What You Need to Know About ChatGPT

Chat GPT

By now, you’ve likely heard some buzz about ChatGPT – so have we! It seems like there are at least 50 news stories about this topic online every day. So before we put all our marketing dollars into this new disruptive technology, we did a deep dive on this program to find out what it is, and what it means for our industry.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT was developed by a company called OpenAI, which was co-founded by a familiar name in the tech industry, Elon Musk. While he left the company in 2018, he still takes credit for the company’s name and technology. According to the company’s mission statement, they want to ensure that artificial intelligence “benefits all humanity.”

And according to ZDNet, ChatGPT is a “natural language processing tool driven by AI technology that allows you to have human-like conversations and more with the chatbot. The language model can answer questions and assist you with tasks, such as composing emails, essays, and code.”

When it’s described that way, it sounds awesome, right? Who doesn’t want a virtual personal assistant who can take care of mundane tasks like composing emails? And if your website is broken, it sure seems a lot cheaper to have this free tool whip up some code to fix it!

As a team of busy and curious marketers, it sounds like it might be too good to be true.

… And maybe it is.

We tested ChatGPT so you don’t have to.

We made an account, and have been exploring ChatGPT in the last few weeks. The opening screen serves some instructions, examples, and a few warnings.

Chat GPT

First, we asked the bot general questions, like “why is the sky blue?” and got this response:

WHy si the sky blue Chat GPT

According to NASA, this answer checks out.

We also asked the bot to do some creative work for us – like writing a song. We had the bot write us a song about bees in the style of Beyonce, and the results were, um, interesting.

Chat GPT Beyonce Lyrics

Send us a music producer STAT. We need to hear this!

ChatGPT for Fresh Produce Marketers

Once we figured out that ChatGPT can be creative, we wanted to bring it home to fresh produce by asking ChatGPT to create a full marketing campaign about sustainability for a fruit company. This is where things went sideways.

First, we told the bot that our target was “wealthy moms who care about their family’s wellbeing” and said that we wanted to create a sustainability campaign for a fruit company. The results said “wealthy moms” in weird places:

Chat GPT Fresh Produce Campaign

We kept exploring, and told the bot to not call them “wealthy moms.” It gave us a revision without that phrase.

The response took out that word, and also gave tactics for the campaign, which included things like eco-friendly packaging, influencers, sustainable farm tours, partnerships with local environmental groups, social media, and couponing. Honestly, it surpassed our expectations. While there was still work to be done to execute those tasks, it was a solid start.

But because we know the fresh produce industry, we told the bot that we didn’t have that kind of budget (creating eco-friendly packaging doesn’t happen overnight!). It responded with what it called a “scaled-down” campaign, which included the exact same tactics, just phrased a different way. For example, instead of “eco-friendly packaging,” it recommended “packaging messaging” and said that the fruit company should put a message on the packaging that talked about the environment. One of the things that DMA is best at is finding a way to work with a budget. There are definitely more ways to do things with a smaller budget than what this bot recommended.

Our Takeaways About ChatGPT

As marketers, we must be open to trying new things and implementing new technologies. We’re sure that email marketing was met with hesitation and skepticism at first, and now it’s one of our go-to tactics as part of a marketing campaign. As your target audience adapts new technologies, you need to make sure that you can reach them in a way that will impact them – and sometimes AI might be an answer for that.

However, frankly, if you’re expecting ChatGPT to be your marketing team or replace your agency, you should lower your expectations. There’s no way that this new technology will ever match the power of creative humans who know and champion your brand on a daily basis. Can ChatGPT help your team be more creative? Sure. But does ChatGPT know your audience’s needs? Absolutely not. You can’t take ChatGPT with you in a sales meeting with a retailer and be taken seriously.

If you’re intrigued by this new AI technology and want to use it as a tool for marketing, we recommend using it as a brainstorming tool – not as a replacement for a living, breathing being. For example, you can ask the bot for ideas for possible themes for your next consumer campaign, but always do your own research and make sure there are no conflicts before executing. Ask the bot questions that can help inspire you to write something original for an email. But never use exactly what comes from the bot – you could be setting yourself up for failure (and lawsuits).

As marketers in an agency setting, we aren’t running for the hills or looking for a new career because of ChatGPT just yet. DMA Solutions has over 19 years of experience catering to fresh produce brands by exposing them to new consumer audiences and uniquely positioning them to the trade. ChatGPT may be able to write a unique song and tell us why the sky is blue, but it simply can’t compete with real, proven, and human marketing expertise.

If you need marketing help, let us know! Fill out the form below, and a real human will answer – we promise!

Self Smarter Leadership with Michael McElroy