56):
will soon be voiceless. Right?And it does so through the the
design of a really easy to readfamily friendly fun story. This
allows a person to essentiallybank their voice so that when
the time comes that they havelost their voice, they now,
through technology, have theability to communicate with
friends and with loved onesusing their own voice.
(11:18):
Right? I will always be me usingtechnology to give voice to the
people who will seem to bevoiceless. It's a wonderful,
wonderful piece of work. Right?Another example that, you know,
I have so much admiration for iscalled magnetic stories.
Now as you may or may not know,experiencing an MRI is not a
(11:43):
particularly pleasantexperience. And it turns out
that when a child has to gothrough an MRI, that experience
as it is can be somewherebetween terrifying and
traumatic. And the work ofmagnetic stories, what they did,
is they designed an immersivechildren's story, an audiobook.
(12:05):
And it incorporates the noisesthat the MRI machine makes into
the characters and into thecontext of the story, suddenly
transforming this necessarymedical procedure from an
experience that is traumatic tosomething that is engaging,
enjoyable, memorable, right,even fun. Right?
(12:29):
And and, you know, even on aeven on a less lofty or less
less noble kind of plane, workthat we have done with Tennessee
tourism, six degrees ofTennessee. Mhmm. Right? We can
use technology to help musiclovers explore the DNA and the
roots of the music that theylove to discover that it's very,
(12:52):
very likely that they are closerto Tennessee than they are to
Kevin Bacon. And this is where Iget really excited about what
the potential of AI and thecreativity and the talent of our
industry might deliver.
Right? The question that toquote Kevin Kelly, who says that
(13:17):
with AI, answers are cheap.Questions are the future. Right?
Which begs me to urge ourindustry to ponder what kind of
questions are we gonna spend ourcreative talents on.
Mhmm. How do we get moreimpressions or engagements, or
how do we make real and lastingimprovements in the lives of the
(13:40):
people that we and our brandpartners seek to serve?
Nick Brunker (13:43):
It's a great segue to the next theme, which is
redefining what creativity meansin this AI era. And one of the
the other things that I thinkyou were pulling on there is the
idea that creative departmentsturning out personalized content
isn't the future. It's moreabout democratizing creativity
and, you know, using technologyto do it. What does that
democratization look like inyour mind?
Jason Gaikowski (14:05):
Well, for me, I, you know, I think that it it
really creates an opportunityfor a profound shift in the role
of a creative leader. Right?Sometimes and I'm and I'm sure
you've heard some of ourcolleagues talk about the need
for creative control becausewe're trying to get to a
certain, level of creativeproduct. And I think that in
(14:26):
many instances, that will stillbe true. But I do see the
opportunity for a broaddemocratization of creativity
beyond the boundaries of acreative department so that the
most senior creatives begin tooperate more as creative
(14:47):
teachers, creative coaches, andcreative mentors than they are
as individual creativecraftsmen.
Now in, you know, some of theresearch that our colleagues did
with the future 100, they talkabout a future where creatives
will begin to operate more likecurators, that much of the much
(15:08):
of the craftsmanship can beoutsourced to technology,
particularly in the digitalrealm. Right? Our colleague
Brian Yamada, who you talkedabout earlier, you know, he and
I talk about how AI will open upnew avenues and new mediums for
stories and storytelling. Right?And I think that's also true.
(15:29):
But I think the really excitingthing is that it broadens the
pool of who gets to participatein and who gets to contribute to
this thing called creative andcreativity. Right? What we what
we see in the industry right nowis that agency to agency, on
(15:49):
average, creative staffrepresent 30 to 50% of total
agency headcount.
Nick Brunker (15:56):
Mhmm.
Jason Gaikowski (15:57):
Why not 80? Why not 90? Mhmm. Why not 95? Right?
If we take if we take the powerof AI and we use it to create
more efficiency and automationaround the person manning the
front desk, we'll always wantsomeone manning the front desk.
Mhmm. But why not how why notharness the power and potential
(16:21):
of their creativity? Right? Thepeople that work in accounting
and finance, why not harnesssome of their creative
potential?
Mhmm. Right? They have theability to think about ideas
differently. And I think thatthere are untapped contributions
throughout the people of ourindustry that AI is gonna give
(16:42):
us a chance to tap into.
Nick Brunker (16:43):
That's been one of those interesting dynamics when
you think about the the conceptof, well, what's gonna be useful
from somebody who is in thefront desk perspective? This
goes back to, ironically, thehuman centered design mindset
that you've been championingover the many years. Is getting
to the the root of, well, what'swhat's the right question?
What's the problem we're tryingto solve for them? What are
(17:03):
their jobs to be done?
So in the example you're givingand just kinda pulling on the
the front desk person's example,there's gonna be a lot of things
creatively that with technologysupport, they can come up with
some pretty creative ideas fromtheir perspective and really
have a unique flavor so that ifthere is an additional, you
know, creative team that needsto sink their teeth into
(17:25):
something, I I would imagine theinsights and the opportunity
areas become significantly morebroad as you leverage technology
to bring in, you know, whetherit's verbatims, whether it's
interviews, whether it's, youknow, learned or shared
experiences to be able to feedthe machine literally and
figuratively that allowcreativity to really come from
(17:47):
all angles. And I think what'sinteresting about that is you
think about how in humancentered design, we're shifting
from, like, being productionarms and and creative producers,
content generators to reallysolvers of problems. So when you
think about the the angle thatyou just you kinda went down,
what types of problems shouldour creative teams or marketers
(18:10):
that are in the strategic arealike myself and yourself, what
types of problems should we befocused on as we get into this
new world?
Jason Gaikowski (18:19):
You know, that's a that's a great
question, Nick. And, you know,just to just to reinforce your
last comments, you know, you'veheard it said in the industry
and certainly our company that agood idea doesn't care where it
comes from. Mhmm. Right? A goodidea can't care where it comes
from.
And even when you even when yougo and talk to the creative
(18:40):
teams that have produced some ofthe most remarkable creative
ideas and you talk to them abouthow did this happen, the story
that you hear again and againand again is we were just one
big team. Nobody cared aboutroles or departmental
boundaries.
Nick Brunker (19:00):
Mhmm.
Jason Gaikowski (19:01):
And it was just all of us contributing different
ideas, and no one cared where itcame from. Right? So what we see
is that behavior already exists.It's just not necessarily
encoded into the processes,quote, unquote, of how things
are supposed to work.
Nick Brunker (19:17):
Right.
Jason Gaikowski (19:17):
Now, you know, the question of what what kinds
of questions should we bespending our time on, there are
so many worthwhile questionsthat create value for a business
by enhancing and advancing thelives of their customers. And,
(19:37):
you know, I was listening to apodcast just earlier this week,
and I and I forget which one.You know? But it was another big
giant thinker in business thatsaid, look. The game of business
gets really, really simple.
Like, are you making yourcustomers' life better?
Nick Brunker (19:52):
Mhmm.
Jason Gaikowski (19:53):
And if you are making your customers' life
better, that's calledsustainable value. That's value
for them that you get toparticipate in, and your
participation in that valuecreation is the engine of
profit. Right? That's veryconsistent with Michael Porter's
thinking around why engine orwhy business is more suitable
(20:15):
for addressing social problemsthan philanthropy. Because
business can solve the problemin a way that creates value,
which generates profit, whichallows which allows the solution
to scale.
Right? So, you know, you've beenworking on the Ford business for
a long time. There's all kindsof problems to be solved around
(20:36):
freedom of movement.
Nick Brunker (20:37):
Yep. Yep.
Jason Gaikowski (20:39):
Right? I'm working with Children's
University Hospital right now.There's all kinds of problems to
be solved about how do you makethe health care experience
better for sick kids and theirfamilies and caregivers and for
the employees. Right? Thecentral question that I think
(20:59):
every brand has an opportunityto wrestle with that is gonna be
a wellspring of creativeinspiration is what are all the
ways that we have a that we as abusiness can make a positive
impact in the lives of people?
How do we make their livesbetter? And those are the kinds
(21:23):
of questions that we will havethe time and that we will have
the opportunity and that we willhave the ability to tackle if we
can just break the DOPAaddiction.
Nick Brunker (21:33):
But it's hard because that is scientifically,
like, part of part of the thebrain. Right? So so we're
tapping into it. I even thinkI've I can't remember who I was
talking to about this, but thethe idea that even the mechanism
by which you refresh your emailin Outlook or you refresh your
Facebook or Instagram feed isthe same mental and physical
(21:54):
mechanism as it is to pulling aslot machine. Like, our culture
has wired us Right.
To be addicted to, alright. I'mgonna miss out on something. And
maybe maybe this time I'm gonnasee something really
interesting. And it it when youget out of the the theoretical
and more like, no. That is quiteliterally what is firing neurons
in your brain.
There there are interestingquestions then that come up to
(22:17):
say, alright. Well, how do I howdo I do everything you're
suggesting? How do I startasking the right questions and
potentially putting myself intoa place where I can start
creatively answering them withAI as a tool while also
balancing the the path forwardin in being ethical and using
this technology for good so wedon't find ourselves, you know,
(22:40):
fighting off these dark patternsthat have existed and probably
will continue to exist in a lotof ways. And that's kind of the
third theme I wanted to unpackwith you as we have time is
talking about, alright, what'snext? What's the path forward?
And we we could start withethical standards, what you were
hitting on business value, whichwe'll we'll come back to in a
minute. But you mentioned theneed to develop those ethical
standards alongside AIdevelopment so that we're we're
(23:03):
doing the things that are gonnawork just to solve the the needs
of our brain while also beingable to to drive business
forward. And and we think aboutthat a lot when we talk about
ethics and standards andguidelines. As a lot of in a lot
of cases, businesses are arestill kind of building the AI
(23:23):
planes in their respectiveorganizations as they're flying
it. In your mind, what wouldthese standards include, to to
create good ethics alongside AIdevelopment?
Jason Gaikowski (23:33):
You know, I think that I think that the
emergence and adoption of AI, Ithink it is a remarkable
opportunity, and it may also bea forcing function. Right?
Because, you know, you talkabout you talk about whether
it's your email inbox or yoursocial notifications tickling
(23:55):
the same part of your brain stemas a slot machine. And Yeah. You
know, obviously Tristan Harrisin the Center for Humane
Technology has talked about thisfor for a decade, maybe maybe a
little bit more.
The the question that I thinksociety is gonna begin to
confront is, are we going tochoose an AI powered path
(24:15):
forward where we work for themachines or where the machines
work for us? Mhmm. Right?Because and and you've heard me
talk about many times throwingoff the shackles of our Silicon
Valley overlords. And, you know,if you and I and probably all of
(24:36):
our listeners are, like, reallyhonest, uncomfortably honest, in
the present moment between thescreens that dominate our lives,
do we work for the tech, or doesthe tech work for us?
Nick Brunker (24:52):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Jason Gaikowski (24:54):
And I think that question is really
uncomfortable. But if we can bereally diligent about
implementing AI in a very humancentric, humanity forward kind
of a way, it is easy to imaginethat all of the work that we do,
(25:20):
that 80% of the day to dayoperations of the business and
of our work gets largelyoutsourced to the machines,
which means that 80% of our timecan be face to face using
imagination and creativity todiscern and define the questions
(25:42):
that are worth tackling thatcreate value for people and
drive value for the business.Right? If ten years from now,
people are still looking atscreens eight to ten hours a day
just with AI, we've done itwrong. Right.
Right? Because all we've done isscaled the worst part of work.
(26:06):
Mhmm. Right? But, again, toreference Kevin Kelly, in a
world where answers are cheap,questions are the future, that
also means that knowledge ischeap, knowing is cheap,
wondering is the future.
Right? That means creativity andimagination is the future
(26:26):
because creativity andimagination time and time and
time and time and time again isa root source of business value.
Because anything and everythingwe have ever accomplished as
businesses, as brands, or evenas a human species, at one point
in time was consideredimprobable, if not impossible.
(26:52):
Right now, today, we pack peopleinto an aluminum tube, hurl them
across the sky burning dinosaurjuice safely. We do that.
Oh my god. Someone has toimagine the future, And the way
that we're going to do that andmaximize shared value for
(27:14):
business and for people is tojust bring more human minds into
the business of imagining futurepossibilities and then
participating in creative ideasthat we can then bring online
and bring to life usingremarkable technology, including
AI.
Nick Brunker (27:34):
How do you make a business case then in in the
immediate for those who areskeptical of that sort of
approach? Because I can imaginethere's definite resistance to
having that big of a mindsetshift. I think there there's
always the nugget of your pointon maximizing customer lifetime
value means you need to maximizevalue due to a customer's
(27:55):
lifetime. I think that was whatyou had said in the keynote and
generally what you paraphrasedearlier. And so I think in that
sense, it's like a relativelyeasy, you know, pushback in the
business case to make.
But when literally mostmarketing organizations at some
level are looking at the junkfood, if you go back to that
(28:17):
point or the the analogyearlier. How do you get somebody
who's who's still kind of on thefence of of making that pivot to
see the light beyond just thisis gonna make profit? And maybe
that the answer is that just tieit all back to that. But but if
somebody's really pressing backor hesitant to make the jump,
how would you how would youexplain it to them, or how would
(28:39):
you push them to kind of yourframe of thinking?
Jason Gaikowski (28:42):
You know the you know the folk wisdom of you
can lead a course to water. Yes.Right? But, again, the the the
technique that I find veryeffective is using what has
historically already been provento be true as a means of helping
people understand that there isgoing to be some next. Mhmm.
(29:04):
The business model of Netflixwas considered so insane and so
improbable that Blockbuster'srefusal to acknowledge that
business model and to doubledown on what works caused them
to go extinct.
Nick Brunker (29:17):
Mhmm.
Jason Gaikowski (29:18):
Nokia and BlackBerry's commitment to, the
existing and proven businessmodel did a very good job of
helping them go extinct. Right?And, you know, I got an insane
and ridiculous request from aclient several years ago. I
(29:39):
mean, just absolutely just thatshit. They said this client
wanted law.
Right? Like Moore's Law? Yeah.This client worked in
technology. They're like, I wanta law.
And I'm like, cool. They'relike, I want you to design a law
for me. I'm like, Jesus. God.Right?
(30:01):
So, like, I went I went, like,you know, deep into a cave and
studied the mysteries of theuniverse for a while. And
Nick Brunker (30:09):
As one does. You know,
Jason Gaikowski (30:10):
what I eventually as one does, like,
you know, how do how do youcreate a law? You have to, like,
start observing things at anincredibly deep lay level, and
then you have to, like, try andfigure out how how to articulate
this a a pattern, and it has tobe something that no one else
has ever said before, and that'sfreaking hard. And what I came
(30:30):
back with, and what'sinteresting, is he left the job
before, I delivered the work, soI was able to keep it. Yeah. And
when you study things deeply,what you find is that any
sufficiently efficientorganization will optimize
itself into oblivion.
And what you see is that for anyorganization to continue to
(30:53):
prosper over time,counterintuitively, its first
priority must be continuousreinvention. Netflix was able to
make the leap from mailing DVDsto streaming Mhmm. Because they
operate on the notion ofcontinuous reinvention. And so,
(31:13):
you know, for anyone that iswondering whether the business
models that are most profitableand most reliable twenty years
from now are gonna be the samebusiness models that exist
today, in many instances, thatanswer is gonna be no. And so
for any business leader, like,you're gonna have to get really
(31:36):
realistic, painfully honest withyourself and say, this is going
to impact my business.
Is it just simply gonna make itmore efficient? Because that is
both a benefit and a riskbecause highly efficient
businesses become rigid Right.Right. And vulnerable. Or is
this technology going to allowme to create more resilience and
(32:00):
adaptability?
And how is the way I think aboutmy business model and my most
important metrics and my path toprofitability, how does that
need to evolve along with thechanges in the world and the
changes that I'm implementinginto the business?
Nick Brunker (32:17):
And this may be a broader question than we have
time to get into, but just bearwith me on it. Imagine yourself
at a larger company like many ofour clients or or big business,
and you mentioned it. As thescale and size goes up, the
process and rigidity, you know,put another way, the red tape
also tends to to increase.
Jason Gaikowski (32:37):
The bureaucracy.
Nick Brunker (32:38):
Yes. Right. What are practical first steps or
early steps that marketers atthis size of an organization,
the larger size organizations,can do to maybe not as a forcing
function, but just as a way of,like, staying fresh and trying
to trying to move a majororganization into the mindset of
(32:59):
constant reinvention andbasically unpacking what you
just said, but in their dailylives, in their daily work.
What's a good first step or setof first steps?
Jason Gaikowski (33:06):
Go hunting for bright spots. Literally, every
organization that I've everworked with, somebody somewhere
is doing something right and ismodeling the way forward. You
know, the saying the future isalready here. It's not just very
well distributed. Every singleorganization has bright spots
(33:27):
that is is an indicator speciesof how the future may behave.
Don't feel like you have toinvent it from ground zero. In
your business, go hunting forbright spots, indicator species
of the future. In adjacentindustries, if you can, go
looking for close analogs Mhmm.As indicator species for the
(33:49):
future, and then look foropportunities to either invest
in and scale those as tests,because predicting the future is
really hard, you're a lot betteroff just running a lot of
experiments. Right?
Right? Small scale experimentsas fastly and inexpensively as
possible to figure out whatworks and what doesn't. So go
(34:10):
find the experiments that arealready running and lean into
them, or find experiments thatsomebody else is running and
begin to experiment with themyourself. And that's gonna be
your fastest and most reliablepath to, like, figuring out how
the future is gonna unfold foryou in your organization.
Nick Brunker (34:26):
So tell me, as we kinda round out this this
section, what gives you hopethat we can shift the industry
in a more meaningful directionwith all of the change, all of
the speed in which this changeis happening, and all of the you
know, let's just call itscientific reasons why our
brains are just gonna get in ourway in certain ways. What gives
(34:47):
you hope that we can we canshift to that more meaningful
future that you were talkingabout in your keynote?
Jason Gaikowski (34:53):
No. The threat of extinction is a really
remarkable motivator.
Nick Brunker (34:58):
Yeah. That'll do it.
Jason Gaikowski (34:59):
It is a remarkable motivator. I mean,
you know, several several yearsago, alpha goes zero. And if you
haven't watched the movie, watchit. And that was, you know, five
or six years ago now. Yeah.
You know, an AI taught itself toplay the game go. The number of
possibilities in the game of gohas more possibilities than
(35:20):
atoms in the known universe. Andit seems to me that the the
question of the right message tothe right person at the right
place at the right time feelsvery solvable. That feels like a
pattern that is very, very wellsuited to AI. And so the
(35:41):
economics are gonna force thework of right person, right
message, right place, righttime.
Yep. That's just gonna force itto not fully automated,
technologically run, but largelyautomated, technologically run
with human oversight. So we needsome other stuff to do.
Nick Brunker (36:00):
Yeah. How else are you gonna spend your day?
Jason Gaikowski (36:04):
Threat of extinction is a remarkable
motivator for transformation.
Nick Brunker (36:07):
I love it.
Jason Gaikowski (36:08):
It is my favorite motivator for
transformation. No company wantsto transform if things are going
super well.
Nick Brunker (36:14):
But when you know the inevitabilities of, we've
seen this pattern play out,maybe over a longer period of
time, history repeats itself.Right?
Jason Gaikowski (36:23):
Our industry is different than it was thirty
years ago. Right?
Nick Brunker (36:26):
Even five to ten. Like, imagine imagine how even
when we think about what whatgot people out of bed in the
morning in this industry tenyears ago compared to what we're
doing Monday through Friday andsometimes on Saturday and
Sunday. I mean, it's it's nuts.And I I you can only expect if
if, you know, back to a law, ifMoore's law is any indicator,
(36:49):
then that's not gonna stop. Theproblems are just gonna pivot.
There'll be something differentto solve Yeah. And different
tools to solve them. Right?Right.
Jason Gaikowski (36:56):
The mid the mid century marketing industry is
unlike the marketing industry ofthe eighty nineties, which was
very different than themarketing industry of the early
two thousands, which is verydifferent than the marketing
industry of 2025. So why wouldwe think that the marketing
industry of 3035 wouldn't beremarkably different than it is
today?
Nick Brunker (37:16):
No doubt. No doubt. That's why this industry
is so much fun, and I know youhave a lot of expertise and
opinions on it. Before we wewrap up, speaking of opinions,
you have recently launched apodcast and are participating
with our our friends andpartners at at BAV and the BAV
Group. Tell me a little bitabout that as a a kind of a side
(37:39):
hustle that you've been workingon these days.
Jason Gaikowski (37:41):
Yeah. Fun little fun little project with
my good friend Laura, CEO, newlyminted CEO of BAV Group, which
is a brand consultancy that usesdata from Brand Asset Valuator,
which is the world's largest,longest, and most authoritative
longitudinal study of how peopleperceive the interactions that
(38:04):
they have with brands. And, youknow, I've gotten to know Laura
over the past five, six, sevenyears. She's wonderful. And I
actually used to work at BAV inthe consultancy business, much
earlier in my career.
I was fortunate enough to trainwith, some of the founders of
BAV back in the day. And, youknow, she she and I got to
(38:27):
talking one day, and I'm like,man, there's an awful lot of
mythology that floats around ourindustry that runs in contrary
to the evidence. Let's maybehave some conversations where we
we challenge some of theconventional wisdom or even bust
some of the outright myths thatseem to seem to be pervasive in
(38:47):
the industry and see if we canhave some fun doing so. So we we
banked, I don't know, nine or 10episodes. First one is out, and
second one's out next week.
Nick Brunker (38:55):
That's amazing. Well, we will link to the show
in our podcast notes as welland, obviously, more exciting
times ahead in in thatconversation with with Laura.
And maybe we'll have to have ahave her on as well in in the
coming weeks and months. Butcongratulations on on the
podcast launch, and we'll belistening, my man. And thanks
again for making time to dothis.
I know you're swamped and busyas always, but, I always get a
(39:16):
ton out of our conversations.I'm sure our listeners do too.
Appreciate your time, and we'llwe'll talk again soon.
Jason Gaikowski (39:21):
Thanks so much, Nick.
Nick Brunker (39:22):
And thanks to you all for listening to Human
Centered as well. To learn moreabout VML CX practice and our
approach to the work, you cancheck us out online at VML.com.
We also love to hear yourfeedback on the show. Give us a
rating wherever you listen toyour podcast, including Apple,
Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon, nowYouTube, and many more. Have a
topic idea or just wanna drop usa line?
Connect with me on x at NickBunker, or you can email the
(39:45):
show. It'shumancentered@bml.com. Thanks
again for listening. We'll seeyou next time.
Hi, everyone, and welcome to human centered. I'm
Nick Brunker, a managingdirector of experience strategy
at VML and your host for theshow. Thanks for giving us a
listen. Today, we're exploring acritical point, the
transformation of humancreativity in the age of AI. As
AI rapidly becomes marketing'snew operating system in many
ways, we are facing profoundquestions.
Will it amplify meaningful workor simply accelerate
(00:25):
distraction? How do we redefinecreativity beyond engagement
driven tactics to drive andcreate real human impact? To
guide us through thisconversation, I'm so excited to
welcome back Jason Gajkowski,who's VML's chief transformation
officer and cochair of the 4A'sCX Council. Jason recently
delivered a provocative keynoteactually at the 4A's decisions
(00:45):
twenty five event called BeyondCreative, transforming the
impact of human creativity,which as we'll talk about
challenges our industry torethink its fundamental
relationship with technology andcreativity. Jason, welcome back.
Good to see you.
Jason Gaikowski (01:00):
Nick, thanks for having me back. So good.
Always, always a pleasure tospend some time with you, my
man.
Nick Brunker (01:04):
Likewise, dude. Before we dive in, I know
there's been a lot of stuffgoing on in your space. And as
we talked about off the top, yourecently spoke at, that
decisions event in Atlanta. Whatinspired the theme of your
keynote down there?
Jason Gaikowski (01:17):
Well, I mean, you know, the forays, they
always do such a wonderful job,and the decisions event is is
one of my favorites every year.You know, inspiration, there's
obviously so much going on inthe headlines, our industry and
and other industries, about theimpact of AI. And in fact, I'm
part of a team here at VMLthat's charged with helping our
(01:39):
agency accelerate its adoption.So this has put me in a position
to think pretty deeply about howthis particular technology
development may may impactrelationship with tech and and
and, frankly, with creativity.Right?
And so, you know, I think youknow that one of my one of my
(02:04):
sort of go to analyses when Ireflect deeply, you know, is to
think about have there beensimilar kinds of events that
have happened in otherindustries or at different
periods in time? And, you know,this to me seems quite similar
to the digital revolution, theindustrial revolution before
(02:28):
that, the enlightenment beforethat. You know, and what you
what you see over time is wehave these moments where
developments happen. Itprofoundly changes our
relationship with creativity, orperhaps better said, it
profoundly changes what we areable to accomplish using
(02:50):
creativity. And so I thought itwas really, really worth
considering not incrementalchanges to what we currently do,
but how this technology mightradically alter the way we think
about human creativity and andour relationship with
technology.
Nick Brunker (03:05):
I've said something similar, to a few of
our different guests. We talkedto Brian Yamada weeks and weeks
ago now about the the similaridea that we are we are
witnessing potentially thatindustrial revolution like
moment. You described thatmoment as as not a fork in the
road, but as an event horizon, aworld changing moment. What
(03:25):
makes this particulartechnological shift so
significant?
Jason Gaikowski (03:29):
Well, I think that, you know, I think that you
can already see it. And, youknow, I think that it's a
combination that, you know, canbe thought of sort of as
gravity, the weight of thechange
Nick Brunker (03:40):
Mhmm.
Jason Gaikowski (03:41):
With acceleration, the rate of the
change. Right? And so, you know,if we think about the industrial
revolution, the change thathappened to culture and society
unfolded over many decades.Right? When you go from free
industrial society to a postindustrial society, That
happened over, what, four, five,six, seven, eight decades.
(04:02):
And, you know, even the even theeven the digital revolution, you
know, I would argue has happenedlargely within the span of my
career, which is a little bitlonger than I'm comfortable
talking about these days. But,you know, like like, if you go
back if you go back to, like,the late nineties, man,
(04:25):
broadband penetration was lessthan 50% in this country. Mhmm.
Right? The iPhone didn't evencome on board until the middle
two thousands, and so the therate of change, was still took a
couple of decades to unfold.
And I and I think that whatwe're seeing right now with the
emergence of generative AI, Ithink that the changes will be
(04:48):
at least as profound, but a heckof a lot more rapid. So that's
where I think this notion of anevent horizon is, really
enlightening as a as a kind ofmetaphor.
Nick Brunker (04:58):
Yeah. It's fascinating times to live in for
sure. There are a few big themesthat, you had in the keynote
that I kinda wanna unpack one ata time. The first one is about
creativity and and the creativecrisis that might be happening
in in marketing. And in thekeynote, I thought there was
really an interesting sectionand some powerful language you
used around engagement addictionand describing algorithms as the
(05:22):
the new cartels, engagement asthe the marketers' drug of
choice.
Let's unpack that metaphor forus, if you will.
Jason Gaikowski (05:30):
Well, I mean, you know, as you and I both
know, when we when we lookacross industry, the the
addictive metric of choice is inis engagement. Mhmm. Right? And
and, of course, if people aren'tpaying attention to something,
that's really, reallyproblematic from a marketing
perspective. Now,inconveniently, what we've
(05:51):
learned both through boththrough the study of behavioral
science and behavioraleconomics, but also through real
world try and trial and error isthat the things that the human
mind is wired to respond to,danger, anger, outrage,
(06:12):
salaciousness.
Right? Like, I I I talked to Italked to another colleague of
ours in the industry who has a asocial media job as his
responsibility. And he's like,yeah. What really gets
engagement is being unhinged,being salacious and unhinged.
And, you know, the algorithmshave caught on to that.
And right? So so very often andand, you know, Scott Galloway
(06:37):
and others have talked about howgiving our attention to social
media interactions gives us alittle bit of hit of dopamine.
Mhmm. Right? And so we've gotwe've got addiction on two sides
of the table.
We've got marketers who areaddicted to a metric called
engagement, and then we've gotpeople who have become addicted
(06:57):
to the dopamine rewards thatthey get from engagement. Now
this is problematic for avariety of reasons. Number one,
human attention inconvenientlydoes not scale. We are already
beyond content infinity, and sothere is more and more content
(07:18):
competing ever harder and everharder for a finite amount of
human attention. Mhmm.
And that means that the cost ofacquiring attention will only go
up. Right? And it's not gonna goup linearly. It's gonna go up
algorithmically. Now when youplug AI into that equation,
(07:41):
like, the promise of highlypersonalized, highly
individualized content deliveredat scale, right, that becomes
true.
But then marketers are gonnahave this trade off between
engagement and reach. Right? Andand mathematically, where that
(08:02):
leads to is reach approachingzero and engagement approaching
one for every individual pieceof content. Now on the other
side of the equation, we alreadysee that this DOPA fueled
addiction to engagement, it doesin fact tickle the bottom of the
(08:23):
brain stem. It does appeal tohumanity's worst instincts.
Right? Rage bait is a thing.Mhmm. We already know that it
creates divisiveness. It createspolarization.
It creates a fracturing of anysense of shared reality, and it
leads to a place where peopleoccupy smaller and smaller, more
(08:47):
lonely, and more isolatedindividual experience filter
bubbles. Yeah. Right? And that'srather problematic, not just for
consumers, but for the brandsthat that want to do business
with them.
Nick Brunker (09:00):
And what's fascinating and scary about that
is you you compound that realityfrom a technological and
behavioral perspective to thefact that we are still, you
know, a handful of years just,you know, what it would be five
years technically post pandemicgoing through a pandemic where
quite literally we were beingforced to isolate. So not only
is the technology in a placewhere, you know, the signals and
(09:23):
and the way things are wired areactually potentially doing us as
humans a disservice, but we'rewe were also in a in a societal
problem, a societal mess withbeing forced to, you know, stay
stay in homes and stay behindthe screens, and even still
we're recovering from that. I Ithink about how the you were
(09:43):
pulling on the threat of theattention economy and the the
idea that there is the theliteral dopamine hit of likes
and shares. And you referencedit at I thought it was
fascinating. Junk food for thesoul.
So if likes and shares are thejunk food for the soul, what
nutritional value were wemissing in our creative diets as
we we think about marketing inin the future?
Jason Gaikowski (10:05):
Well, I mean, I think there's I think there's
really I think there's reallywonderful work that gets done.
And, you know, what I findfascinating is if you look at if
you look at examples of the mostelevated and celebrated work
that our industry produces, ittends not to be this extremely
(10:29):
hyper personalized,individualized social content to
scale designed for designedaround engagement.
Nick Brunker (10:34):
Mhmm.
Jason Gaikowski (10:34):
Right? It tends to be work as an example, some
work that that our ourorganization was part of, I will
always be me, which, as I'm sureyou were aware, uses technology
to preserve the voice of peoplewhom, due to medical conditions,
(10:56):
will soon be voiceless. Right?And it does so through the the
design of a really easy to readfamily friendly fun story. This
allows a person to essentiallybank their voice so that when
the time comes that they havelost their voice, they now,
through technology, have theability to communicate with
friends and with loved onesusing their own voice.
(11:18):
Right? I will always be me usingtechnology to give voice to the
people who will seem to bevoiceless. It's a wonderful,
wonderful piece of work. Right?Another example that, you know,
I have so much admiration for iscalled magnetic stories.
Now as you may or may not know,experiencing an MRI is not a
(11:43):
particularly pleasantexperience. And it turns out
that when a child has to gothrough an MRI, that experience
as it is can be somewherebetween terrifying and
traumatic. And the work ofmagnetic stories, what they did,
is they designed an immersivechildren's story, an audiobook.
(12:05):
And it incorporates the noisesthat the MRI machine makes into
the characters and into thecontext of the story, suddenly
transforming this necessarymedical procedure from an
experience that is traumatic tosomething that is engaging,
enjoyable, memorable, right,even fun. Right?
(12:29):
And and, you know, even on aeven on a less lofty or less
less noble kind of plane, workthat we have done with Tennessee
tourism, six degrees ofTennessee. Mhmm. Right? We can
use technology to help musiclovers explore the DNA and the
roots of the music that theylove to discover that it's very,
(12:52):
very likely that they are closerto Tennessee than they are to
Kevin Bacon. And this is where Iget really excited about what
the potential of AI and thecreativity and the talent of our
industry might deliver.
Right? The question that toquote Kevin Kelly, who says that
(13:17):
with AI, answers are cheap.Questions are the future. Right?
Which begs me to urge ourindustry to ponder what kind of
questions are we gonna spend ourcreative talents on.
Mhmm. How do we get moreimpressions or engagements, or
how do we make real and lastingimprovements in the lives of the
(13:40):
people that we and our brandpartners seek to serve?
Nick Brunker (13:43):
It's a great segue to the next theme, which is
redefining what creativity meansin this AI era. And one of the
the other things that I thinkyou were pulling on there is the
idea that creative departmentsturning out personalized content
isn't the future. It's moreabout democratizing creativity
and, you know, using technologyto do it. What does that
democratization look like inyour mind?
Jason Gaikowski (14:05):
Well, for me, I, you know, I think that it it
really creates an opportunityfor a profound shift in the role
of a creative leader. Right?Sometimes and I'm and I'm sure
you've heard some of ourcolleagues talk about the need
for creative control becausewe're trying to get to a
certain, level of creativeproduct. And I think that in
(14:26):
many instances, that will stillbe true. But I do see the
opportunity for a broaddemocratization of creativity
beyond the boundaries of acreative department so that the
most senior creatives begin tooperate more as creative
(14:47):
teachers, creative coaches, andcreative mentors than they are
as individual creativecraftsmen.
Now in, you know, some of theresearch that our colleagues did
with the future 100, they talkabout a future where creatives
will begin to operate more likecurators, that much of the much
(15:08):
of the craftsmanship can beoutsourced to technology,
particularly in the digitalrealm. Right? Our colleague
Brian Yamada, who you talkedabout earlier, you know, he and
I talk about how AI will open upnew avenues and new mediums for
stories and storytelling. Right?And I think that's also true.
(15:29):
But I think the really excitingthing is that it broadens the
pool of who gets to participatein and who gets to contribute to
this thing called creative andcreativity. Right? What we what
we see in the industry right nowis that agency to agency, on
(15:49):
average, creative staffrepresent 30 to 50% of total
agency headcount.
Nick Brunker (15:56):
Mhmm.
Jason Gaikowski (15:57):
Why not 80? Why not 90? Mhmm. Why not 95? Right?
If we take if we take the powerof AI and we use it to create
more efficiency and automationaround the person manning the
front desk, we'll always wantsomeone manning the front desk.
Mhmm. But why not how why notharness the power and potential
(16:21):
of their creativity? Right? Thepeople that work in accounting
and finance, why not harnesssome of their creative
potential?
Mhmm. Right? They have theability to think about ideas
differently. And I think thatthere are untapped contributions
throughout the people of ourindustry that AI is gonna give
(16:42):
us a chance to tap into.
Nick Brunker (16:43):
That's been one of those interesting dynamics when
you think about the the conceptof, well, what's gonna be useful
from somebody who is in thefront desk perspective? This
goes back to, ironically, thehuman centered design mindset
that you've been championingover the many years. Is getting
to the the root of, well, what'swhat's the right question?
What's the problem we're tryingto solve for them? What are
(17:03):
their jobs to be done?
So in the example you're givingand just kinda pulling on the
the front desk person's example,there's gonna be a lot of things
creatively that with technologysupport, they can come up with
some pretty creative ideas fromtheir perspective and really
have a unique flavor so that ifthere is an additional, you
know, creative team that needsto sink their teeth into
(17:25):
something, I I would imagine theinsights and the opportunity
areas become significantly morebroad as you leverage technology
to bring in, you know, whetherit's verbatims, whether it's
interviews, whether it's, youknow, learned or shared
experiences to be able to feedthe machine literally and
figuratively that allowcreativity to really come from
(17:47):
all angles. And I think what'sinteresting about that is you
think about how in humancentered design, we're shifting
from, like, being productionarms and and creative producers,
content generators to reallysolvers of problems. So when you
think about the the angle thatyou just you kinda went down,
what types of problems shouldour creative teams or marketers
(18:10):
that are in the strategic arealike myself and yourself, what
types of problems should we befocused on as we get into this
new world?
Jason Gaikowski (18:19):
You know, that's a that's a great
question, Nick. And, you know,just to just to reinforce your
last comments, you know, you'veheard it said in the industry
and certainly our company that agood idea doesn't care where it
comes from. Mhmm. Right? A goodidea can't care where it comes
from.
And even when you even when yougo and talk to the creative
(18:40):
teams that have produced some ofthe most remarkable creative
ideas and you talk to them abouthow did this happen, the story
that you hear again and againand again is we were just one
big team. Nobody cared aboutroles or departmental
boundaries.
Nick Brunker (19:00):
Mhmm.
Jason Gaikowski (19:01):
And it was just all of us contributing different
ideas, and no one cared where itcame from. Right? So what we see
is that behavior already exists.It's just not necessarily
encoded into the processes,quote, unquote, of how things
are supposed to work.
Nick Brunker (19:17):
Right.
Jason Gaikowski (19:17):
Now, you know, the question of what what kinds
of questions should we bespending our time on, there are
so many worthwhile questionsthat create value for a business
by enhancing and advancing thelives of their customers. And,
(19:37):
you know, I was listening to apodcast just earlier this week,
and I and I forget which one.You know? But it was another big
giant thinker in business thatsaid, look. The game of business
gets really, really simple.
Like, are you making yourcustomers' life better?
Nick Brunker (19:52):
Mhmm.
Jason Gaikowski (19:53):
And if you are making your customers' life
better, that's calledsustainable value. That's value
for them that you get toparticipate in, and your
participation in that valuecreation is the engine of
profit. Right? That's veryconsistent with Michael Porter's
thinking around why engine orwhy business is more suitable
(20:15):
for addressing social problemsthan philanthropy. Because
business can solve the problemin a way that creates value,
which generates profit, whichallows which allows the solution
to scale.
Right? So, you know, you've beenworking on the Ford business for
a long time. There's all kindsof problems to be solved around
(20:36):
freedom of movement.
Nick Brunker (20:37):
Yep. Yep.
Jason Gaikowski (20:39):
Right? I'm working with Children's
University Hospital right now.There's all kinds of problems to
be solved about how do you makethe health care experience
better for sick kids and theirfamilies and caregivers and for
the employees. Right? Thecentral question that I think
(20:59):
every brand has an opportunityto wrestle with that is gonna be
a wellspring of creativeinspiration is what are all the
ways that we have a that we as abusiness can make a positive
impact in the lives of people?
How do we make their livesbetter? And those are the kinds
(21:23):
of questions that we will havethe time and that we will have
the opportunity and that we willhave the ability to tackle if we
can just break the DOPAaddiction.
Nick Brunker (21:33):
But it's hard because that is scientifically,
like, part of part of the thebrain. Right? So so we're
tapping into it. I even thinkI've I can't remember who I was
talking to about this, but thethe idea that even the mechanism
by which you refresh your emailin Outlook or you refresh your
Facebook or Instagram feed isthe same mental and physical
(21:54):
mechanism as it is to pulling aslot machine. Like, our culture
has wired us Right.
To be addicted to, alright. I'mgonna miss out on something. And
maybe maybe this time I'm gonnasee something really
interesting. And it it when youget out of the the theoretical
and more like, no. That is quiteliterally what is firing neurons
in your brain.
There there are interestingquestions then that come up to
(22:17):
say, alright. Well, how do I howdo I do everything you're
suggesting? How do I startasking the right questions and
potentially putting myself intoa place where I can start
creatively answering them withAI as a tool while also
balancing the the path forwardin in being ethical and using
this technology for good so wedon't find ourselves, you know,
(22:40):
fighting off these dark patternsthat have existed and probably
will continue to exist in a lotof ways. And that's kind of the
third theme I wanted to unpackwith you as we have time is
talking about, alright, what'snext? What's the path forward?
And we we could start withethical standards, what you were
hitting on business value, whichwe'll we'll come back to in a
minute. But you mentioned theneed to develop those ethical
standards alongside AIdevelopment so that we're we're
(23:03):
doing the things that are gonnawork just to solve the the needs
of our brain while also beingable to to drive business
forward. And and we think aboutthat a lot when we talk about
ethics and standards andguidelines. As a lot of in a lot
of cases, businesses are arestill kind of building the AI
(23:23):
planes in their respectiveorganizations as they're flying
it. In your mind, what wouldthese standards include, to to
create good ethics alongside AIdevelopment?
Jason Gaikowski (23:33):
You know, I think that I think that the
emergence and adoption of AI, Ithink it is a remarkable
opportunity, and it may also bea forcing function. Right?
Because, you know, you talkabout you talk about whether
it's your email inbox or yoursocial notifications tickling
(23:55):
the same part of your brain stemas a slot machine. And Yeah. You
know, obviously Tristan Harrisin the Center for Humane
Technology has talked about thisfor for a decade, maybe maybe a
little bit more.
The the question that I thinksociety is gonna begin to
confront is, are we going tochoose an AI powered path
(24:15):
forward where we work for themachines or where the machines
work for us? Mhmm. Right?Because and and you've heard me
talk about many times throwingoff the shackles of our Silicon
Valley overlords. And, you know,if you and I and probably all of
(24:36):
our listeners are, like, reallyhonest, uncomfortably honest, in
the present moment between thescreens that dominate our lives,
do we work for the tech, or doesthe tech work for us?
Nick Brunker (24:52):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Jason Gaikowski (24:54):
And I think that question is really
uncomfortable. But if we can bereally diligent about
implementing AI in a very humancentric, humanity forward kind
of a way, it is easy to imaginethat all of the work that we do,
(25:20):
that 80% of the day to dayoperations of the business and
of our work gets largelyoutsourced to the machines,
which means that 80% of our timecan be face to face using
imagination and creativity todiscern and define the questions
(25:42):
that are worth tackling thatcreate value for people and
drive value for the business.Right? If ten years from now,
people are still looking atscreens eight to ten hours a day
just with AI, we've done itwrong. Right.
Right? Because all we've done isscaled the worst part of work.
(26:06):
Mhmm. Right? But, again, toreference Kevin Kelly, in a
world where answers are cheap,questions are the future, that
also means that knowledge ischeap, knowing is cheap,
wondering is the future.
Right? That means creativity andimagination is the future
(26:26):
because creativity andimagination time and time and
time and time and time again isa root source of business value.
Because anything and everythingwe have ever accomplished as
businesses, as brands, or evenas a human species, at one point
in time was consideredimprobable, if not impossible.
(26:52):
Right now, today, we pack peopleinto an aluminum tube, hurl them
across the sky burning dinosaurjuice safely. We do that.
Oh my god. Someone has toimagine the future, And the way
that we're going to do that andmaximize shared value for
(27:14):
business and for people is tojust bring more human minds into
the business of imagining futurepossibilities and then
participating in creative ideasthat we can then bring online
and bring to life usingremarkable technology, including
AI.
Nick Brunker (27:34):
How do you make a business case then in in the
immediate for those who areskeptical of that sort of
approach? Because I can imaginethere's definite resistance to
having that big of a mindsetshift. I think there there's
always the nugget of your pointon maximizing customer lifetime
value means you need to maximizevalue due to a customer's
(27:55):
lifetime. I think that was whatyou had said in the keynote and
generally what you paraphrasedearlier. And so I think in that
sense, it's like a relativelyeasy, you know, pushback in the
business case to make.
But when literally mostmarketing organizations at some
level are looking at the junkfood, if you go back to that
(28:17):
point or the the analogyearlier. How do you get somebody
who's who's still kind of on thefence of of making that pivot to
see the light beyond just thisis gonna make profit? And maybe
that the answer is that just tieit all back to that. But but if
somebody's really pressing backor hesitant to make the jump,
how would you how would youexplain it to them, or how would
(28:39):
you push them to kind of yourframe of thinking?
Jason Gaikowski (28:42):
You know the you know the folk wisdom of you
can lead a course to water. Yes.Right? But, again, the the the
technique that I find veryeffective is using what has
historically already been provento be true as a means of helping
people understand that there isgoing to be some next. Mhmm.
(29:04):
The business model of Netflixwas considered so insane and so
improbable that Blockbuster'srefusal to acknowledge that
business model and to doubledown on what works caused them
to go extinct.
Nick Brunker (29:17):
Mhmm.
Jason Gaikowski (29:18):
Nokia and BlackBerry's commitment to, the
existing and proven businessmodel did a very good job of
helping them go extinct. Right?And, you know, I got an insane
and ridiculous request from aclient several years ago. I
(29:39):
mean, just absolutely just thatshit. They said this client
wanted law.
Right? Like Moore's Law? Yeah.This client worked in
technology. They're like, I wanta law.
And I'm like, cool. They'relike, I want you to design a law
for me. I'm like, Jesus. God.Right?
(30:01):
So, like, I went I went, like,you know, deep into a cave and
studied the mysteries of theuniverse for a while. And
Nick Brunker (30:09):
As one does. You know,
Jason Gaikowski (30:10):
what I eventually as one does, like,
you know, how do how do youcreate a law? You have to, like,
start observing things at anincredibly deep lay level, and
then you have to, like, try andfigure out how how to articulate
this a a pattern, and it has tobe something that no one else
has ever said before, and that'sfreaking hard. And what I came
(30:30):
back with, and what'sinteresting, is he left the job
before, I delivered the work, soI was able to keep it. Yeah. And
when you study things deeply,what you find is that any
sufficiently efficientorganization will optimize
itself into oblivion.
And what you see is that for anyorganization to continue to
(30:53):
prosper over time,counterintuitively, its first
priority must be continuousreinvention. Netflix was able to
make the leap from mailing DVDsto streaming Mhmm. Because they
operate on the notion ofcontinuous reinvention. And so,
(31:13):
you know, for anyone that iswondering whether the business
models that are most profitableand most reliable twenty years
from now are gonna be the samebusiness models that exist
today, in many instances, thatanswer is gonna be no. And so
for any business leader, like,you're gonna have to get really
(31:36):
realistic, painfully honest withyourself and say, this is going
to impact my business.
Is it just simply gonna make itmore efficient? Because that is
both a benefit and a riskbecause highly efficient
businesses become rigid Right.Right. And vulnerable. Or is
this technology going to allowme to create more resilience and
(32:00):
adaptability?
And how is the way I think aboutmy business model and my most
important metrics and my path toprofitability, how does that
need to evolve along with thechanges in the world and the
changes that I'm implementinginto the business?
Nick Brunker (32:17):
And this may be a broader question than we have
time to get into, but just bearwith me on it. Imagine yourself
at a larger company like many ofour clients or or big business,
and you mentioned it. As thescale and size goes up, the
process and rigidity, you know,put another way, the red tape
also tends to to increase.
Jason Gaikowski (32:37):
The bureaucracy.
Nick Brunker (32:38):
Yes. Right. What are practical first steps or
early steps that marketers atthis size of an organization,
the larger size organizations,can do to maybe not as a forcing
function, but just as a way of,like, staying fresh and trying
to trying to move a majororganization into the mindset of
(32:59):
constant reinvention andbasically unpacking what you
just said, but in their dailylives, in their daily work.
What's a good first step or setof first steps?
Jason Gaikowski (33:06):
Go hunting for bright spots. Literally, every
organization that I've everworked with, somebody somewhere
is doing something right and ismodeling the way forward. You
know, the saying the future isalready here. It's not just very
well distributed. Every singleorganization has bright spots
(33:27):
that is is an indicator speciesof how the future may behave.
Don't feel like you have toinvent it from ground zero. In
your business, go hunting forbright spots, indicator species
of the future. In adjacentindustries, if you can, go
looking for close analogs Mhmm.As indicator species for the
(33:49):
future, and then look foropportunities to either invest
in and scale those as tests,because predicting the future is
really hard, you're a lot betteroff just running a lot of
experiments. Right?
Right? Small scale experimentsas fastly and inexpensively as
possible to figure out whatworks and what doesn't. So go
(34:10):
find the experiments that arealready running and lean into
them, or find experiments thatsomebody else is running and
begin to experiment with themyourself. And that's gonna be
your fastest and most reliablepath to, like, figuring out how
the future is gonna unfold foryou in your organization.
Nick Brunker (34:26):
So tell me, as we kinda round out this this
section, what gives you hopethat we can shift the industry
in a more meaningful directionwith all of the change, all of
the speed in which this changeis happening, and all of the you
know, let's just call itscientific reasons why our
brains are just gonna get in ourway in certain ways. What gives
(34:47):
you hope that we can we canshift to that more meaningful
future that you were talkingabout in your keynote?
Jason Gaikowski (34:53):
No. The threat of extinction is a really
remarkable motivator.
Nick Brunker (34:58):
Yeah. That'll do it.
Jason Gaikowski (34:59):
It is a remarkable motivator. I mean,
you know, several several yearsago, alpha goes zero. And if you
haven't watched the movie, watchit. And that was, you know, five
or six years ago now. Yeah.
You know, an AI taught itself toplay the game go. The number of
possibilities in the game of gohas more possibilities than
(35:20):
atoms in the known universe. Andit seems to me that the the
question of the right message tothe right person at the right
place at the right time feelsvery solvable. That feels like a
pattern that is very, very wellsuited to AI. And so the
(35:41):
economics are gonna force thework of right person, right
message, right place, righttime.
Yep. That's just gonna force itto not fully automated,
technologically run, but largelyautomated, technologically run
with human oversight. So we needsome other stuff to do.
Nick Brunker (36:00):
Yeah. How else are you gonna spend your day?
Jason Gaikowski (36:04):
Threat of extinction is a remarkable
motivator for transformation.
Nick Brunker (36:07):
I love it.
Jason Gaikowski (36:08):
It is my favorite motivator for
transformation. No company wantsto transform if things are going
super well.
Nick Brunker (36:14):
But when you know the inevitabilities of, we've
seen this pattern play out,maybe over a longer period of
time, history repeats itself.Right?
Jason Gaikowski (36:23):
Our industry is different than it was thirty
years ago. Right?
Nick Brunker (36:26):
Even five to ten. Like, imagine imagine how even
when we think about what whatgot people out of bed in the
morning in this industry tenyears ago compared to what we're
doing Monday through Friday andsometimes on Saturday and
Sunday. I mean, it's it's nuts.And I I you can only expect if
if, you know, back to a law, ifMoore's law is any indicator,
(36:49):
then that's not gonna stop. Theproblems are just gonna pivot.
There'll be something differentto solve Yeah. And different
tools to solve them. Right?Right.
Jason Gaikowski (36:56):
The mid the mid century marketing industry is
unlike the marketing industry ofthe eighty nineties, which was
very different than themarketing industry of the early
two thousands, which is verydifferent than the marketing
industry of 2025. So why wouldwe think that the marketing
industry of 3035 wouldn't beremarkably different than it is
today?
Nick Brunker (37:16):
No doubt. No doubt. That's why this industry
is so much fun, and I know youhave a lot of expertise and
opinions on it. Before we wewrap up, speaking of opinions,
you have recently launched apodcast and are participating
with our our friends andpartners at at BAV and the BAV
Group. Tell me a little bitabout that as a a kind of a side
(37:39):
hustle that you've been workingon these days.
Jason Gaikowski (37:41):
Yeah. Fun little fun little project with
my good friend Laura, CEO, newlyminted CEO of BAV Group, which
is a brand consultancy that usesdata from Brand Asset Valuator,
which is the world's largest,longest, and most authoritative
longitudinal study of how peopleperceive the interactions that
(38:04):
they have with brands. And, youknow, I've gotten to know Laura
over the past five, six, sevenyears. She's wonderful. And I
actually used to work at BAV inthe consultancy business, much
earlier in my career.
I was fortunate enough to trainwith, some of the founders of
BAV back in the day. And, youknow, she she and I got to
(38:27):
talking one day, and I'm like,man, there's an awful lot of
mythology that floats around ourindustry that runs in contrary
to the evidence. Let's maybehave some conversations where we
we challenge some of theconventional wisdom or even bust
some of the outright myths thatseem to seem to be pervasive in
(38:47):
the industry and see if we canhave some fun doing so. So we we
banked, I don't know, nine or 10episodes. First one is out, and
second one's out next week.
Nick Brunker (38:55):
That's amazing. Well, we will link to the show
in our podcast notes as welland, obviously, more exciting
times ahead in in thatconversation with with Laura.
And maybe we'll have to have ahave her on as well in in the
coming weeks and months. Butcongratulations on on the
podcast launch, and we'll belistening, my man. And thanks
again for making time to dothis.
I know you're swamped and busyas always, but, I always get a
(39:16):
ton out of our conversations.I'm sure our listeners do too.
Appreciate your time, and we'llwe'll talk again soon.
Jason Gaikowski (39:21):
Thanks so much, Nick.
Nick Brunker (39:22):
And thanks to you all for listening to Human
Centered as well. To learn moreabout VML CX practice and our
approach to the work, you cancheck us out online at VML.com.
We also love to hear yourfeedback on the show. Give us a
rating wherever you listen toyour podcast, including Apple,
Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon, nowYouTube, and many more. Have a
topic idea or just wanna drop usa line?
Connect with me on x at NickBunker, or you can email the
(39:45):
show. It'shumancentered@bml.com. Thanks
again for listening. We'll seeyou next time.
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