All Marketers Are Liars... and AI Doesn't Help

Why a newsletter about the ethical use of AI in marketing is needed... right now!

How often have you purchased a product only to find out it wasn’t all the advertising said it was? If you’re anything like me, probably several times, right?

Maybe that’s because, as Seth Godin argues in his seminal marketing book All Marketers Are Liars, marketing isn’t about telling the truth, it’s about telling stories. However, Godin goes on to say that the best marketers are genuine and authentic.

The Need for AI Marketing Ethics

According to the 2023 AI Marketing Benchmarking Report, 61.4% of marketers have already adopted AI or plan to use it, with 41.4% specifically using it for content marketing,

With this sudden meteoric rise of generative AI as a marketing mechanism, there is an urgent need to put ethical guardrails around its use to ensure what we say has truth, authenticity, and genuineness at its core. Otherwise, there is a danger of it becoming a marketing “wild west.”

That is the reason I am launching this newsletter, to inform and educate marketers about AI marketing ethics. It’s not something I’m drawn to necessarily — if I had my druthers, I’d be publishing a newsletter about all the shiny, new AI tools available to marketers — but AI ethics is a gap that needs to be filled, and I decided I should do my part to fill it.

What You Can Expect

Over the next few weeks and months, I will be covering a broad range of AI marketing ethics topics, including:

• An overview of what ethical AI means and why it’s essential in digital marketing today.

• Data privacy and consumer rights and how AI-driven marketing campaign can respect user privacy.

• How biases can creep into AI models.

• The need for transparent AI models in marketing.

• The pros and cons of hyper-targeted marketing campaigns.

…and much more!

I’ll also include interviews with leading AI ethicists and marketers, curate AI ethics-related content from around the web, and share my thoughts based on research and study. (Like many of you, I’m still learning.)

Believe me, no stone will go unturned in addressing this topic.

If AI marketing ethics is of concern to you, please subscribe and tell a few marketing friends about it. I appreciate it… and your customers will too!

Warm regards,

Paul Chaney, Editor
AI Marketing Ethics Digest