Heart And Humanity: Delivering Authentic Messages In the AI Age

That Solo Life, Episode 276: Heart And Humanity: Delivering Authentic Messages In the AI Age

Michelle Kane, Voice Matters (00:12):
Hello, and thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kain, with a Voice Matters, and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hello, Karen. What's up? Hello,

Karen Swim, APR, Solo PR (00:30):
Michelle. Not much working, working, working

Karen Swim, APR, Solo PR (00:38):
How are you doing today?

Michelle Kane, Voice Matters (00:40):
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, working, working. Trying to wrap my mind around the week as we record this. It's a Monday, and you know how they are usually never quite what you expect, but that's okay. That keeps us on our toes. We wouldn't want every day to be dull, right? Well, maybe.

Karen Swim, APR, Solo PR (00:57):
Exactly. We got to spice it up with the, it's clearly a Monday. I can't remember the word. What's the thing without a little ring thrown in there somewhere without a little hitch in the plan?

Michelle Kane, Voice Matters (01:11):
There we go. Yeah, there we go. Keeps us hopping. But so we thought, Hey, you know what? We're going to try and keep it light today and talk about just some things we've been seeing and just going, huh? Okay. One little nugget was I happened to see a report on the Today Show this morning that people are really squid out by the new Coca-Cola commercial, which apparently is an homage to a commercial of the past, which was just the beautifully lit tractor trailers with Coca-Cola coming to get you all caffeinated for the season. Except this version is, so they say completely AI generated, and not that there's anything wrong with that, but apparently it's kind of missing the mark because in the subconscious of some of the viewers at least who have said, they've called it creepy, which to me honestly is heartening that our audiences still want to see and feel real, even if it's pretend real, if that makes any sense on a Monday.

Karen Swim, APR, Solo PR (02:20):
I mean, I think that where we are right now in this era of technology is that people like technology. We utilize technology in so many ways. I think that there's still a lot of education around AI and what people think it is, and understanding the capabilities people admit to using it, but to them it's very surface level usage, and I think they understand that artificial intelligence is part of many of the things. It's just embedded into many things that they've been using for a long time. Creep is an interesting word because it makes me think about books that we read years ago, or even horror movies. It was always a horrific thing. It's never good to have automation be at the level that it is today. So it's kind of funny that a mere decade ago we would see this as science fiction. We thought the possibility was there, but it didn't seem really real, and we framed it as creepy. And now here it is something that was science fiction is actually our reality, and people don't exactly love that.

Michelle Kane, Voice Matters (03:42):
No, no, it's not. As we were speaking about before we started recording, it's not the Jetsons. It's not all the glory inconvenience of the Jetsons, even though much of that has oddly enough come true.

Karen Swim, APR, Solo PR (03:56):
We're very close to having our own little robot assistance, and let me tell you, I will not find that creepy at all. We'll find that super helpful because I could use a robot to take some of the load off. But yeah, I haven't seen this particular Coca-Cola commercial yet, but I believe that what we're seeing is that tension of how we actually apply these tools. And I agree with you, Michelle. It is encouraging that people still recognize and want human generated content because we know that AI will be deployed to create, it's going to be deployed in the creative space. We know that part of the Hollywood writer strike was over protecting their jobs and their creations. We also know that once that agreement expires, that Hollywood is going to do what it's going to do and it's going to deploy AI and more and more. So it's coming. But that doesn't mean that there's not a place for human beings.

Michelle Kane, Voice Matters (05:10):
And

Karen Swim, APR, Solo PR (05:11):
I think you nailed it, that AI is very good and very good at doing some things, but still getting to the heart of things. And holiday seasons are one of those times where heart and warmth and we want the comforting things that remind us of traditions past and good holiday memories. So when a computer comes along and tries to generate that without that overlay or without actually the foundation of human beings directing it, because CGI is technology as well, however, animated movies can be so heartwarming because they were written by human beings. The words are coming from human beings who understand the breadth and the depth of the human experience, and they totally speak to us. Yeah. And I can see why it was different.

Michelle Kane, Voice Matters (06:08):
Yeah, I agree. I agree. And it was their call, and we all learned from these things because you think, oh, well just air the old commercial and people would get that nice nostalgia. Right?

Karen Swim, APR, Solo PR (06:20):
Well, it's interesting. At this time in our history, we also have some big problems across the board with industries. We're seeing people really be in a position to need to cut costs. And we're seeing this not only in entertainment, but in all areas. The food companies, for example, have cut back on the number of brands that they offer. So people are losing a lot of familiar things because there were a faithful few. But when companies look at their skews, they're like, listen, we have 200 products and only 30% of those are really driving profit, so we're going to get rid of the others and we're going to focus on these profit makers. But that leaves some consumers unhappy. So again, it's a time where we, nothing is as it was. And that's a lot for you. It's a lot. All of the things yanked from you at one time. It's like, okay, you're taking away my favorite holiday ice cream because I'm in a small group that really, really loves it and relies on it. Oh no. And you're hijacking the price of food so that I already have to make choices and I'm cutting out things that I don't need, but I actually love, and now you're going to take away my holiday commercials too. It's too much.

Michelle Kane, Voice Matters (07:52):
It's too much to take, especially at this juncture in life. But hey, you know what? Those stock buybacks are golden. So it's all good. You don't eat your ice cream, Karen. There are yachts to be sold.

Karen Swim, APR, Solo PR (08:02):
I am trying to avoid ice cream and all of the holiday treats.
Michelle Kane, Voice Matters (08:09):
So yeah, we're living in what's the curse of interesting times, that's for sure. Yeah, and as communicators, we still have to stay at the forefront of this. I mean, I think if we've continued to talk about this specter of miss and disinformation, and we really need to prepare ourselves to be on the front lines of that because it's really our arena if anyone caress to listen to

Karen Swim, APR, Solo PR (08:36):
Us more like that. And I still think there is a huge need for advocacy, for education, for us to be at the forefront. Because here in the United States, we were looking at campaign and election season as the height of these issues, but they have not gone away. And

(08:56):
The way that it's impacted us, it's impacted us around natural disasters. It's impacted us around healthcare. It's impacted us in terms of being able to communicate important information to our publics. And the challenge going into 2025, and I think that this is something that all of us SaaS communicators really need to have some deep thought and some strategies embedded for each of our clients is how do we reach audiences that trust no one, they don't trust institutions, they don't trust media organizations. They're such a splintering. And some of that splintering, at least here in the United States, is also happening against political lines. So we're seeing social media channels like X go completely towards the Republican party and become a platform for their followers and their news. And we're seeing people go to alternatives like Blue Sky to get away from the conservative newsfeed. All of that makes me sad because if we champion diversity, equity, and inclusion, that also means championing different schools of thought.

(10:19):
And sadly, we've lost the ability to have a public square where there are lots of different opinions and approaches to problem solving. And that's to our detriment whether whatever side you agree or don't agree on, we're losing that. And that is just going to cause that division and that fissure to go deeper and deeper. So as communicators, this is a huge issue again, that we really need to think about how do we even where and how do we even talk to an audience and how do we communicate in a way that continues to build trust in the brands that we serve or represent? I mean,

Michelle Kane, Voice Matters (11:02):
I think when

Karen Swim, APR, Solo PR (11:03):
Increasingly difficult,

Michelle Kane, Voice Matters (11:05):
I think honestly, the only thing that you have, and it's up to all of us at the micro level with each company we serve, with each audience we serve, truth is truth. So there's no way if you bend the truth and you're lying, right? So whether you're representing a B2B or B2C, you just have to say, Hey, we're laying this out like it is. We're going to give you service X and you're going to receive these three benefits from it. And whether you choose to believe us unfortunately is on you, but we're going to keep walking our talk and talking a straight line. I think that's all we can do. And calling out misinformation as appropriate. Companies certainly aren't going to go after each other necessarily, but that's all we've got really. Because yeah, we're dealing with people who are in alternate fact universes and you can't have the same conversation because we're really a far way away from even getting back to a Coca-Cola, well, everyone likes a cold drink. Gosh, do they? I don't know.

Karen Swim, APR, Solo PR (12:15):
I don't drink Coca-Cola. Sorry, but

Michelle Kane, Voice Matters (12:19):
Like a cold drink.

Karen Swim, APR, Solo PR (12:21):
Yeah. I do love a cold drink. I also think that communicators, we, and we need to encourage brands to do the same, get involved in pressing for innovation of tools that help to validate sources and validate it so that because this is protection for brands, if there are verification tools around images, around words, then that helps us. And unfortunately, the innovation and use of AI, which is really the problem because AI is not a new invention, but as the use grows and more people have access to it, that's outpacing the tools that can actually protect us. We do need some protections, we need some regulations, but we also need tools that help everyone and empower human beings to see when something is fake and to have the ability to remove those fake things from public sites, from social media channels, because fake images, it's become a big thing for school aged children where images are created that have led to mental health breakdowns and even children dying of suicide

(13:44):
As a result of an image, because at that age, that's a difficult thing to handle. It would be difficult for an adult to have a fake image of them doing something that they would never do, be just out there in the world that's damaging. But to a child who has not yet had to navigate those complexities of life, that's a big, big thing. And it could push someone to the edge. So we do need some protections. We need to do better at that. We need to push, we need to fight for that. And venture capitalists, I hope that this is also an area of interest where you fund the people who have these ideas, because I know that there are people out there who have already created these tools. Let's get them funded and let's get them into action because we need to grow that market faster than

Michelle Kane, Voice Matters (14:36):
AI is growing. And may we as a society want to swing our pendulum in the direction of, yeah, sure, we're the American dream. We want to make as much money as we can, but we also want to do it for the greater good. I love that. I

Karen Swim, APR, Solo PR (14:55):
Love that

(14:59):
We started, I know that this has not been a fun topic, but one of the fun things to me is that the people's response to something that's inauthentic just reminds us that no matter how far we've come as a society, how broken we may look right now. And it looks like we don't care about anything. There's so much toxicity in the environment, yet we still hang on to those nostalgic things. We still need those things. And so I believe that that is such an encouraging note for us to take into this end of the year that people still want heart and warmth and humanity and nostalgia, particularly during the holiday season when we really embrace and look into those things. I mean, people still hang Christmas lights, we still decorate for the holidays. People still decorate for Hanukkah. People still celebrate things. We still are human beings. And at our heart, we still love those things. And I think that that's a happy thing to keep in mind. And we as communicators should figure out how we can deliver that throughout the year? How can we continue to deliver factual information but warmth and humanity and trust?

Michelle Kane, Voice Matters (16:25):
Absolutely. I think that is the magic combination. So we thank you for spending this time with us today. We said it was going to be light. Didn't quite end that way, but that's okay. That's okay. We're all about keeping it real here on that solo life, and we hope you love that about us. If you do, gosh, give us a review. Get out there on Google and feed the Google monster. Give us a review. Hit us up@solopro.com. If there is a topic you would like us to cover, we would love to hear from you, and please do share this podcast episode around that would light us up for sure. And until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.