Why AI is just the new cheap Chinese knock-off of marketing

One of my favorite marketing & merchandising case studies is Christian Louboutin. I write a lot about it in my Markauteur book (not currently available for sale) especially. But basically: Stefania (who has a background in fashion, and saw all this first hand) was telling me how this French designer’s shoes are so horrifyingly painful to wear that customers sometimes have to literally get liposuction surgery on their feet to wear them. This is no joke either. They even have a name for it: “Cinderella Surgery” And yet, these prohibitively expensive (they ain’t cheap), “feet-mangling” shoes sell out the same day they drop — with people even getting depressed if they aren’t invited to the company’s sample sale, shoving matches & fights happening in line over who can buy them first, and thieves routinely stealing these bizarrely designed shoes out of other customers’ shopping bags while on the way to the counter to pay for them. Certain A-list celebrities have even been known to pay through the nose just to put a special kind of Botox on the balls of their feet, so they can more comfortably stand in this brand’s stilettos on the red carpet. Very strange. Not being a “shoe” guy, it’s all rather bizarre to me. But what is not bizarre is all the Chinese factory pirates who take advantage of the demand, ripping off the design, and hawking them in the typical mass produced, shoddy fashion Chinese factory pirates are known for doing — all the way down to finding the same shade of red paint for the bottoms. And what is also not bizarre is those shoes don’t fetch nearly as much money. If anything, they are balked at by the high roller customers. And they don’t make anywhere near the $50 million ol’ CL’s company gets last I checked. The reason: Nobody finds rip-offs as valuable as the real thing. Which brings me to AI: I have read all about how AI is going to radically change everything in marketing & copywriting — from content to design to marketing to copywriting to emails to everything in between. The broccoli heads on Twitter have been insisting ever since I hopped back on the platform in February that those who don’t use AI (like fapGPT) are “not gonna make it” or whatever. And it’s all pure, unadulterated nonsense. Just another “mad dash” as the great Dan Kennedy recently wrote. The gullible will eat it up (and they are). While the craftsman at the game will profit immensely from it. No, the craftsmen will not profit necessarily by using it. They will profit from it by continuing to be craftsmen at what they do selling the genuine thing instead of the cheap, Chinese pirate factory content that AI can only produce - where even if it looks and behaves in a passable way, it still won’t be the same thing, generate the same engagement, make the same kind of money, or create the same kind of raving fanbase companies like Christian Louboutin do in the fashion world. I kinda wish AI would hurry up and do what all the AI shills keeps saying it can but clearly can’t. It’ll only make those of us writing our own copy, our own emails, our own content that much more valuable, that much more of a novelty, and, yes, that much more money. I’m always amused by the AI bois. They really do live in an alternate reality — it's like they literally live on the internet. And it’s even more than amusing how they are always the ones to tell people to touch grass when they haunt social media 24/7, in echo chambers of other AI bois, all high on their own hopium and copium that AI will liberate them from this dirty, nasty thing called… Work. It reminds me of another story about this. Back in July 2020 when Stefania was pregnant with Willis, we sallied forth down to the DMV. Me to renew my drivers license and her to get her Oregon license. And due to the idiotic covid rules (that, admittedly, worked in my favor as a recluse…) the DMV was appointment-only. That meant we were the ONLY two people there. With no lines or having to take a number. And with the place sparkling clean. I mean, you could practically eat off the counter, that’s how clean it was. And the service? Like I told people after: The only thing that would have made the DMV more pleasant (again, the DMV!) would be if they had served refreshments. I mean, the employees there were not rushed or stressed, and were so pleasant we almost didn’t even want to leave. In fact: Stefania had some trouble with her social security number which they had to change after we got married. And the DMV employee, without being asked, spent over an hour on the phone dealing with the state to help expedite and get the problem sorted that ordinarily would have taken something like 6 weeks or longer, especially at that time when all the state agencies were backed up. But not for Stefania. She didn’t wait six weeks — she had her license when we left the DMV that day. Now, do you really think AI or some automated process could have done that? Of course not. It would have coldly dealt with it, with zero humanity, because it’s not human. It can’t negotiate or do anything it’s not programmed to. That lack of humanity means there’s no relationship. The only people who have a relationship with AI are deviants who molest sex robots. I bring all this up not to cause a fight or piss off the AI bois, although I have no doubt this email will have done that in some cases. No, I bring this up because they are clear examples of how what is not human, what can only copy & mimic humanity, can never really have humanity any more than a sociopath can have a real connection with another human even if they intellectually wish to. And that means opportunity for the rest of us. That opportunity being: Relationships will be an even far more valuable new coin of the realm. I will happily go on record (not that this is a unique take, it’s not) right now and predict as AI gets more adopted, used, relied upon by businesses for writing ads, content, emails, whatever… the more in-demand, the more valued, and the more money will be made by those who don’t use it for those purposes, and give that human connection that can only be given by someone creating content of any kind with genuine humanity — flaws and all. There are already agencies now using this to their advantage. Literally saying they do NOT use AI in their marketing, to stand out. The future belong to those who show up for it. And, I will add, to those who show up as a person, and not an avatar. This is a topic I cannot possibly do justice in a mere email. Thus: I spend a considerable amount of time on this inside the upcoming 150th milestone Email Players issue next month. Since AI like fapGPT, etc is going to be more and more a thing over the coming months, years, decades… I could think of no better time and place to talk about it than this special 64-page (triple+ sized) issue next month. And that ain’t all I talk about. That’s just ONE of many things. The first part alone about the writing technique I have been using for years to write far more engaging emails, sales copy, books, and other content (including talks given, podcasts recorded, videos made, etc) I suspect will be an especially big hit for my best customers. So much to teach, so little time. But I cram as much as I can inside. I also am send with the January issue a free copy of my newest creation: “Email Players Annual #2: Mad Men Copywriting Secrets” You can read more about that bad-boy in the PS below if you want. Otherwise? Scoot dat sour azz of yours to the link below to subscribe before the deadline: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( Ben Settle P.S. re: the “Email Players Annual #2: Mad Men Copywriting Secrets” bonus I am sending. Here are the details: This oversized (literally — in both size and page count) Annual issue I am including with January’s issue exists outside the normal continuity of the newsletter. And I wrote it to both commemorate the newsletter’s 150th issue, and also to teach some cool stuff I’ve learned studying the old masters that have practically be all but forgotten about today. (NOTE: it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the TV show “Mad Men”, which I found extremely boring and overrated — it’s about advertising methods used by the actual Mad Men of the 60’s.) Some of the secrets found inside include: * The sneaky headline trick old school copywriters used to pre-test ads without spending a single dime. * Cunning advice (straight from a private, internal memo at the Leo Burnett agency back in the day) about how to trick egotistical clients (for their own good, of course) into running your sales copy “as-is.” (Old school screenwriters basically did the same thing to get scripts approved, today it’s practically a forgotten trick of the writing trade.) * A powerful Mad Men secret to making your business mysteriously attractive that can be like “catnip” to high-paying clients and others you wish to sell to or influence. * The World-Building technique all the Mad Men agency owners (the ones whose names are still on their companies today long after their deaths) used to position themselves as “the” agency to hire — with certain clients practically magnetically attracted to them, and probably even only them, and likely wanting nothing to do with anyone else. * How to exploit a dangling piece of psychological “wiring” in every human being’s brain to help make your emails and other marketing extremely hard to ignore and a whole lot more engaging. * A sneaky way to adapt Ogilvy’s enormously successful “Man In The Hathaway Shirt” ad from the 1950s into a high converting opt-in pages for your business today. * How the late Mad Man Leo Burnett would address a room of stuck up and snobby vice presidents of giant corporations to keep their egos in check and “prep” them for what he expected of them as clients. * How an old school phone salesman and high school dropout was able to ethically & legally out-negotiate & out-maneuver a room full of high-falutin’, and super educated and wealthy lawyers hired by a bank to get what he wanted. (Nothing directly to do with Mad Men — but what this phone salesman did is something that was quite common for people in the know to do back in the day to get what they wanted in contracts and deals.) * A clever way that certain bashful Mad Men copywriters used their shyness to help create far more powerful advertising. * A (admittedly bizarre sounding to most marketers today) advertising sales trick that David Ogilvy learned from a furniture salesman for turning a product’s flaws into reasons to buy. (Including tips for exactly how to turn high fees, bad reviews, and even slow service into reasons to buy.) * How David Ogilvy used good, old fashioned trolling (he was a world-class troll) to help get compliance and engagement from everyone from heads of corporations during high-pressure negotiations to his own wife in the kitchen. * A ridiculously effective door-to-door salesman technique (that, believe it or not, works even better on Facebook today, I have found) that can help you create headlines, offers, emails, and other marketing that can just seep right into the psychology and souls of your leads and customers, giving them almost no choice but to want to buy what you’re selling! (Does that sound almost like hype? Maybe so. But realize this: it was not uncommon for this technique to works so well it’d sometimes set record for product recalls for weak products.) * Just how brutal and soul-crushing old school Man Men were in their advertising campaign critiques. (One of the most respected copywriters of the day and creator of the famous Pillsbury Doughboy — Rudy Perz — said they’d make him feel like a “martyr”, and the creative director and original Marlboro Man model — Andy Armstrong — once literally suffered a nervous breakdown over one of these brutal critiques, if that tells you something.) * The little-known way the Leo Burnett Agency created such memorable and influential cartoon characters that helped sell truckloads of the products they promoted * The 7-word advertising principle that helped build one of the biggest and most respected ad agencies in human history. (And that is still around today almost 100 years later, while most have long-since floundered.) * Why fire-breathing atheist David Ogilvy was such a big fan of the Catholic Church. (Nothing really to do with copywriting or marketing, but his reasoning could be useful to anyone who runs teams or has lots of employees.) * The Mad Men attitude (almost non-existent today) that can help freelancers, coaches, consultants, and other businesses go from begging to business to having so many new leads practically begging to hire you you might even need a waiting list. (Best part: you don’t even have to be that great at what you do or, for that matter, “do” anything different — this is just a make a simple mindset shift in the way you approach your business.) * David Ogilvy’s bizarre email list-building secret (created back in the 1950’s — long before the invention of commercial email) that can also make your business stand out in an overcrowded marketplace and increase your sales. * A shrewd insurance selling method (that smart radio and magazine advertisers forced their customers to do since it worked so well) that can help drive your email response through the roof. * How an “honorary” Mad Man copywriter (who was a NYC public employee and not an ad man at all) used ANTI-direct response slogans to help create some of the most profitable and memorable advertising every penned by the hand of mortal man. (And yes, what he did can be used to write all kinds of profitable headlines, subject lines, bullets, and any other kind of direct response sales copy.) * A one-on-one interview with a “for real” Mad Man! In fact, the TV show producers even consulted this guy due to him being in the thick of the agency business back then, and who was involved with campaigns like The Marlboro Man, Fly the Friendly Skies, & industry-famous campaigns for Gallo Winery, Proctor & Gamble, Colgate, Vicks, Chanel, Max Factor, Philip Morris, and the list goes on. This interview is a rare look into the psychology behind how these guys worked. How they thought. And, yes, how they made lots of money for their clients and themselves. All right I think this email is long enough. To subscribe while you still can to get in on time, go here immediately: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2023 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 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