The great Drayton Bird recently drew my attention to a company called Persado that seems intent on destroying the livelihood of a great many copywriters. The Wall Street Journal reports…
“Persado Raises $21 Million to Replace Human Copywriters With Computers”.
The company…
“…specializes in creating automated messages that try to persuade people to take action, the kinds of messages that traditionally have been written by copywriters and include appeals to buy something, renew a contract, and so on.
Citi uses Persado for its credit card business and says the rate at which its emails are opened has increased by 70%. In addition, the rate at which recipients who open those emails go on to click on them has increased by 114%.”
The founder of Persado, Alex Vratskides, brags that “We have never lost to a human”.
Could this mean doomsday for copywriters?
Drayton had a number of interesting comments and thought the claims of Persado, in this particular case, quite plausible because, in his words…
a) Most copywriters are plain bad.
b) Many routine tasks are given to the less competent, though I think practical things like renewals are far more important to customers (and marketers) than guff about our amazing new gizmo.
c) Many – maybe most – have bogus creativity injected by writers bored with doing the same old job.
All good points, however, I’m not throwing away my copywriting pen just yet. Here’s why…
This is an interesting development, no doubt. And it is an example of how technology is impacting on what might generally be called “knowledge” workers and jobs. Fields like accountancy and law are being transformed as routine tasks are automated.
Copywriting and marketing could well be susceptible to the same sort of forces. And that would be a GOOD thing in my view…it’s called progress and improved productivity. So anyone who simply churns out boilerplate, “fill-in-the-blanks” kind of copy is going to struggle.
But does this mean the end of the need for skilled copywriters? Hardly. Copywriters may need to adapt and take advantage of new technology, but the idea that the machines are going to take over is nonsense. For a start, who is going to program the computers and review the output?
Even more importantly, pretty much every single marketing or advertising project has some unique element to it. For sure, proven models can (and should) be used as the basis for a campaign and the relevant copy. But the idea that a computer can automatically produce outstanding (or even good) copy for any situation is not realistic, in my humble opinion.
There is a long history of scares about machines and technology displacing people and leaving them out of work and impoverished. Those who don’t adapt to change certainly do suffer the consequences. Overall, however, people adapt, upskill and become more productive.
In any case, I have a strong suspicion that after the initial promise, Persado’s system will run into difficulties and results will disappoint. I note that it’s a large financial institution, Citigroup, that is one of the prime sponsors of this fiendish machine. Such organisations have, over the years, devoted large amounts of money and significant resources to coming up with automated trading systems. Yet, they still employ vast numbers of people in their dealing rooms.
There’s also been a very long history of “wonder machines” failing to live up to their early claims and it’s worth noting that the banks seem to struggle with the technology to run their basic business.
Final thought…
…remember the classic definition of copywriting…
…”Salesmanship in print”…
…or, more appropriately for the modern era, “Multiplied salesmanship”.
The real value of top-notch copywriting is not the words themselves…
…but in the sales and persuasion strategy. It will be some time yet before we see a program that can match a good copywriter in that area.