46. Can Marketing Still Save the World? with Massimo Giunco

And he is the person who, uh, got me into marketing. He was my first marketing boss. So we are here today to discuss a bit about what happened in 20 to 24 and. his predictions takes on 2025. Welcome Massimo.

And, uh, even in my humble consultancy job, I talk to several brands, several clients, and It's there, it's given for granted and uh, they have a very weird interpretation of what a brand can do and uh, what a company can do for the brand and so that's why then we are always talking about the same stuff. A bit of social media, a bit of digital marketing, a bit of CEO, a bit of e commerce and that's marketing for them. If they're happy about that.

As long as they don't complain because they don't grow anymore, you know, or they have some poor return in terms of business. That's one thing. The second thing, which is very connected to that, Is the data tragedy, you know, in the sense that the data extraction from people is more and more inclusive. And I was thinking about that when four weeks ago Google announced the new version of their Google Nest product for home security.

Then I was thinking, why the hell they are so interested in protecting us and our homes and storing all these cameras and sensors. And then there's a new frontier of data extraction for them. So they've done it on everything. They've done it on the web, tracking everything that we do. And then the Google Maps. Tracking every street of our planet and tracking where we go, where we stop, how many hours we are in the car. And now they want to do it in our home.

They want to enter our home to see how many people we see, how we live, what time we eat, what time we go to sleep, our furniture. And, uh, and one stopping this thing is, uh, is the real issue that is beyond marketing. They are using all of it for marketing at the end, because then they are transforming all of this in data, so they can sell more keywords, more programmatic advertisements with a platform to grow their revenue. Okay, if we have to say what went wrong, this has been wrong.

And it has to change, but it will not change because, again, there are the data industry is too big, it's too powerful, it's too rich, and it's quite difficult to imagine something else. Stop tracking is, uh, something that is very easy to achieve, but it's impossible to

It's mathematic, you know, and on the other side of the spectrum, when you're going to the mass market, the fast fashion, they are doing just the opposite game. Then they take every opportunity, the Black Friday, the sales, and uh, we're to squeeze the price. You know, and then they complain because they have a problem with profitability and margin. Yeah. Okay. And, uh, in both cases, the business model doesn't let them manage inventory, the production level, and this and so forth.

So things are getting worse. And this is something that struck me all the time, you know, on that side.

Finland is one of the European country with the most developed software business was introduced to two platforms, AI platforms, uh, one from, from a visual perspective that is by far more advanced of what we can see and find on the web right now, and it's impressive the ability of this platform to develop and to create Thank you.

And to combine inputs from, uh, what is in the stock, what you give to them in order to, at the end, execute assets of several formats in a very easy way, but also very, very close. to a professional form and this is something that made me think a lot around the potential of transformation because this is not 10 years, this is today, it's red, it's there. And also the input that you can give to the platform.

are very serious, you know, in terms of positioning, in terms of quality, filters, and at the end, when you consider that 95 percent of the assets that you produce for any brand, digital ecosystem between social, own channel. is basic stuff that doesn't need to be a revolutionary or of drive, but it's just done because you need to fill the space. These kind of tools are able to do it at one tenth of the cost.

And without using all the professional services you usually recruit to organize and produce all these assets. And that's something that may change a lot, the way of working of marketing team and the marketing industry overall. That's quite impressive, honestly.

So there has been a very big shift from how we produce content. So lately we have seen so many content creators and creative directors working on creating new assets. However. I'm just questioning if humanity needs that much of assets, uh, because generative AI will be producing them overall. And do we need more? And I'm just, is it the time for less is more? Because yeah,

Okay, on the other side, we know exactly that this is wrong, doesn't bring anywhere, and doesn't help you to grow your brand or, I mean, As I said, 95% of these assets are commodity. Then you need, because you need to have a picture, you need to have a post. So I totally agree, align with you.

Less is more, but if you don't want to have less and you don't want to spend half of your budget in producing assets that are useless and eroding more and more, the budget to buy media and increase your reach, that can be a solution.

And also ear can easily identify an AI produced assets and everything will start looking very nice and very beautiful and everything will start to look so similar and we would. recognize that it's AI created. So I'm just in the mindset that it's time for creativity to come back again.

Then, totally agree, there is still a massive need for creativity, genius, and, uh, distinctivity, and to create something spectacular, able to, you know, catch your attention, generate memories, and, uh, raise the memory in your brain. Okay. I mean, this is not a dilemma, it's the problem of marketing over the last 15 years and why the performance of marketing is declining and why brands are not doing well and that's too long of a conversation.

And the second thing, and this is not a prediction, but it's also based on, you know, when we think about chatGPT and I like to use chatGPT. More and more often, not for business reason, but for my very, very obvious day by day things or At the beginning I was making comparison and then I see that it's much better than Google search.

And then I was talking to a few friends and some more intelligent people than me and I understand that the problem of open AI is that they still don't have a business model. You know, so they're collecting billions of dollars to improve their products, but they still don't have a business model. The subscription model of uh, Chatshupati generates only a marginal fraction of what they need.

I would not be surprised if they will enter the world of digital advertising and become a competitor of Google. And that is why, honestly, I think it's important. They are now on the iPhone, and they are entering the consumer mass market to drive a bit of attention and also confidence and familiarity with this. And if they enter, there can be probably a little bit of an earthquake in the world of digital advertising. Because You know, the status quo may change quite dramatically.

And that's the only, it's not even a prediction, it's just an observation as a boomer that he's using JGPT to find the best restaurant in the place where I visit, you know.

Yesterday I was reading an article about SEO and how. Google's AI search, you know, also when you go to Google, there's an AI search that's presented to you, how it's, uh, reduced the amount of website business. Because since you search it and you're just like having a summary, you don't need to go to the websites to get the data. So it's also changing a lot of things. I think we're going to watch a lot. Okay. So what else for 2025?

And there's a certain moment of my life over the last year, as I was thinking that marketing has the possibility to, to do the opposite, to reverse this, you know, as we were able to change the behavior of millions of people. to buy chocolate even when we don't want, maybe we can do the same to buy renewable energy, even if we don't want, you know, every time I come close to a conclusion, then I discover something else. Okay. I need to start the game.

And I think I will never find the real solution, but I still see the potential of the ability of marketing of the aggregate community of marketeers to opt for the common good. Instead of the common bad, you know, that's, but then I also understand that, that everyday life, when you have clients or you work for a brand and you need to, you know, you do your job, that's not easy. And so, It's a, I struggled to find the real solution to that.

Uh, there are many, more and more books right now around sustainable marketing, but all of them implying that the company we work with or we work for. They are changing, you know, from profit to profit people on the planet. But we see the reality is that 95 percent of the companies are still profit driven and they don't want to hear from the planet at all. And so, How can people working there change, you know, when all the financial system, the political system, they care less than they say.

And that's the biggest dilemma, you know. It is true that Marketing cannot transform the goal of the company into something that is more sustainable, more open to justice. But it's also true that marketing is crucial to help people to change behavior. And right now, you know, we don't know. for which behavior they should go and choose. So that's the dilemma of 2025 and 2076 and over the next 30 years.

In the meantime, we have to observe things that are not pleasant and they're not giving hope and optimism.

That's what happened in 2024 with one of your posts and probably that's the The one and only post that you had. Um, but intellectually we feel, uh, that we went, we just want to don't deal with it, which I feel is not the right approach. Uh, that's why I wanted to have you at this episode, because I think people need to hear from people like you that has extensive knowledge and that can really help and guide a new young marketer who cannot. Stand up and think differently.

Uh, that's why I think I know that predictions are not like, we don't need to talk about technical predictions because I already have like so many technical predictions, like short form content will not be so popular or so on. And so on. Uh, but I think the prediction is that marketing changed the world, but does the marketers know and behave with that in mind?

I'm already talking to some universities to understand what can be done at least to expand the marketing program of those universities and to include, you know, a few hours discussing about that or integrate what you already teach around behavioral marketing or around strategies or even the sustainable marketing operation itself. Okay, definitely we can start also from the students because they are the one that will be in charge very soon to play marketing.

I haven't found yet the way to do it, but don't expect me to write anything else On social media, but

Uh, there should be another, maybe it's not on the universities or courses or whatever, but probably people will start to seek to get the thoughts of people like Massimo through some other channels, some digital channels, uh, because digital will start to get. mediocre mass, all the same average content, whereas getting to really expert content will get harder and harder to reach. Like you living, not doing any polls and not sharing anything. How can people learn from you, right?

That's, I think, an insight for the coming years ahead. Where do we find expertise? And that expertise may not be living in the, you know, walls, in the gardens of, uh, uh, worldwide. So, yeah, with that, uh, thanks so much for joining me. I know that it's a short one, uh, but I think for listeners who would understand that there are some really important parts that, uh, can be taken from. Thanks so much, Massimo.