April 30, 2025 • 39 mins
When Stephen Sakash began his journey from journalism school to digital marketing, he never imagined he'd be at the forefront of using artificial intelligence to make marketing more human. Yet that's exactly where his path has led him – developing an AI Chief Marketing Officer tool that helps businesses uncover their higher purpose and translate it into emotionally resonant campaigns.
At the heart of Sakash's approach is a concept he calls BLISS: Building Love Into Scalable Systems. This framework addresses a critical challenge many growing companies face – maintaining authenticity and emotional connection while scaling operations. Without deliberate attention to these elements, businesses often lose the very soul that made them successful as they systematize their processes. Sakash's solution? Consistently finding ways to infuse empathy and purpose into every aspect of marketing and operations.
The results speak for themselves. According to research Sakash cites, customers with strong emotional connections deliver 306% more lifetime value. This underscores why marketers should focus less on features and benefits and more on crafting narratives that make people feel something meaningful. His AI tool helps uncover these emotional connections while saving marketers significant time – potentially allowing them to accomplish in minutes what might otherwise take days.
What makes Sakash's perspective particularly valuable is his focus on using AI to enhance human empathy rather than diminish it. While many AI developers prioritize efficiency and profit maximization, he deliberately programmed his tool to prompt marketers to tell better stories and consider all stakeholders – not just shareholders. "AI is only going to amplify our better angels or our inner demons," Sakash warns, "and we need more people talking about how it can amplify our better angels."
For aspiring marketing professionals, Sakash offers clear guidance: find meaning in your work and look for ways to build love into whatever systems you touch. By approaching business from this perspective, you'll create more effective campaigns and contribute to more fulfilling workplaces where people feel connected to something larger than themselves. Subscribe to our podcast for more conversations with digital innovators who are reshaping the future of media and marketing.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Mediascape Insights from Digital
Changemakers, a speaker seriesand podcast brought to you by
USC Annenberg's Digital MediaManagement Program.
Join us as we unlock thesecrets to success in an
increasingly digital world.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
On this episode of Mediascape Insights from Digital
Changemakers.
I'm really excited to be havinga conversation with Stephen
Sakash.
And Stephen, you went to schoolfor journalism.
This is, of course.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
This podcast is produced by Annenberg School of
Communication and Journalismno-transcript digital version of
(01:10):
our newspaper too that wehanded out so we could see how
people view things digitally,and it was very clunky, but it
was like these first almostanalytics that people just you
know, every blog has all thatkind of data at their fingertips
, and then some.
But yeah, way back then I wouldsay, like our current jobs
didn't even exist when we weregoing through journalism school.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, and so what took you from journalism school
into performance marketing?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, so really it was kind of this process.
Yeah, the Internet came along,right, and I'm working at this
travel company and it's like, ok, got all these books, how do we
get this online?
And so, going through thatprocess, and then I remember
when a little company camearound with this thing called
pay-per-click and they kind ofinvented it, I'm all, uh, this
(01:59):
is the future, I think, ofonline advertising.
And so I just hopped on that.
And then, you know, within likeweeks, so literally there's
like not very many people onthere doing this kind of thing
on the search engines and searchengines trying to figure out
what the heck how to monetizethis stuff.
And so, you know, that justkind of blew up for me and I'm
(02:19):
like, okay, I'm gonna do thisfor now and I'm getting to
advertising on the digital side,because this is where I think
it's going.
I'm going to do this from nowon and get into advertising on
the digital side, because thisis where I think it's going.
And so that was fun.
(02:41):
Those are like the Wild Westdays back then, where people are
trying to figureeness and, youknow, higher consciousness and
integral theory and things likethat, and it's like they're
asking me how are you going toapply this to your business?
And I'm thinking at the time,you know this, simple like
Google ads one headline, twodescription lines.
I have no idea, right, I haveno idea, right, I have no idea.
(03:02):
And really our agency kind of.
That question just always kindof persisted with me is how do I
build kind of this higherconsciousness concepts and
empathy and into the marketingthat we do?
And so that took us, you know,on a long journey to even now,
to where we've just launchedthis AI product, the AI chief
(03:24):
marketing officer.
We really wanted to make achief marketing officer that was
very empathetic, you know, forus to work with.
And we actually just won anaward this morning so that was
nice news, a gold medal for this.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Congratulations.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Yeah.
Yeah, that was a fun way tostart the day hearing about that
.
But so, yeah, that was that'skind of the journey there, and
we're really trying to explorewhat it means, you know, to be
kind of an empathetic marketer,which, of course, you know, with
AI, even these days, it's likethat sounds almost contradictory
, but it's been a fun journey,for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
That's one of the things I think is so interesting
, because this is a conversationI have with my students a lot.
We're talking about what is AINow, how do we use it as an
appropriate tool, but then whatjobs might it replace?
Or how do we distinguish?
Because now, like yesterday,we're talking about how YouTube
is now allowing AI music fortheir creators, so you don't
(04:17):
necessarily have to get stockmusic, and one of my students
works at a company that workswith small musicians, and so
they actually look at this asthis might be positive for them,
because even though there's AImusic, people might still want
to go to a smaller company toget original music instead.
So, you know, I feel like we'reteetering on this.
(04:37):
We're going to go fully AI andthen we're going to pull back to
realize we're missing the humanelement, and we need to make
sure that we are leading withempathy, you know, and with the
human perspective, truly, notjust the sum of all averages.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
It's so true, it's so important, like, what I worry
about is where businessconsciousness is.
Most of the time it's the solepurpose of profit is what their
goal is Right.
Purpose of profit is what theirgoal is right, and so if
they're going to apply AI ontothat and no other guide rails or
anything, it's going to beruthless in what it does, and we
don't.
We don't want it to do that.
(05:13):
We want it to be more loving,if we can make it that way.
We want it to be moreempathetic.
We want it to consider, like,all the stakeholders in a
business, not just the investorsand the owners.
We want it to consider theemployees, the customers, the
community you're in right theenvironment, all these different
stakeholders in a business, sothat AI can be more empathetic,
(05:36):
right and to how it makesdecisions, because otherwise, if
it's just solely thinking aboutone thing, and that's profit,
we're in trouble, I think.
Solely thinking about one thingand that's profit, we're in
trouble, I think.
And so for us, one of the goalswas how can AI prompt us to be
better?
How can we make it prompt us,as marketers and storytellers,
to tell better stories, to putmore good, more love, more
(05:59):
empathy into the world, and sothat was kind of the really the
backbone of what we were tryingto accomplish there, and it's
going to be an ongoing journey,but it's a fun one, but it's
really, yeah, it's like canartificial intelligence make us
more real?
Speaker 2 (06:26):
as a positive of AI is the fact that when we all
have our agents which I'm takinga course in building agents in
a couple of weeks I'm reallyexcited.
But when we all have our ownagentic AI that's helping do
some of the menial tasks, willwe take advantage of that time
to spend more time beingcreative, strategizing, spending
time with family and friends,traveling, doing all of the
other things that we want to dothat are life fulfilling right,
not just profit driven.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah, and I think we're going to have a
relationship with AI and I don'tthink there's any way around it
.
but what we want is kind of itto be like a jazz session, I
think, right when we'reco-creating in a way, not
something where you know we'rejust parroting what it's saying,
we're helping prompt it, it'shelping prompt us and you can
get this really cool jazzsession.
(07:08):
I've talked to some artists AIartists that were like actual,
you know worked with, you knowpainting and things like that
and I'm like, well, how are youusing AI?
Because you know this is reallydisrupting.
It's like a dark night of thesoul for people seeing AI come
along and disrupt things.
But they're they're definitelythey talk about it being like
this co-creation jazz sessionwhere you're working with it,
(07:30):
it's working with you.
And I think that's kind ofwhere we're going to see some
interesting developments is ishow is that relationship we have
together?
And for us on the marketing side, it's like how can it prompt us
to tell better stories, to tellbetter marketing, to not be
just, you know, like thetransactional focused with our
marketing, but to be empathetic,you know, giving something that
(07:53):
people can feel.
That ties into emotions andstuff, because emotions I could
get into that just how importantthey are is when you can build
that emotional connection inyour marketing, in your product.
That's kind of the Holy grailfor me is because when you have
that, you're going to get.
Studies have shown 306% morelifetime value from the customer
(08:16):
.
You know you're going to buildcommunities off that, when you
can build that emotionalconnection, and that's the
ultimate kind of marketing.
But there's a lot that goesinto that right, because like
being real means being you know,really placing importance on
authenticity, and when you'reusing something you know like
artificial intelligence, itsounds totally contradictory to
(08:40):
being authentic.
But I think it can prompt us tobe more authentic and to tell
more authentic stories.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Well, we're definitely going to dive into
your concept, which is also thename of your podcast, the Bliss
Business Podcast, right?
And so you have this model thatyou've built to build empathy
into business, into marketingstrategy.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat and how you've used it in
your own organization?
And then you know, creatingfrom going from your performance
(09:09):
marketing agency, which I knowhas also had a lot of changes
since you started, to this newendeavor right with AICMO.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yeah, so I think you know BLIS it's an acronym for us
and it really came along in mybusiness when I was scaling it
and we're like how do we notlose?
You know who we are?
Lose the love and the soul ofthe company when we're scaling.
And so Bliss for us standsbuild love into scalable systems
.
And so it's really these twostages of business is when you
(09:40):
start to grow your business, youstart to systemize it, and
where a lot of businesses fallshort is they lose what got them
there, they lose their story,they lose their soul when they
systemize it and it just becomes, you know, diluted and you know
bland, and so it's like, okay,let's go back.
How can we repeatedly build loveinto our different systems and
(10:03):
really like the key to this, Ithink, is when you do it right,
it can help you find your higherpurpose in things, because you
are constantly maybe you don'tknow where to start finding that
purpose, but as you're startingto look for ways to build, you
know, little random bits of loveinto something that's a system,
(10:23):
I we don't want it to be like arandom act of kindness, even
though those are amazing, rightbut we want it to be something
that's repeatable always.
And so they, even if you leave,you know you've left maybe a
legacy or a mark or something'sgoing on where you help build
love into something thatcontinually builds.
And so it's like, a little bylittle, a little makes a lot
when you do that, and so that'sour kind of our bliss concept
(10:45):
and it's like if you apply thatto your business, you know you,
maybe you don't know your higherpurpose, but as you're going
through that process you startto realize that maybe you're in
service to people in some way.
Maybe a job that seems ordinarysuddenly becomes a little more
extraordinary, has a little bitmore meaning.
I can think of so many storiesof that.
There's this parking lotattendant, right, this sounds
(11:07):
like a kind of a pretty dry jobwhere you're just taking money
as people are leaving theparking lot and you know you're
sitting in your booth all day.
But he kind of realized that youknow there's these cars in
there and he noticed one that'sgot bald tires and he thought if
this is my son or my daughteror my mother, I'd be really
worried.
I would want someone to help me.
(11:28):
You know, realize that thedanger here, and so you know he
made sure he told that person,talked to them and then now his
job suddenly became you know,I'm going to check all of our
cars all the time and you know,start to this is where you get
the soul into business.
You know, it could have beenthis dry job, but now he's found
meaning in this and as amarketer if I'm a marketer,
that's such a better story forme to tell than you know park
(11:50):
here, save 20% on.
You know, whatever it is, it'ssuch a better start at story
when you can start withsomething that we can all
connect with.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Yeah, that's a hundred percent%.
I love it when I have avisceral, emotional response to
something, to a brand, to thefounder's story, to why they
started this organization, whatneed they saw in their own lives
that can now fill a need insomebody else's, and I love that
you're also saying.
By infusing these little bitsof love and thinking about our
(12:20):
roles in different ways, we'realso adding creativity and
innovation, which I think leadsto more passion, which leads to
the better storytelling.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Yeah, exactly, and it's like so you know, I've
studied consciousness, readingall these books and everything,
and it gets down to it, there'sreally, I feel like two key
things.
If we just want to simplify it,it's how close in proximity to
love can you be in your life?
And then also, can you behumble, because that is going to
help you grow, it'll allow youto be open, and if you can get
those two things into whatyou're doing, you know in your
(12:51):
job you're going to be so muchbetter off and, like you said,
that gives you a lot of room to.
You know whether I'm a parkinglot attendant or a marketing
company, or you know I work atthe airport.
You know handling someone'sbaggage and I understand.
You know maybe I'm getting.
You know a grandparent to seegrandchildren or something.
You start to think about yourjob differently when you're
(13:11):
trying to build that little bitof love into it and you're going
to ask a million questions.
I think about it and then makesure you systemize that, because
if you're this great lovingperson who's got this great
personalities, you know we'veall seen you go to like a coffee
shop or something.
There's a great barista thereand it's just.
You know, the whole place kindof comes alive because of that.
But if that person's not there,then what happens?
(13:32):
You then what happens?
You know.
So if that person who's this,you know, evangelist for this
loving thing isn't there anymore, then what happens?
So what we want is how can yousystemize that, how can you put
that into place so that it'sconstantly prompting the next
person or prompting you toalways be asking these questions
about?
You know how you can build loveinto something.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
So how does this translate this concept into
customers becoming lifetimecustomers, becoming advocates
and ambassadors of a brand?
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Yeah.
So I think you start thinkingabout emotional connection and
in advertising there's, you know, studies talking about.
You know there's like 31different emotional clusters,
emotions, you know negative andpositive.
In advertising there's 17emotion, you know.
There's like 31 differentemotional clusters, emotions,
you know, negative and positive.
In advertising there's 17emotion, you know, related to
consumption, and so trying tofigure out how to play with that
(14:26):
in an empathetic way, like, isthis person frustrated with a
certain situation in their lifethat you can solve, life that
you can solve?
Or you know, and you're askingthose questions when you're
doing the marketing, so thatyou're more relevant to them,
you know when they're in thatparticular part of that journey
and then even when they're usingthe product or service, is
there a way you can win themover even more with, you know,
(14:50):
tapping into, like surprise anddelight, emotions or something
like that, something that theydidn't expect to, where now,
suddenly you've got this deeperconnection with them and you
know we can break that down andwe do a lot of that.
You know, with our AICMOsoftware we've got tools on, you
know, specifically for surpriseand delight and stuff like that
.
But you know, in the endsometimes this is sort of just
(15:13):
talking the talk.
So we really want to make surethat you're, you know, walking
that talk as well.
So that's kind of why we kind ofstarted the podcast and we're
interviewing all these companies, that showing you that you can
be true to these higher purposesand walk that walk so that you
have that authenticity with whatyou're doing.
Because if you don't have that,you know, younger generations,
(15:35):
generations these are the mostmarketed to people in the
history of advertising and ifsomething's not authentic, not
only can they sniff it out, butit's just like does the complete
opposite effect to them right?
It's just like they aren'tanti-business, they're anti-bs,
and if they see that it's just,you know, you'll kill yourself.
So it's like really, you knowyou'll kill yourself.
(15:56):
So it's like really you've gotto do these things so that
you're being truly authentic inhow you operate your business
and so much that goes into that.
But marketing can tell thosestories and help lead the way.
I think as far as, hey, this iswhat we want to be about.
How can we be about it?
People you know in your companyand building those into the
systems and to the interactionswith customers and to everything
(16:19):
you do.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah Well, I can see how using AI tools would also be
really helpful in finding thoselittle ways to, like you said,
you have some things forsurprising and delighting In one
of my classes.
One of the examples I use ofsomebody missing the mark is
when United sent me an email formy birthday and they were
giving me an upgrade to the nextlevel of seat, but I had to
(16:43):
book and my birthday is inDecember.
So you know flights are alreadygoing to be expensive.
I probably already have mytravel plans down, but I could
only use it within a certainwindow and I was like this is
totally missing the mark for meas a customer.
It would be much better if theycould really dig into my
customer profile, perhaps seewhere I travel when, and make me
a different offer that had somelongevity so that I could
(17:06):
actually plan something, Becauseit felt like, oh, this is just
something we send to everybody.
Great, they know my birthday,but it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Yeah, you can almost see the marketing meeting there
and just checking out the boxand stuff that came along with
this.
And I mean airlines.
When you're dealing with thatconsumption emotion of whatever
the process is of booking orgoing to the, it's such a
problem.
A lot of times it's just awful,you know it's not as bad as
like buying a car, where that'sjust excruciating.
(17:36):
But if you can have that sortof empathetic approach to what
you're going through, whatyou're feeling and what feels
real to you, what feelsauthentic to you, valuable to
you, right, maybe you'll getover just the checking off the
box on like a little birthday.
You know outreach message thatthey send probably tens of
thousands of times a day messagethat they send probably tens of
(17:56):
thousands of times a day, right, right.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
So it's using what you know, the knowledge base
that any company has on us andother people who have similar
behaviors, to identify.
Oh, they always buy purple.
Let me tell them about the nextpurple thing that might create
some excitement and, you know,be something a little different
than a typical email or campaign, that delivery that they'd get
from us.
I can also see how this couldlead to eventually having fully
(18:20):
personalized websites, so thatevery customer has a different
experience as they're going onto a company's website and
making it really dynamic.
Yeah, and I think AI.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
One of the great abilities here will be the
personalization that it canbring, like it can do stuff on
scale and take all that stuff,instead of having 10 000
conversations that are just youknow, the same conversation for
everyone.
They can look at you andthey'll be like, hey, she
travels here all the time, youknow, or does this all the time?
How can we do something highlycustomizable just to your you
(18:52):
know experience?
So I think we're in the earlystages of all that, but I think
you think five years from now,10 years from now, it's going to
be really pretty effective.
I think, too, on thatexperience side of things, Nice.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
So talk to us about AICMO.
How does that work?
Because I'm imagining youobviously created this.
You saw this as a tool that canhelp organizations in so many
different ways using AIeffectively.
Because I think that's one ofthe most important things is,
what are the best use casesright, and I think this is a
really intriguing one.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yeah, so there's a few different approaches that we
take to it.
First, kind of as a marketer,you know something new is always
coming along, or some newexpert approach is always coming
along, and like, if you're justusing chat, gpt, you kind of
just don't know what you don'tknow about these hundred
different approaches, so sowe've tried to bring those all
(19:43):
in so that you can at least kindof level up.
Wherever you're at, you canalways tap into some sort of
expert approach to whateveryou're marketing new, but that's
, you know, that's kind ofsomething you could maybe figure
out a little bit on ChatGPT aswell.
But the important thing for us,though, was always trying to
get that story of your higherpurpose out and aligning that,
(20:06):
and so we've iterated severalprocesses of this, and we're
still doing it, but really,that's the first place we want
you to start on.
The tool is we're kind ofdigging down into your higher
purpose of your business, andthere's a lot of questions on
there, and you could spend, youknow, an hour if you wanted to
filling this out, or you couldspend, like, the AI we have it
(20:28):
like instantly helping you withprompts Like is it this, this?
You know, choose from five ordifferent things to answer these
questions and you can getthrough it in like five minutes
and really what we want is justsomething that really kind of
highlights what you think yourhigher purpose of your business
is, because then we're going touse that as like a guide rail
now kind of moving forward.
(20:49):
So next step after that is okay, we've got that.
How can we?
Is this going to differentiateus from the competition?
Is there a way we can learn youknow your exact brand voice.
Bring all these things togetherso that it's becoming more and
more you in the process, andthen it's like we've got this,
this.
(21:09):
We call it the bliss to add lab, and so this is where it gets
into the creative ideas formaking those emotional
connections.
So once it takes all that stuffin there, it goes through this
process and we've kind oftrained it and had it learn.
We've got this huge document onall these emotionally
connecting ad campaigns thatjust you could spend days
reading, but we've had it kindof learn off of these great
(21:41):
emotionally connecting adcampaigns.
You know famous one stuff.
You may not have heard stufffrom even other countries, but
really to help someone who's asmall business person get
through this process and come upwith some really clever ways to
tell the story of their higherpurpose in campaigns.
And so really, like I said, it'skind of prompting you along the
way to help it and help youkind of have this sort of jazz
session of where and this iswhen we're demoing it, where we
get those wows is kind of whenpeople see first like oh, wow,
(22:04):
this is exactly what I wanted tosay but didn't know how to say
it.
You know, and it really reachesto their their higher purpose
and their meaning in their, intheir job, which is that's
important for me, particularlybecause right now, 75 to 80% of
our workplace is disengaged.
They're just going to a job,they're opening up a vein, can't
(22:25):
wait till you know the day'sover.
And this, to me, is just thisgreat tragedy of the modern
workplace right now is we've gotso many people who are just
disengaged or activelydisengaged hate, you know, every
part of their job and everymoment of it.
But if we can help just findthat little twist, that little
(22:45):
perspective change on your jobto where you're suddenly seeing,
oh, I'm actually in service tohelp these people get through
their day, we just had even thisthis morning just talking to
this, this job was like a, a dog, waste job, right, and it's
like what's your higher purpose?
And it's like, well, we thinkabout sometimes, like elderly
(23:07):
people too that don't want toget out and can't get out and
they want their grandkids tocome over and be able to play in
the yard and all this stuff,and so you can see, there's just
these little twists ofsomething where you can find
that more meaning in your job,in what you're doing.
Even what seems like this seemslike an awful job, but really
you can make a littleperspective twist sometimes.
(23:27):
So if we can help you find thatin your story about your
company, not only is it going tohelp, we think, make an
emotional connection with otherpeople, but it's going to help
your employees and everyone bemore engaged, more enthusiastic,
more energized about what theydo.
It's a way that marketing canreally lead that part of the
business which I don't think wefocus on enough in marketing.
(23:48):
It's how we can be leaders inthe business.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, and it sounds to me like you work with all
levels of business, not justlarge enterprise solutions.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
I'm really focused on that small to midsize business
with what we want to do.
And you know, I want someonewho's maybe a small business
person, who doesn't know all themarketing technical stuff that
we do, to be able to come onthere and suddenly leverage a
whole bunch of expertise and getsomething out that's pretty
dang reasonable for the timethey put in there.
But then I also want like, hey,if I'm a marketer, I want to be
(24:20):
able to do something fast andhigh level and get me to where I
want and I'll make my ownlittle tweaks to it in the
process and, you know, have thatjazz session with it to where I
get what I want.
So it's like, yeah, smallbusinesses and small marketing
teams is kind of what we'refocusing on.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
And do you think that tools like this will do
eventually replace Because Iknow that's a big question for
people what I tell my students?
You know, I know from like theGoldman Sachs report that just
came out and things like thatyeah, there will be some jobs
that are displaced, but thereare a lot more jobs that will be
created, and we're a littleways off from that.
So now it's important to havethese digital skills to
(24:57):
understand how to use AI toolseffectively.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Yeah, I think like marketers were like the first to
adopt it at high rates, becauseI think we can always be doing
so much more that we want to doin the day, right, so I'm hoping
that it'll be like no, it'sgoing to 10X.
You in a way Like, right, soyou're going to be able to do 10
times more what you're able todo before.
Because we've all got theselaundry lists of, hey, if I
(25:20):
could do, I want to do this,this, this and this.
So if you could do all of that,you know, an hour versus
instead of a week.
That's just amazing.
And that's one of the things wewanted to make sure with the
tool is you can actually set upa recipe to where.
Hey, here's the campaign I wantto run.
I want to run some Google ads,I want to write a blog, I want
to send an email related to this, I want some social posts and I
(25:43):
want to actually make that.
Two blogs, two emails, andhere's the campaign go and it'll
basically take that and do allthat production for you.
And it's really amazing howmuch you get out of, you know,
10 minutes of your time or whereyou've just got all these
things and it's queued up foryou and you're like, okay, you
know, this just saved me severaldays work and now I can go
(26:05):
execute on that, and I can, youknow, make my own little tweaks
to it if I'm not, but it's takenme from you know A to X really
quick, and now I need to justget you know Y to Z with the
execution and or the way I wantit to, and so I just think
you're just going to be able todo a lot more as a marketer with
it.
So in our industry, you're goingto need to know the tools.
(26:26):
I think, just because peopleare going to be, like I said,
10xing themselves and doing alot more Other industries, I
think there's going to be somedark night of the soul days for
some industries, where it's justgoing to be rough, and I don't
know any way to avoid that.
But you know, anytime you'vehad, you know, in history, these
changes in communication orsomething, this is when we see
(26:48):
these major shifts andrevolutions of stuff that we
don't even know is going tohappen next some of the times.
So it's going to be interestingto watch.
I don't know that.
It's always going to be fun,yeah For sure.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yeah Well, and I'm just looking at your website and
you have premium models, up topro models, which is incredible.
So, for instance, students ingrad school who might not have
budgets right now could go ontest out your tools and many of
them do work for largerorganizations or small
businesses and they could takethese tools and say, hey, look
what I was able to do, here'show much more we could do.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
I think too, especially as, like in the
marketing business, you know, wehave people who come along who
are very green to whatever we'redoing right and we're hiring.
And I would love my staff to beusing these types of tools just
because, like I said, it canlevel them up for a certain way,
because there's so much thatyou don't know, that you don't
(27:43):
know.
When you're starting out, youknow, you know a few things and
then suddenly you know a littlebit more and a little bit more.
So I think it'd be, it's a goodtool to help you kind of ask
some of the questions, butreally I want, like these next
generations, to really betalking and asking about these
more important things of likemeaning and how can I tell
(28:03):
stories in our marketing thatpeople will actually feel,
because they won't alwaysremember the benefits or the
features of a product orsomething, but they'll remember
how you made them feel in a andI think often we get hung up on
the features and benefits.
Yeah, we, we so get in the weedson that stuff.
Yeah, yeah, I remember likethis is a perfect example I had
(28:24):
this client and they made likesurvival gear and it's like
these containers for survival.
You know, home kind of preppingkind of thing, and went into
his office and we were talking.
We were just so hung up on theweeds on all of those features
and things and I remember justsitting back and thinking I'm
all okay, you know, this is allgreat and everything, but
(28:45):
there's a reason why you madethese.
Right.
You wanted to probably protectyour family or protect your
loved ones or give care to themin this time of need, right.
And this is really the story ofwhat you've got here is, at
people's worst moments, you'vegot a product here that they're
going to help them be ready and,you know, be able to care for
their family members, the peoplethey love the most.
(29:07):
Let's start with that.
And instead of all the featuresof and I can see the owners
like the light bulb just go offin their head on that and
they're like, yes, exactly, andyou know it was just getting us
out of the weeds of thoseconversations we just have about
, you know, the features and allthis stuff to really okay,
what's the higher purpose hereof your product?
(29:27):
Can we read in the features andstuff around that?
Right, that should be thereally the foundational piece,
and that's kind of why we startout with that on the AICMO with
our chief marketing officer islet's drill down to that purpose
, right, we want this to be aguide rail for everything we
kind of do.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Yeah, and how long did it take from the time that
you conceived this idea toactually getting it to market?
Because I know you've also saidyou've had different iterations
and you're constantly finetuning the process.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Yeah, so the fun part about AI development is you
kind of have to predict thefuture somewhat so that you're
not spending so much time on onething that suddenly open AI
will come along and have solvedat some point.
So you do have to kind of pickand choose your battles there.
Like early on, like we knew AIvision was coming along at some
point, was coming along at somepoint, and so instead of us
(30:12):
trying to, you know, invent thator deal with that, we just
developed around like that, sothat we knew at some point that
you'll be able to take a photoor something and give it to AI
and say respond to this.
So from a marketer standpoint,this is now like give it a photo
of your window display, give ita photo of your trade show
booth and tell me how to improvethis Right?
(30:34):
So when you think aboutempathetic marketing, just
having that other sense now,that sense of sight in the mix
now suddenly it just opens up awhole bunch more ways to build
something that's empathetic.
And so, yeah, early on it'slike, okay, that's going to come
, let's just wait for that todevelop and we'll develop tools
and things around that.
But it took over two and a halfyears or something about to
(30:55):
really get to where we wanted to, and we're still very much
trying to simplify things evenfurther.
And simplify things evenfurther, thanks.
It's like, if you break it down, it's like 100 tools is going
to do 100 different things foryou and you know we wanted to
get it at the right charactercounts too, which AI has a
problem with, but all those kindof little details, and we're
(31:18):
trying to break that down.
Okay, can we break that downinto five areas of marketing?
And then can we break it downso it can do these 10 different
things for you with just one ortwo clicks?
And like the real advantage Ithink we had to as being an
agency, a digital marketingagency at the same time was that
we were basically a working labfor these tools.
It's like we've got our ownpeople in the trenches using
them, and it's like gettingfeedback constantly as we're
(31:40):
developing them, and it's like,hey, have you used this?
Yeah, here's some results, youknow, with actual clients and
things like that.
So we can.
We were able to iterate thatprocess with professionals
continuously while we weredeveloping it, so it's fun.
It's a journey, though, and ifyou're developing software, it's
a slog for sure.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Well and this goes hand in hand because I was going
to ask you about zero companyperformance marketing Because
obviously you've seen a lot ofchanges in the way, even
thinking about SEO and thinkingabout search now and video
search and people using chats indifferent tools for search and
not just going to Google.
Somebody told me a couple ofweeks ago that your brand is now
(32:21):
what you know.
Ai platforms and Google tell usabout you, and so are those
some of the things that you'reseeing that you have to also
figure out how to make surebrands are showing up with this
empathy and this humannessincluded in their messaging yeah
, and like to that regard too.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
It's you've seen, because I've seen like search
engines from their you knowstart to to where we are now,
and all the iterations and allthe old ones and stuff come and
go during that time, and so youkind of see people's muscle
changing a bit in their headwhen they're searching something
.
Now it's like you go to Googleand you're doing it and you're
(33:02):
just like no, and then youswitch over to ChatGPT or
something really quickly and youget what you want, and so you
do that enough times.
Now you're starting to buildreps and now your habits are
changing and Google was a littlebit late to responding to that
and so now they're trying topush back a little bit with AI
and their results to try andcapture that market.
(33:23):
But I don't know exactly whereall that will end up.
Bing had kind of a head startbecause of the relationship with
OpenAI, but even you know theykind of were fumbling along,
feeling in the dark to whereit'll end up, the fact that you
know Google's as big as it is.
Eventually they'll probablyfind the way to something that
works really well.
(33:45):
But yeah, I think you just haveto if you're telling your story.
No matter how people aresearching for it, they're going
to find the story.
What you want, though, is totell a story that's, you know,
something that people canconnect with, and you know
that's why we think purpose andis really key to that emotional
(34:07):
connection.
But you don't want it to besomething that's just, like you
know, the latest something inthe news that happened, and
you're trying to jump on thesocial cause.
Right, because five years fromnow, that video you made, or
whatever, is just going to lookso fake and it's not going to
have the power that you thoughtit had in the moment.
Right, but if you're alwaysbeen about the environment, or
if you've always been about likeI think of, like Dove and how
(34:30):
they're helping people haveconversations about women, right
, if you're always about thatkind of thing, what you did 10
years ago when someone finds it,is still going to be relevant
today.
So I think, as long as you'rereally kind of focused on that
purpose consistently, you'regoing to keep having those same
stories out there that peoplewill find, and, you know, not
(34:51):
just the latest thing, like youknow.
Think of the Pepsi commercial,or something a few years back
that just fell flat like a.
I started sitting out for weeks.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah, yeah, it's always fun to take a look back
at some of those things thatreally missed the mark and
evaluate what the brands couldhave done or what they should
have done.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
It just feels inauthentic when it's not what
you've been about this wholetime, and so just don't do it.
You know, figure out a way toreact, the way your brand would
react because this is whatyou've always been about.
To react the way your brandwould react because this is what
you've always been about.
So I think that's why we justgo back to purpose is so
important in the guide rails ofyour marketing.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Well, I'm definitely looking forward to trying out
your tools and seeing what kindof questions it asks me.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Yeah, I can set you up with a demo for sure.
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
So, thinking about our audience, which is certainly
not just our grad students andour USC community, but quite a
bit of them as well, what is apiece of life or professional
advice that you would give toour master's students, who are,
you know, starting this duringthe whole influx of different
(36:01):
tools to use and figuring outlike what will exist or not
exist in their career paths inthe future?
Speaker 3 (36:08):
I really think it's important to find meaning in
what you're doing.
I'm glad that the youngergenerations conscious-wise get
to that place a lot faster thanolder generations do.
Like older generations, yougotta be in your 50s or
something when you get to that.
But because of all the workwe've done, the gravity of
people have kind of pulledeveryone up a lot faster to that
(36:30):
area of finding meaning in whatyou're doing.
And so that's why you know I'malways talking about like build
love into scalable system.
Build the systems of love ifyou can.
You know whatever work you'redoing, figure out how you can
infuse love into that situation.
And if you don't know what todo, you know do the loving thing
.
That's always to me like theone place you can always
(36:53):
gravitate toward because yourintention will be right.
It'll always be the higherground of whatever you're doing.
It will keep you on thestraight path from.
You know some of these businessworld tragedies we hear about
of just scandals and things likethat, where it's just like how
did they get here in the firstplace?
So just build love into whatyou do, I think, and, you know,
(37:15):
always ask how you can do that.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Yeah, that's fantastic, and we'll, of course,
fantastic, and we'll, of course, link to AICMOio as well as
your podcast in the show notes.
And, steven, any last words ofwisdom, anything that I left out
during the course of ourconversation?
Speaker 3 (37:34):
I don't know it's been good.
Yeah, I don't want the youngergeneration that's listening to
us, you know, going to thoseworkplaces where there's no
meaning in what you're doing andthey don't want it either.
So you know, as as if there'sany founders or CEOs out there
really try and invest time inyour EQ and in yourself and in
your empathy so that you cankind of help build these loving,
(37:56):
meaningful workplaces foreveryone.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Yeah, fantastic.
Thank you so much.
I really enjoyed thisconversation.
You're definitely doingsomething that's needed.
That you know.
Quite frankly, not a lot ofpeople are thinking about AI in
the same way.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
I don't not a lot of talk about meaning in there in
the AI development world rightnow and that's a little
unnerving to me, to be honest,just because of how fast things
(38:35):
are going to change for peopleand we aren't asking the right
questions and we aren'tprompting ourselves, you know,
in the right ways on this.
So AI is only going to amplify,like our better angels or our
inner demons, and we need morepeople talking about how it can
amplify our better angels.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yeah, fantastic, gann .
Thank you so much for coming onthe show, stephen Zakash, and
thank you to everybody who'swatching this episode or
listening to it on your favoriteplatform.
Let us know what you think,leave us a rating review, let us
know how much you love ourguests, and I'll be back again,
or my co-host, joseph Ataya,will be back again very soon
(39:13):
with another amazing guest toshare their story, their journey
and some tips that will helpyou along your journey as well.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
To learn more about the Master of Science and
Digital Media Management program, visit us on the web at
dmmuscedu.
Welcome to Mediascape Insights from Digital
Changemakers, a speaker seriesand podcast brought to you by
USC Annenberg's Digital MediaManagement Program.
Join us as we unlock thesecrets to success in an
increasingly digital world.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
On this episode of Mediascape Insights from Digital
Changemakers.
I'm really excited to be havinga conversation with Stephen
Sakash.
And Stephen, you went to schoolfor journalism.
This is, of course.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
This podcast is produced by Annenberg School of
Communication and Journalismno-transcript digital version of
(01:10):
our newspaper too that wehanded out so we could see how
people view things digitally,and it was very clunky, but it
was like these first almostanalytics that people just you
know, every blog has all thatkind of data at their fingertips
, and then some.
But yeah, way back then I wouldsay, like our current jobs
didn't even exist when we weregoing through journalism school.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, and so what took you from journalism school
into performance marketing?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, so really it was kind of this process.
Yeah, the Internet came along,right, and I'm working at this
travel company and it's like, ok, got all these books, how do we
get this online?
And so, going through thatprocess, and then I remember
when a little company camearound with this thing called
pay-per-click and they kind ofinvented it, I'm all, uh, this
(01:59):
is the future, I think, ofonline advertising.
And so I just hopped on that.
And then, you know, within likeweeks, so literally there's
like not very many people onthere doing this kind of thing
on the search engines and searchengines trying to figure out
what the heck how to monetizethis stuff.
And so, you know, that justkind of blew up for me and I'm
(02:19):
like, okay, I'm gonna do thisfor now and I'm getting to
advertising on the digital side,because this is where I think
it's going.
I'm going to do this from nowon and get into advertising on
the digital side, because thisis where I think it's going.
And so that was fun.
(02:41):
Those are like the Wild Westdays back then, where people are
trying to figureeness and, youknow, higher consciousness and
integral theory and things likethat, and it's like they're
asking me how are you going toapply this to your business?
And I'm thinking at the time,you know this, simple like
Google ads one headline, twodescription lines.
I have no idea, right, I haveno idea, right, I have no idea.
(03:02):
And really our agency kind of.
That question just always kindof persisted with me is how do I
build kind of this higherconsciousness concepts and
empathy and into the marketingthat we do?
And so that took us, you know,on a long journey to even now,
to where we've just launchedthis AI product, the AI chief
(03:24):
marketing officer.
We really wanted to make achief marketing officer that was
very empathetic, you know, forus to work with.
And we actually just won anaward this morning so that was
nice news, a gold medal for this.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Congratulations.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Yeah.
Yeah, that was a fun way tostart the day hearing about that
.
But so, yeah, that was that'skind of the journey there, and
we're really trying to explorewhat it means, you know, to be
kind of an empathetic marketer,which, of course, you know, with
AI, even these days, it's likethat sounds almost contradictory
, but it's been a fun journey,for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
That's one of the things I think is so interesting
, because this is a conversationI have with my students a lot.
We're talking about what is AINow, how do we use it as an
appropriate tool, but then whatjobs might it replace?
Or how do we distinguish?
Because now, like yesterday,we're talking about how YouTube
is now allowing AI music fortheir creators, so you don't
(04:17):
necessarily have to get stockmusic, and one of my students
works at a company that workswith small musicians, and so
they actually look at this asthis might be positive for them,
because even though there's AImusic, people might still want
to go to a smaller company toget original music instead.
So, you know, I feel like we'reteetering on this.
(04:37):
We're going to go fully AI andthen we're going to pull back to
realize we're missing the humanelement, and we need to make
sure that we are leading withempathy, you know, and with the
human perspective, truly, notjust the sum of all averages.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
It's so true, it's so important, like, what I worry
about is where businessconsciousness is.
Most of the time it's the solepurpose of profit is what their
goal is Right.
Purpose of profit is what theirgoal is right, and so if
they're going to apply AI ontothat and no other guide rails or
anything, it's going to beruthless in what it does, and we
don't.
We don't want it to do that.
(05:13):
We want it to be more loving,if we can make it that way.
We want it to be moreempathetic.
We want it to consider, like,all the stakeholders in a
business, not just the investorsand the owners.
We want it to consider theemployees, the customers, the
community you're in right theenvironment, all these different
stakeholders in a business, sothat AI can be more empathetic,
(05:36):
right and to how it makesdecisions, because otherwise, if
it's just solely thinking aboutone thing, and that's profit,
we're in trouble, I think.
Solely thinking about one thingand that's profit, we're in
trouble, I think.
And so for us, one of the goalswas how can AI prompt us to be
better?
How can we make it prompt us,as marketers and storytellers,
to tell better stories, to putmore good, more love, more
(05:59):
empathy into the world, and sothat was kind of the really the
backbone of what we were tryingto accomplish there, and it's
going to be an ongoing journey,but it's a fun one, but it's
really, yeah, it's like canartificial intelligence make us
more real?
Speaker 2 (06:26):
as a positive of AI is the fact that when we all
have our agents which I'm takinga course in building agents in
a couple of weeks I'm reallyexcited.
But when we all have our ownagentic AI that's helping do
some of the menial tasks, willwe take advantage of that time
to spend more time beingcreative, strategizing, spending
time with family and friends,traveling, doing all of the
other things that we want to dothat are life fulfilling right,
not just profit driven.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah, and I think we're going to have a
relationship with AI and I don'tthink there's any way around it
.
but what we want is kind of itto be like a jazz session, I
think, right when we'reco-creating in a way, not
something where you know we'rejust parroting what it's saying,
we're helping prompt it, it'shelping prompt us and you can
get this really cool jazzsession.
(07:08):
I've talked to some artists AIartists that were like actual,
you know worked with, you knowpainting and things like that
and I'm like, well, how are youusing AI?
Because you know this is reallydisrupting.
It's like a dark night of thesoul for people seeing AI come
along and disrupt things.
But they're they're definitelythey talk about it being like
this co-creation jazz sessionwhere you're working with it,
(07:30):
it's working with you.
And I think that's kind ofwhere we're going to see some
interesting developments is ishow is that relationship we have
together?
And for us on the marketing side, it's like how can it prompt us
to tell better stories, to tellbetter marketing, to not be
just, you know, like thetransactional focused with our
marketing, but to be empathetic,you know, giving something that
(07:53):
people can feel.
That ties into emotions andstuff, because emotions I could
get into that just how importantthey are is when you can build
that emotional connection inyour marketing, in your product.
That's kind of the Holy grailfor me is because when you have
that, you're going to get.
Studies have shown 306% morelifetime value from the customer
(08:16):
.
You know you're going to buildcommunities off that, when you
can build that emotionalconnection, and that's the
ultimate kind of marketing.
But there's a lot that goesinto that right, because like
being real means being you know,really placing importance on
authenticity, and when you'reusing something you know like
artificial intelligence, itsounds totally contradictory to
(08:40):
being authentic.
But I think it can prompt us tobe more authentic and to tell
more authentic stories.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Well, we're definitely going to dive into
your concept, which is also thename of your podcast, the Bliss
Business Podcast, right?
And so you have this model thatyou've built to build empathy
into business, into marketingstrategy.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat and how you've used it in
your own organization?
And then you know, creatingfrom going from your performance
(09:09):
marketing agency, which I knowhas also had a lot of changes
since you started, to this newendeavor right with AICMO.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yeah, so I think you know BLIS it's an acronym for us
and it really came along in mybusiness when I was scaling it
and we're like how do we notlose?
You know who we are?
Lose the love and the soul ofthe company when we're scaling.
And so Bliss for us standsbuild love into scalable systems
.
And so it's really these twostages of business is when you
(09:40):
start to grow your business, youstart to systemize it, and
where a lot of businesses fallshort is they lose what got them
there, they lose their story,they lose their soul when they
systemize it and it just becomes, you know, diluted and you know
bland, and so it's like, okay,let's go back.
How can we repeatedly build loveinto our different systems and
(10:03):
really like the key to this, Ithink, is when you do it right,
it can help you find your higherpurpose in things, because you
are constantly maybe you don'tknow where to start finding that
purpose, but as you're startingto look for ways to build, you
know, little random bits of loveinto something that's a system,
(10:23):
I we don't want it to be like arandom act of kindness, even
though those are amazing, rightbut we want it to be something
that's repeatable always.
And so they, even if you leave,you know you've left maybe a
legacy or a mark or something'sgoing on where you help build
love into something thatcontinually builds.
And so it's like, a little bylittle, a little makes a lot
when you do that, and so that'sour kind of our bliss concept
(10:45):
and it's like if you apply thatto your business, you know you,
maybe you don't know your higherpurpose, but as you're going
through that process you startto realize that maybe you're in
service to people in some way.
Maybe a job that seems ordinarysuddenly becomes a little more
extraordinary, has a little bitmore meaning.
I can think of so many storiesof that.
There's this parking lotattendant, right, this sounds
(11:07):
like a kind of a pretty dry jobwhere you're just taking money
as people are leaving theparking lot and you know you're
sitting in your booth all day.
But he kind of realized that youknow there's these cars in
there and he noticed one that'sgot bald tires and he thought if
this is my son or my daughteror my mother, I'd be really
worried.
I would want someone to help me.
(11:28):
You know, realize that thedanger here, and so you know he
made sure he told that person,talked to them and then now his
job suddenly became you know,I'm going to check all of our
cars all the time and you know,start to this is where you get
the soul into business.
You know, it could have beenthis dry job, but now he's found
meaning in this and as amarketer if I'm a marketer,
that's such a better story forme to tell than you know park
(11:50):
here, save 20% on.
You know, whatever it is, it'ssuch a better start at story
when you can start withsomething that we can all
connect with.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Yeah, that's a hundred percent%.
I love it when I have avisceral, emotional response to
something, to a brand, to thefounder's story, to why they
started this organization, whatneed they saw in their own lives
that can now fill a need insomebody else's, and I love that
you're also saying.
By infusing these little bitsof love and thinking about our
(12:20):
roles in different ways, we'realso adding creativity and
innovation, which I think leadsto more passion, which leads to
the better storytelling.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Yeah, exactly, and it's like so you know, I've
studied consciousness, readingall these books and everything,
and it gets down to it, there'sreally, I feel like two key
things.
If we just want to simplify it,it's how close in proximity to
love can you be in your life?
And then also, can you behumble, because that is going to
help you grow, it'll allow youto be open, and if you can get
those two things into whatyou're doing, you know in your
(12:51):
job you're going to be so muchbetter off and, like you said,
that gives you a lot of room to.
You know whether I'm a parkinglot attendant or a marketing
company, or you know I work atthe airport.
You know handling someone'sbaggage and I understand.
You know maybe I'm getting.
You know a grandparent to seegrandchildren or something.
You start to think about yourjob differently when you're
(13:11):
trying to build that little bitof love into it and you're going
to ask a million questions.
I think about it and then makesure you systemize that, because
if you're this great lovingperson who's got this great
personalities, you know we'veall seen you go to like a coffee
shop or something.
There's a great barista thereand it's just.
You know, the whole place kindof comes alive because of that.
But if that person's not there,then what happens?
(13:32):
You then what happens?
You know.
So if that person who's this,you know, evangelist for this
loving thing isn't there anymore, then what happens?
So what we want is how can yousystemize that, how can you put
that into place so that it'sconstantly prompting the next
person or prompting you toalways be asking these questions
about?
You know how you can build loveinto something.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
So how does this translate this concept into
customers becoming lifetimecustomers, becoming advocates
and ambassadors of a brand?
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Yeah.
So I think you start thinkingabout emotional connection and
in advertising there's, you know, studies talking about.
You know there's like 31different emotional clusters,
emotions, you know negative andpositive.
In advertising there's 17emotion, you know.
There's like 31 differentemotional clusters, emotions,
you know, negative and positive.
In advertising there's 17emotion, you know, related to
consumption, and so trying tofigure out how to play with that
(14:26):
in an empathetic way, like, isthis person frustrated with a
certain situation in their lifethat you can solve, life that
you can solve?
Or you know, and you're askingthose questions when you're
doing the marketing, so thatyou're more relevant to them,
you know when they're in thatparticular part of that journey
and then even when they're usingthe product or service, is
there a way you can win themover even more with, you know,
(14:50):
tapping into, like surprise anddelight, emotions or something
like that, something that theydidn't expect to, where now,
suddenly you've got this deeperconnection with them and you
know we can break that down andwe do a lot of that.
You know, with our AICMOsoftware we've got tools on, you
know, specifically for surpriseand delight and stuff like that
.
But you know, in the endsometimes this is sort of just
(15:13):
talking the talk.
So we really want to make surethat you're, you know, walking
that talk as well.
So that's kind of why we kind ofstarted the podcast and we're
interviewing all these companies, that showing you that you can
be true to these higher purposesand walk that walk so that you
have that authenticity with whatyou're doing.
Because if you don't have that,you know, younger generations,
(15:35):
generations these are the mostmarketed to people in the
history of advertising and ifsomething's not authentic, not
only can they sniff it out, butit's just like does the complete
opposite effect to them right?
It's just like they aren'tanti-business, they're anti-bs,
and if they see that it's just,you know, you'll kill yourself.
So it's like really, you knowyou'll kill yourself.
(15:56):
So it's like really you've gotto do these things so that
you're being truly authentic inhow you operate your business
and so much that goes into that.
But marketing can tell thosestories and help lead the way.
I think as far as, hey, this iswhat we want to be about.
How can we be about it?
People you know in your companyand building those into the
systems and to the interactionswith customers and to everything
(16:19):
you do.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah Well, I can see how using AI tools would also be
really helpful in finding thoselittle ways to, like you said,
you have some things forsurprising and delighting In one
of my classes.
One of the examples I use ofsomebody missing the mark is
when United sent me an email formy birthday and they were
giving me an upgrade to the nextlevel of seat, but I had to
(16:43):
book and my birthday is inDecember.
So you know flights are alreadygoing to be expensive.
I probably already have mytravel plans down, but I could
only use it within a certainwindow and I was like this is
totally missing the mark for meas a customer.
It would be much better if theycould really dig into my
customer profile, perhaps seewhere I travel when, and make me
a different offer that had somelongevity so that I could
(17:06):
actually plan something, Becauseit felt like, oh, this is just
something we send to everybody.
Great, they know my birthday,but it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Yeah, you can almost see the marketing meeting there
and just checking out the boxand stuff that came along with
this.
And I mean airlines.
When you're dealing with thatconsumption emotion of whatever
the process is of booking orgoing to the, it's such a
problem.
A lot of times it's just awful,you know it's not as bad as
like buying a car, where that'sjust excruciating.
(17:36):
But if you can have that sortof empathetic approach to what
you're going through, whatyou're feeling and what feels
real to you, what feelsauthentic to you, valuable to
you, right, maybe you'll getover just the checking off the
box on like a little birthday.
You know outreach message thatthey send probably tens of
thousands of times a day messagethat they send probably tens of
(17:56):
thousands of times a day, right, right.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
So it's using what you know, the knowledge base
that any company has on us andother people who have similar
behaviors, to identify.
Oh, they always buy purple.
Let me tell them about the nextpurple thing that might create
some excitement and, you know,be something a little different
than a typical email or campaign, that delivery that they'd get
from us.
I can also see how this couldlead to eventually having fully
(18:20):
personalized websites, so thatevery customer has a different
experience as they're going onto a company's website and
making it really dynamic.
Yeah, and I think AI.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
One of the great abilities here will be the
personalization that it canbring, like it can do stuff on
scale and take all that stuff,instead of having 10 000
conversations that are just youknow, the same conversation for
everyone.
They can look at you andthey'll be like, hey, she
travels here all the time, youknow, or does this all the time?
How can we do something highlycustomizable just to your you
(18:52):
know experience?
So I think we're in the earlystages of all that, but I think
you think five years from now,10 years from now, it's going to
be really pretty effective.
I think, too, on thatexperience side of things, Nice.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
So talk to us about AICMO.
How does that work?
Because I'm imagining youobviously created this.
You saw this as a tool that canhelp organizations in so many
different ways using AIeffectively.
Because I think that's one ofthe most important things is,
what are the best use casesright, and I think this is a
really intriguing one.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yeah, so there's a few different approaches that we
take to it.
First, kind of as a marketer,you know something new is always
coming along, or some newexpert approach is always coming
along, and like, if you're justusing chat, gpt, you kind of
just don't know what you don'tknow about these hundred
different approaches, so sowe've tried to bring those all
(19:43):
in so that you can at least kindof level up.
Wherever you're at, you canalways tap into some sort of
expert approach to whateveryou're marketing new, but that's
, you know, that's kind ofsomething you could maybe figure
out a little bit on ChatGPT aswell.
But the important thing for us,though, was always trying to
get that story of your higherpurpose out and aligning that,
(20:06):
and so we've iterated severalprocesses of this, and we're
still doing it, but really,that's the first place we want
you to start on.
The tool is we're kind ofdigging down into your higher
purpose of your business, andthere's a lot of questions on
there, and you could spend, youknow, an hour if you wanted to
filling this out, or you couldspend, like, the AI we have it
(20:28):
like instantly helping you withprompts Like is it this, this?
You know, choose from five ordifferent things to answer these
questions and you can getthrough it in like five minutes
and really what we want is justsomething that really kind of
highlights what you think yourhigher purpose of your business
is, because then we're going touse that as like a guide rail
now kind of moving forward.
(20:49):
So next step after that is okay, we've got that.
How can we?
Is this going to differentiateus from the competition?
Is there a way we can learn youknow your exact brand voice.
Bring all these things togetherso that it's becoming more and
more you in the process, andthen it's like we've got this,
this.
(21:09):
We call it the bliss to add lab, and so this is where it gets
into the creative ideas formaking those emotional
connections.
So once it takes all that stuffin there, it goes through this
process and we've kind oftrained it and had it learn.
We've got this huge document onall these emotionally
connecting ad campaigns thatjust you could spend days
reading, but we've had it kindof learn off of these great
(21:41):
emotionally connecting adcampaigns.
You know famous one stuff.
You may not have heard stufffrom even other countries, but
really to help someone who's asmall business person get
through this process and come upwith some really clever ways to
tell the story of their higherpurpose in campaigns.
And so really, like I said, it'skind of prompting you along the
way to help it and help youkind of have this sort of jazz
session of where and this iswhen we're demoing it, where we
get those wows is kind of whenpeople see first like oh, wow,
(22:04):
this is exactly what I wanted tosay but didn't know how to say
it.
You know, and it really reachesto their their higher purpose
and their meaning in their, intheir job, which is that's
important for me, particularlybecause right now, 75 to 80% of
our workplace is disengaged.
They're just going to a job,they're opening up a vein, can't
(22:25):
wait till you know the day'sover.
And this, to me, is just thisgreat tragedy of the modern
workplace right now is we've gotso many people who are just
disengaged or activelydisengaged hate, you know, every
part of their job and everymoment of it.
But if we can help just findthat little twist, that little
(22:45):
perspective change on your jobto where you're suddenly seeing,
oh, I'm actually in service tohelp these people get through
their day, we just had even thisthis morning just talking to
this, this job was like a, a dog, waste job, right, and it's
like what's your higher purpose?
And it's like, well, we thinkabout sometimes, like elderly
(23:07):
people too that don't want toget out and can't get out and
they want their grandkids tocome over and be able to play in
the yard and all this stuff,and so you can see, there's just
these little twists ofsomething where you can find
that more meaning in your job,in what you're doing.
Even what seems like this seemslike an awful job, but really
you can make a littleperspective twist sometimes.
(23:27):
So if we can help you find thatin your story about your
company, not only is it going tohelp, we think, make an
emotional connection with otherpeople, but it's going to help
your employees and everyone bemore engaged, more enthusiastic,
more energized about what theydo.
It's a way that marketing canreally lead that part of the
business which I don't think wefocus on enough in marketing.
(23:48):
It's how we can be leaders inthe business.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, and it sounds to me like you work with all
levels of business, not justlarge enterprise solutions.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
I'm really focused on that small to midsize business
with what we want to do.
And you know, I want someonewho's maybe a small business
person, who doesn't know all themarketing technical stuff that
we do, to be able to come onthere and suddenly leverage a
whole bunch of expertise and getsomething out that's pretty
dang reasonable for the timethey put in there.
But then I also want like, hey,if I'm a marketer, I want to be
(24:20):
able to do something fast andhigh level and get me to where I
want and I'll make my ownlittle tweaks to it in the
process and, you know, have thatjazz session with it to where I
get what I want.
So it's like, yeah, smallbusinesses and small marketing
teams is kind of what we'refocusing on.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
And do you think that tools like this will do
eventually replace Because Iknow that's a big question for
people what I tell my students?
You know, I know from like theGoldman Sachs report that just
came out and things like thatyeah, there will be some jobs
that are displaced, but thereare a lot more jobs that will be
created, and we're a littleways off from that.
So now it's important to havethese digital skills to
(24:57):
understand how to use AI toolseffectively.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Yeah, I think like marketers were like the first to
adopt it at high rates, becauseI think we can always be doing
so much more that we want to doin the day, right, so I'm hoping
that it'll be like no, it'sgoing to 10X.
You in a way Like, right, soyou're going to be able to do 10
times more what you're able todo before.
Because we've all got theselaundry lists of, hey, if I
(25:20):
could do, I want to do this,this, this and this.
So if you could do all of that,you know, an hour versus
instead of a week.
That's just amazing.
And that's one of the things wewanted to make sure with the
tool is you can actually set upa recipe to where.
Hey, here's the campaign I wantto run.
I want to run some Google ads,I want to write a blog, I want
to send an email related to this, I want some social posts and I
(25:43):
want to actually make that.
Two blogs, two emails, andhere's the campaign go and it'll
basically take that and do allthat production for you.
And it's really amazing howmuch you get out of, you know,
10 minutes of your time or whereyou've just got all these
things and it's queued up foryou and you're like, okay, you
know, this just saved me severaldays work and now I can go
(26:05):
execute on that, and I can, youknow, make my own little tweaks
to it if I'm not, but it's takenme from you know A to X really
quick, and now I need to justget you know Y to Z with the
execution and or the way I wantit to, and so I just think
you're just going to be able todo a lot more as a marketer with
it.
So in our industry, you're goingto need to know the tools.
(26:26):
I think, just because peopleare going to be, like I said,
10xing themselves and doing alot more Other industries, I
think there's going to be somedark night of the soul days for
some industries, where it's justgoing to be rough, and I don't
know any way to avoid that.
But you know, anytime you'vehad, you know, in history, these
changes in communication orsomething, this is when we see
(26:48):
these major shifts andrevolutions of stuff that we
don't even know is going tohappen next some of the times.
So it's going to be interestingto watch.
I don't know that.
It's always going to be fun,yeah For sure.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yeah Well, and I'm just looking at your website and
you have premium models, up topro models, which is incredible.
So, for instance, students ingrad school who might not have
budgets right now could go ontest out your tools and many of
them do work for largerorganizations or small
businesses and they could takethese tools and say, hey, look
what I was able to do, here'show much more we could do.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
I think too, especially as, like in the
marketing business, you know, wehave people who come along who
are very green to whatever we'redoing right and we're hiring.
And I would love my staff to beusing these types of tools just
because, like I said, it canlevel them up for a certain way,
because there's so much thatyou don't know, that you don't
(27:43):
know.
When you're starting out, youknow, you know a few things and
then suddenly you know a littlebit more and a little bit more.
So I think it'd be, it's a goodtool to help you kind of ask
some of the questions, butreally I want, like these next
generations, to really betalking and asking about these
more important things of likemeaning and how can I tell
(28:03):
stories in our marketing thatpeople will actually feel,
because they won't alwaysremember the benefits or the
features of a product orsomething, but they'll remember
how you made them feel in a andI think often we get hung up on
the features and benefits.
Yeah, we, we so get in the weedson that stuff.
Yeah, yeah, I remember likethis is a perfect example I had
(28:24):
this client and they made likesurvival gear and it's like
these containers for survival.
You know, home kind of preppingkind of thing, and went into
his office and we were talking.
We were just so hung up on theweeds on all of those features
and things and I remember justsitting back and thinking I'm
all okay, you know, this is allgreat and everything, but
(28:45):
there's a reason why you madethese.
Right.
You wanted to probably protectyour family or protect your
loved ones or give care to themin this time of need, right.
And this is really the story ofwhat you've got here is, at
people's worst moments, you'vegot a product here that they're
going to help them be ready and,you know, be able to care for
their family members, the peoplethey love the most.
(29:07):
Let's start with that.
And instead of all the featuresof and I can see the owners
like the light bulb just go offin their head on that and
they're like, yes, exactly, andyou know it was just getting us
out of the weeds of thoseconversations we just have about
, you know, the features and allthis stuff to really okay,
what's the higher purpose hereof your product?
(29:27):
Can we read in the features andstuff around that?
Right, that should be thereally the foundational piece,
and that's kind of why we startout with that on the AICMO with
our chief marketing officer islet's drill down to that purpose
, right, we want this to be aguide rail for everything we
kind of do.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Yeah, and how long did it take from the time that
you conceived this idea toactually getting it to market?
Because I know you've also saidyou've had different iterations
and you're constantly finetuning the process.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Yeah, so the fun part about AI development is you
kind of have to predict thefuture somewhat so that you're
not spending so much time on onething that suddenly open AI
will come along and have solvedat some point.
So you do have to kind of pickand choose your battles there.
Like early on, like we knew AIvision was coming along at some
point, was coming along at somepoint, and so instead of us
(30:12):
trying to, you know, invent thator deal with that, we just
developed around like that, sothat we knew at some point that
you'll be able to take a photoor something and give it to AI
and say respond to this.
So from a marketer standpoint,this is now like give it a photo
of your window display, give ita photo of your trade show
booth and tell me how to improvethis Right?
(30:34):
So when you think aboutempathetic marketing, just
having that other sense now,that sense of sight in the mix
now suddenly it just opens up awhole bunch more ways to build
something that's empathetic.
And so, yeah, early on it'slike, okay, that's going to come
, let's just wait for that todevelop and we'll develop tools
and things around that.
But it took over two and a halfyears or something about to
(30:55):
really get to where we wanted to, and we're still very much
trying to simplify things evenfurther.
And simplify things evenfurther, thanks.
It's like, if you break it down, it's like 100 tools is going
to do 100 different things foryou and you know we wanted to
get it at the right charactercounts too, which AI has a
problem with, but all those kindof little details, and we're
(31:18):
trying to break that down.
Okay, can we break that downinto five areas of marketing?
And then can we break it downso it can do these 10 different
things for you with just one ortwo clicks?
And like the real advantage Ithink we had to as being an
agency, a digital marketingagency at the same time was that
we were basically a working labfor these tools.
It's like we've got our ownpeople in the trenches using
them, and it's like gettingfeedback constantly as we're
(31:40):
developing them, and it's like,hey, have you used this?
Yeah, here's some results, youknow, with actual clients and
things like that.
So we can.
We were able to iterate thatprocess with professionals
continuously while we weredeveloping it, so it's fun.
It's a journey, though, and ifyou're developing software, it's
a slog for sure.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Well and this goes hand in hand because I was going
to ask you about zero companyperformance marketing Because
obviously you've seen a lot ofchanges in the way, even
thinking about SEO and thinkingabout search now and video
search and people using chats indifferent tools for search and
not just going to Google.
Somebody told me a couple ofweeks ago that your brand is now
(32:21):
what you know.
Ai platforms and Google tell usabout you, and so are those
some of the things that you'reseeing that you have to also
figure out how to make surebrands are showing up with this
empathy and this humannessincluded in their messaging yeah
, and like to that regard too.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
It's you've seen, because I've seen like search
engines from their you knowstart to to where we are now,
and all the iterations and allthe old ones and stuff come and
go during that time, and so youkind of see people's muscle
changing a bit in their headwhen they're searching something
.
Now it's like you go to Googleand you're doing it and you're
(33:02):
just like no, and then youswitch over to ChatGPT or
something really quickly and youget what you want, and so you
do that enough times.
Now you're starting to buildreps and now your habits are
changing and Google was a littlebit late to responding to that
and so now they're trying topush back a little bit with AI
and their results to try andcapture that market.
(33:23):
But I don't know exactly whereall that will end up.
Bing had kind of a head startbecause of the relationship with
OpenAI, but even you know theykind of were fumbling along,
feeling in the dark to whereit'll end up, the fact that you
know Google's as big as it is.
Eventually they'll probablyfind the way to something that
works really well.
(33:45):
But yeah, I think you just haveto if you're telling your story.
No matter how people aresearching for it, they're going
to find the story.
What you want, though, is totell a story that's, you know,
something that people canconnect with, and you know
that's why we think purpose andis really key to that emotional
(34:07):
connection.
But you don't want it to besomething that's just, like you
know, the latest something inthe news that happened, and
you're trying to jump on thesocial cause.
Right, because five years fromnow, that video you made, or
whatever, is just going to lookso fake and it's not going to
have the power that you thoughtit had in the moment.
Right, but if you're alwaysbeen about the environment, or
if you've always been about likeI think of, like Dove and how
(34:30):
they're helping people haveconversations about women, right
, if you're always about thatkind of thing, what you did 10
years ago when someone finds it,is still going to be relevant
today.
So I think, as long as you'rereally kind of focused on that
purpose consistently, you'regoing to keep having those same
stories out there that peoplewill find, and, you know, not
(34:51):
just the latest thing, like youknow.
Think of the Pepsi commercial,or something a few years back
that just fell flat like a.
I started sitting out for weeks.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah, yeah, it's always fun to take a look back
at some of those things thatreally missed the mark and
evaluate what the brands couldhave done or what they should
have done.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
It just feels inauthentic when it's not what
you've been about this wholetime, and so just don't do it.
You know, figure out a way toreact, the way your brand would
react because this is whatyou've always been about.
To react the way your brandwould react because this is what
you've always been about.
So I think that's why we justgo back to purpose is so
important in the guide rails ofyour marketing.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Well, I'm definitely looking forward to trying out
your tools and seeing what kindof questions it asks me.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Yeah, I can set you up with a demo for sure.
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
So, thinking about our audience, which is certainly
not just our grad students andour USC community, but quite a
bit of them as well, what is apiece of life or professional
advice that you would give toour master's students, who are,
you know, starting this duringthe whole influx of different
(36:01):
tools to use and figuring outlike what will exist or not
exist in their career paths inthe future?
Speaker 3 (36:08):
I really think it's important to find meaning in
what you're doing.
I'm glad that the youngergenerations conscious-wise get
to that place a lot faster thanolder generations do.
Like older generations, yougotta be in your 50s or
something when you get to that.
But because of all the workwe've done, the gravity of
people have kind of pulledeveryone up a lot faster to that
(36:30):
area of finding meaning in whatyou're doing.
And so that's why you know I'malways talking about like build
love into scalable system.
Build the systems of love ifyou can.
You know whatever work you'redoing, figure out how you can
infuse love into that situation.
And if you don't know what todo, you know do the loving thing
.
That's always to me like theone place you can always
(36:53):
gravitate toward because yourintention will be right.
It'll always be the higherground of whatever you're doing.
It will keep you on thestraight path from.
You know some of these businessworld tragedies we hear about
of just scandals and things likethat, where it's just like how
did they get here in the firstplace?
So just build love into whatyou do, I think, and, you know,
(37:15):
always ask how you can do that.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Yeah, that's fantastic, and we'll, of course,
fantastic, and we'll, of course, link to AICMOio as well as
your podcast in the show notes.
And, steven, any last words ofwisdom, anything that I left out
during the course of ourconversation?
Speaker 3 (37:34):
I don't know it's been good.
Yeah, I don't want the youngergeneration that's listening to
us, you know, going to thoseworkplaces where there's no
meaning in what you're doing andthey don't want it either.
So you know, as as if there'sany founders or CEOs out there
really try and invest time inyour EQ and in yourself and in
your empathy so that you cankind of help build these loving,
(37:56):
meaningful workplaces foreveryone.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Yeah, fantastic.
Thank you so much.
I really enjoyed thisconversation.
You're definitely doingsomething that's needed.
That you know.
Quite frankly, not a lot ofpeople are thinking about AI in
the same way.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
I don't not a lot of talk about meaning in there in
the AI development world rightnow and that's a little
unnerving to me, to be honest,just because of how fast things
(38:35):
are going to change for peopleand we aren't asking the right
questions and we aren'tprompting ourselves, you know,
in the right ways on this.
So AI is only going to amplify,like our better angels or our
inner demons, and we need morepeople talking about how it can
amplify our better angels.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yeah, fantastic, gann .
Thank you so much for coming onthe show, stephen Zakash, and
thank you to everybody who'swatching this episode or
listening to it on your favoriteplatform.
Let us know what you think,leave us a rating review, let us
know how much you love ourguests, and I'll be back again,
or my co-host, joseph Ataya,will be back again very soon
(39:13):
with another amazing guest toshare their story, their journey
and some tips that will helpyou along your journey as well.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
To learn more about the Master of Science and
Digital Media Management program, visit us on the web at
dmmuscedu.
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