ChatGPT Is Not Innovative Or Creative, But It's Still Useful For Innovation And Creativity
We’ve been playing around with ChatGPT now for a few weeks. And while many sages in the advertising industry are poo-pooing it for not being innovative or bringing truly original creativity, I think they are missing a powerful and useful application of this technology. And one we plan to use at Ideasicle X.
The bad and/or expected ideas always come first.
Any creative process, whether it’s our virtual model or the traditional in-person model, starts with the team getting their heads around the assignment. We’ve seen it countless times on our virtual projects. The teams tends to come up with unoriginal or expected ideas first. This is natural and normal and not a reflection of the team at all. In fact, these initial ideas are always valuable not as ideas ready for presentation, but as ideas that can stimulate more/better ideas.
Now, AI engines have access to all the information in the world, but they don’t know anything. Not like humans do. So what is ChatGPT really good at? Unoriginal and expected ideas. Sometimes you’ll find an unexpected gem, but more often than not the ChatGPT ideas are right down the middle of the fairway. But does that make them useless?
Let’s take a real example.
How would you launch a coffee shop, ChatGPT?
To prove the point, we asked ChatGPT to give us three ideas to help launch a new coffee shop in Beverly, MA, and here’s exactly what came back.
None of these ideas are terribly original or breakthrough, but they are solid, smart ideas a coffee shop could execute to create excitement. But in the human creative process, these kinds of ideas can serve as GREAT thought starters.
Idea #1 involves partnering with local businesses with discounts to encourage traffic. Okay, fine. But what else could the coffee shop do with local businesses? That could get interesting.
Idea #2 suggests creating events - events we’ve all seen before - to attract traffic. But what other kinds of events could the shop do that are less expected?
Idea #3 involves a loyalty program, which makes it the most expected idea of the three. The coffee shop should certainly have one, but what could we do to give that loyalty program a twist? Maybe it incentivizes people to visit other local businesses, which builds loyalty with those businesses (see idea #1).
You get the idea. ChatGPT can jump-start the creative process with tangible, though not terribly original, thought starters, from which a talented team of humans could make some magic.
GAA! Our creative briefs will now have a page 2.
This will come as a surprise to some, as we always harp on how important it is for a creative brief to be only one page (more on that here). However, we are going to start adding a page 2 with 5-10 thought starter ideas generated by ChatGPT. These ideas will hopefully accelerate the team through that initial “bad/expected” ideas phase of the creative process, and give them tangible starting points for new, better, more creative ideas.
Is ChatGPT the be-all and end-all when it comes to creativity? While it’s definitely not the end-all, we believe it’s the be-all when it comes to inspiring faster, better ideas from real humans.
Complementing content: Perpetual Traffic Podcast
Here’s a great podcast about how you can use ChatGPT in your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts. Very similar to how we are using it. As Michael Cottam says, AI is good at the chainsaw part, but not so good at the sanding and polishing of the wood.
Click to schedule a demo.
About the author.
Will Burns is an advertising veteran from such agencies as Wieden & Kennedy, Goodby Silverstein, Arnold Worldwide, and Mullen. He was a Forbes Contributor for nine years writing about creativity in modern branding. And he is currently the Founder & CEO of the revolutionary virtual-idea-generating company, Ideasicle X. Sign up for the Ideasicle Newsletter and never miss a post.