Thriving in an AI World: Human Connection as a Competitive Edge

Stacey Miller: 0:13

Welcome to Auto Care On Air, a candid podcast for a curious industry. I'm Stacey Miller, vice President of Communications at the Auto Care Association, and this is Traction Control, where we chat about recent news from the global to the local level and what it may mean to the industry, featuring guests on the front lines. Let's roll. This week, the AI industry is seeing massive infrastructure investments. Google, amazon, meta they are all in this trillion-dollar arms race, it feels like, and they have 2025 spending reaching up to like 100 billion. That is a staggering number. In tandem, tesla, they have inked a 16.5 billion deal with Samsung to produce more advanced chips aimed at enhancing full self-driving capabilities. No surprise there, their robotics liked Optimus and its Dojo supercomputer, also in AI.

Stacey Miller: 1:08

The impact of it on employment remains to be seen. Lots of conversation about that. Some CEOs are citing AI as a reason for layoffs, which is a big concern. Broader data does suggest that hiring slowdowns stem more from macroeconomic trends than from automation alone, and there are new opportunities emerging for those who can work alongside AI. There's a lot of trepidation, there's a lot going on and there can be some confusion, and today I have the pleasure of welcoming an old friend to the show to talk about it from a little bit of a different perspective. So I had the thrill of working with Mark on a few projects in my previous life and he was always one of those people that just like encouraged my voracious appetite for learning. He's always on the trends and I'm so excited to bring him to you today.

Stacey Miller: 1:57

His name is Mark W Schaefer and he's a globally recognized author, keynote speaker, futurist and business consultant who blogs at Grow, which is one of the top five marketing blogs in the world. He teaches graduate marketing classes at Rutgers University and he has written 10 bestselling books. His many global clients include Pfizer, cisco, dell, adidas and the US Air Force. He's been a keynote speaker at events all over the world, including South by Southwest my personal favorite Marketing Summit, tokyo and the Institute for International and European Affairs. He's also been on a guest on the media such as CNN, the Wall Street Journal, new York Times and CBS News. Now Mark's newest book, audacious how Humans Win in an AI Marketing World, describes an essential framework for businesses to stand out and be seen in a noisy world, and we're going to talk a little bit about that today. Welcome, mark.

Mark Schaefer: 2:57

Hi Stacey.

Stacey Miller: 2:59

So cool to have you on. This is a blast from the past.

Mark Schaefer: 3:02

Great, great to see you. Our careers have kind of circled each other for many, many years.

Stacey Miller: 3:08

And we collide once again. I'm so excited. Thank you for making the time, because the moment that I saw you post on LinkedIn about Audacious, I went to Amazon. I slammed that add to cart button so fast because, honestly, my shelf is full of your work and this is probably the most timely yet. There's such a deluge of AI tools in the world today. I was on X the other day and I hate calling it X Like. Can we still call it Twitter, please?

Mark Schaefer: 3:34

Yeah, it's hard for me to do that.

Stacey Miller: 3:36

As the OG social media people, it is Twitter forever, right? I saw that there was something like 80,000 AI tools, and that was a few months ago, so I'd venture to say that maybe there's another zero or two added on to the end of that, maybe 800,000 today, because AI is creating AI.

Mark Schaefer: 3:55

Doesn't it remind you of the early days of social media? Yeah, where sort of AI is where social media was around 2009, 2010,. When every business was like what do we do? We know we need to do something, we don't know what it is. And remember the hundreds of tools there were Hundreds. I mean, you and I had friends who made a career like reviewing tools, and the same thing is happening with AI. So, but I think that's going to settle out. I think a lot of those tools are going to consolidate, just like they did in the social media world, and a lot of these things that seem overwhelming and intimidating and confusing. It's all going to be consolidated, I think. I think the AI world's going to become a lot more simpler as we, as we go forward.

Stacey Miller: 4:52

I really hope so, because I feel like what did? We used to call it Like shiny object syndrome? It's like, oh, another tool, another tool. Yeah, it can be really overwhelming, especially in business, because now we're you know like some people are thinking it's a threat to their job. So I need to use AI to make my job easier, but I don't want to use it so much that it makes my job obsolete.

Mark Schaefer: 5:15

Yeah, I think that's a real, real threat. I think it's a real concern. It's a real concern. You know, everybody you talk to about AI says it's so exciting. And I'm terrified because for the you know, for the first time we're I mean, we've always created technology to make our lives easier, but this one replaces intelligence, and that really hits close to home. Our organizations, our companies have been built on scarce intelligence, so we have a specialist for HR or for finance or for environmental or whatever, and then those people make more money. When they get more intelligence, they get a new degree or they get new skills, and you'll now that the economic value of intelligence is almost zero. I mean it's really going to be an interesting impact to see what happens on on the world. And my and my new book, as you mentioned thank you very much for the kind words it's sort of dwelling on what's left for us, like where are humans going to continue to thrive? And I, you know I've thought about that a lot because I mean that's it's going to impact me and you.

Stacey Miller: 6:36

Yeah, I mean it's, it's one of those things that keeps me up late at night in bed and I'm thinking what does it mean? What do I do with it? And this is why I mean I finished your book in like three days, like every night, highlighting, tabbing, because I think what you just said it's replacing intelligence. It's a it's kind of a scary thing. But then I sat and I thought about it for a while and I thought and I thought well, it's definitely helping processes, efficiency, ideas, but where I struggle with it is the creativity. I don't know that it can replace all those human, amazing, audacious, creative ideas that we come up with. And that's where the book resonated with me so much and kind of invigorated me as a business leader to say, hey, like we can still do these things and be human about it, and that's important not to lose Right.

Mark Schaefer: 7:26

Yeah, and and I'm a, I'm a, I'm a realist, I I want to look at the world the way it is, not the way we wish it could be, and so I don't sugarcoat anything in the book and I'm very clear about saying that if, if you're in a job that's processing information and you're competent, you're going to be vulnerable. Competent is replaceable, competent is ignorable, and somehow we've got to reach down deep and find that truly human spark. And this is something, ironically, that I've been talking about for a long time, even without AI that my best-selling book so far is a book called Marketing Rebellion and the subtitle is the Most Human Company Wins, and that's kind of been the theme of everything I've done and I believe that with all my heart and if you can create a company that's the most human, before we, we pushed record you and I were talking about. You know, one of my favorite auto parts store and you go in and it's almost like a little community there at auto parts store and you go in and it's almost like a little community there.

Mark Schaefer: 8:48

People are so passionate about what they do, they love what they do, they know every single part and I needed a new battery and they came out. They gave me just the right battery, they gave me a good deal, they came and they changed it for me. Wow, I mean you know you're having a bad day when you need a new battery and I mean that just made my life so much easier. And I just appreciated that care, that touch, and I mean that is what's going to win. And you know what Stacey AI can't touch? That it's never going to touch that. And that's exactly what I mean. We've got to bring that human touch to everything we do. We've got to, you know, show our heart, show our smiles, show our passion, show our compassion for what we do for our company, for our customers, and that will, that will help us win. That'll never go away.

Stacey Miller: 9:44

I appreciate that and I think a lot of the companies in the auto care industry will appreciate that, because, time and time again, one of the things that we hear is it's a relationship industry. We're built on communities and we do a lot of things digitally. We do a lot of things virtually. However, nothing replaces that in-person, that personality of the person that you're really looking forward to, that relationship, and I don't know that an AI bot can mimic that, even though they say that they can. You know, people are building bots to sound like them and hey, I tried it, I didn't like it. I didn't think it sounded like me, it sounded like someone else.

Mark Schaefer: 10:20

It felt dirty. I'll have to let you try the Mark bot soon.

Stacey Miller: 10:23

Oh God, please don't.

Mark Schaefer: 10:24

Coming soon, coming soon.

Stacey Miller: 10:28

It can't replace you, but I love this description of community as the last great marketing strategy.

Mark Schaefer: 10:36

I hit that in the book because, again, what I'm exploring in the book is where are the spaces where humans will persist and thrive? And I, as you know, you know, I wrote another book about brand community and made the bold claim that this is the last great marketing strategy. And you say, ah, yeah, right, but community was the first marketing strategy, was the first marketing strategy. You know, my grandparents lived in a community where they would go, they, they would, they would go to the butcher shop and they would go to the, to the produce shop, and they would go to the bakery and the people would, would know them. And I actually visited one of these shops one time and, um, you know, maybe it's, it almost sounds like an auto parts store. In a way it was like this cheese shop and it's been there since 1903. And my grandparents used to shop there and it's owned by the same family. And you go in and it's like the old hardwood floors and all the signs are handwritten. And this little woman came up, you know, and she had her walker, she came up to the. Oh, mrs Sullivan, how are you doing today? How's Mr Sullivan? Oh, he's not doing so. Well, he had a fall. You know we got something special in today. Let me package a little something extra for Mr Sullivan to make him smile.

Mark Schaefer: 12:04

Today I stood back and with like tears in my eyes, thinking I have never experienced this in my life. I've never walked into a store that people knew me and they made me feel welcome and they wanted to know what they could do to help me that day and help my family. And that's what we need to go back to. That's loyalty. That's going to create the greatest loyalty. We have just lost it through the mass media era. We forgot what we're supposed to be doing. I'm sorry, I'm on a roll. I'm on a roll. Go for it. Someone. Help me simmer down.

Mark Schaefer: 12:55

The reason I'm in marketing is I started out as a journalism major and in my junior year I took an intro to marketing class and I opened up Introduction Principles of Marketing by Dr Philip Kotler and I said marketing is a combination of psychology, sociology and anthropology and I thought that is the coolest thing ever. I want to do that. Marketing is all things human. But today, when we talk about corporate communications, pr, marketing, we talk about our tech stack, we talk about the latest tool and we forget it's about connection. You know it's about relationships, it's meaning something to people, and that's sort of my soapbox. That's what I'm trying to get us back to. And all the other stuff is important Advertising is important and Facebook ads, and you know SEO but I mean we've got to get back to the basics. We've got to get back to the people.

Stacey Miller: 14:05

Yeah, it's the psychology of it, right, and I'm having like a get off my lawn moment, because what this made me think about is we're getting older, you're way too young, but it's like I'm starting to feel the same feelings and, whereas technology used to excite me, it makes me feel like I'm being removed from humanity more and more as the years go on. And there's this meme on the Internet I keep seeing and it's like you know, everybody's online shopping now and digital shopping, shopping now and digital shopping. And in a couple of years, someone's going to post, you know, a tweet or a meme that says you know, what would it be like if stores were like actually brick and mortar and you can go inside of them and try on the clothes? And it's like, yeah, you mean a mall, we used to have those and it's going back to that human, that interaction, that social.

Stacey Miller: 15:00

Like teenagers don't really go to the mall to buy stuff. They're going there because they want to be social and interact. So, this online shopping experience that we've perpetuated in e-commerce over the past couple of years, like now, we're starting to see the implications and how, yeah, we want to go back and be human and walk around and get some exercise and interface with someone that can help us. I feel like this is kind of going to take the same path, right? How long are you going to talk to an AI bot before you get tired?

Mark Schaefer: 15:27

Yeah, I mean, I'm not anti-technology, I'm not anti-e-commerce, but I just I don't want people to go too far away from kind of what brought us here.

Stacey Miller: 15:39

I totally agree. You said something about meaning and you know we're taking the meaning out of it and I think somewhere in the book you said meaning is the new money and I love that. Save that quote, that, write that on a post-it note and keep that on my computer. But you know, tell me more about. You have a lot of really cool examples in the book Audacious, about companies that create more meaningful experiences and they incorporate elements of like awe and wonder and fun into what they do in their marketing that, like ai can't replace. So tell me a little bit about more, about meaning and marketing well it's.

Mark Schaefer: 16:17

It's sort of like, um, uh, you a cousin to community, really, in a way where I'm a big fan of community and you know, even in the auto care business I mean, is there a way you could bring people into your store after hours and, you know, have a guest lecture about something or have a little celebration just to bring people together? And once people get to know each other, that goodwill and friendship extends to the brand. It's more important to create those friendships among other people in your community than creating the love between you and them and the brand. It's that powerful and, again, this is something that AI can't touch. I mean, just bring people in and could you create some kind of experience where they're not just seeing something or hearing something, but they're experiencing something? Could it be a how-to demonstration? Could it be, you know, one of the things you know? I'm not familiar enough with the auto industry to know if they do anything like this, but a similar business, one of the things Home Depot is doing is DIY classes for children, right, and look, I have a friend. He has a boy, I think he's 11 and he's just crazy about cars. He would go into this auto shop every single Saturday afternoon to learn something about cars. And the idea is to create something so worthy, so relevant, so interesting that people can't wait to tell others. And we know inside of us, intuitively, that when people tell each other about how they like us, that's the best kind of marketing there is.

Mark Schaefer: 18:26

Word of mouth marketing has been around forever and look, I can't even count how many companies I've worked with as a consultant over the last couple of decades. I don't know one of them that has a line item in their budget for word of mouth marketing. But think again, what are we talking about here? Where do humans thrive and persist? Ai can't touch word of mouth marketing. That's us, that's our customers, that's the best, purest, unadulterated marketing we could ever have. And but we don't think about it strategically, we don't think about it methodically. We like it's kind of hard to measure. So it's like I don't know. I mean, nobody wins awards for word of mouth marketing, but it's the thing that works the most. Research shows and I know you're all over this Edelman Trust Barometer, right, edelman Trust Barometer. 15 years in a row it shows trust in businesses and brands and advertising has declined. But who do we trust? We trust entrepreneurs, owners, technical experts, our friends, our neighbors. So the to the extent we can get other people talking about us, that's. That's how you win in marketing today.

Stacey Miller: 19:55

People trust people like themselves.

Mark Schaefer: 19:57

It's very simple.

Stacey Miller: 19:59

Yeah, I do. It's very simple. I love that. And this whole thought about taking marketing outside of the box, creating these experiences that get people to talk, like that, like that, to me, I think, should get brands excited because it's a way that they can win without being outpaced by a tool or a competitor, because you just need one good idea and to execute on that to get people talking. I think somewhere in your book it was like 400% more effective than email marketing, bringing someone together in a live experience.

Mark Schaefer: 20:33

It's a new way of thinking about marketing for a lot of people and, honestly, we just cracked the code about 20 years or so ago because a great researcher, a personal hero of mine, named Ed Keller, did this extensive research and found that one out of every 10 people is a super share. That's their personality type. If you give them an idea, if you give them a story, they can't wait to tell their friends and neighbors. So it's not like influence marketing, like you know, that gets a lot of press, that gets a lot of attention. You know all these influencers on Instagram. But see, they self-identify and they say if you pay me, I'll promote your, your company or whatever. Right, but a super share, um, they.

Mark Schaefer: 21:32

All you need to do is give them a good idea, give them a good story and they and they'll spread it so. So if you I think every customer touch point when people come into your store tell them a story, tell them an interesting fact about the founding of your company or some policy your company has that's better than the competition or something interesting that they're doing in the community. Tell that to every person that comes into the store. One out of 10 will go home and tell other people. They'll go to the pub that night and tell their friends. They'll go to the ball game the next day and say you know, this is crazy. I walked into this auto care store the other day and you know what I learned. Can you believe this? And then, boom, you're starting to ignite conversations about your company.

Stacey Miller: 22:27

Wow, I love that. And there's an element of authenticity to it, right Like it's not just something that was generated or shared over and over again or paid through an ad or promoted by an influencer, and, again, there's nothing wrong with any of those things. Those are great tactics in your marketing toolkit.

Mark Schaefer: 22:44

Think how fun and exciting it would be to to take the employees of your company and look, I've been in these auto in auto care stores. I mean, they're, they love what they do. They know every single part in the store. Love what they do, they know every single part in the store. Think how fun it would be for you to go to them and say we want you to be part of our marketing effort and every month we're going to teach you some new stories about the company and every time you interact with a customer we'd love for you to share one. You know one of these interesting stories and then boom, it starts spreading and spreading and spreading.

Stacey Miller: 23:27

Absolutely. It makes me think of literally just yesterday I went to visit one of our members. Her name is Dorman. They manufacture parts up in Pennsylvania, so shout out to them, you know. They give you a tour of their factory and you reach this area where it's like a meteor, I can't pronounce it. It's a lab where they measure things.

Mark Schaefer: 23:49

A measurement center A measurement center.

Stacey Miller: 23:51

They're going to kill me for butchering that. But what was cool, was you get there? And they didn't know we were there on a tour. But an engineer is there working at a computer. He pops up right away and he goes, hey, do you want to hear about it, do you want to learn about it? I'm like, yeah, sure, and he rushes, it is, and he rushes over and he's explaining and he's showing the tools and how it works and how they make the parts and why the technology is so cool. And he's effervescent, he's happy. He's happy, he's smiley, he's engaged.

Mark Schaefer: 24:52

Like you can tell, this is the most exciting thing to him and it made me excited. Well, now you're telling me.

Stacey Miller: 24:56

Yeah, it's on your show, yeah, but it's contagious, right.

Mark Schaefer: 25:00

And it's like we just had a little case study and word about marketing.

Stacey Miller: 25:03

That's it. That's all it was, and it was so simple and that that passion is contagious and that's also something you talked about in the book that also resonated with me. And you know, I go back and I think about moments of things where I talked about them and I was a super sharer and it was things like that. Right, like I was a super sharer after one of your keynotes or it was a super sharer when I saw this really cool process, right Like we all have that one thing that gets us really jazzed. You just kind of have to unlock it. I mean.

Mark Schaefer: 25:31

That's one of the ways, reasons why you know I, I teach and in my speeches I tell stories to to illustrate my points. Because nobody has ever come up to me after a speech and said, boy, I love that pie chart, that was the best, it was beautiful. Can I have a copy of that to show my family? But they'll remember the story and even years afterwards they'll say, oh, I saw you five years ago. You told the story about the lady at the hotel that hugged you goodbye and what a beautiful story. I have never so I mean, that's that's what I mean. If you, if you create these stories in people's lives, they'll remember them, they'll share them and and and. That's how you ignite conversations about your brand. That's what marketing is today.

Stacey Miller: 26:26

It is and like I think there was a. That's what marketing is today. It is. And like I think there was a. Maybe I think maybe it's every job role. But when you're a marketer and you're classically trained, you don't, sometimes you don't love when people are in your lane and they try to market for you. But I'm starting to adopt more and more of this mantra that, like, everybody can be a marketer because everybody's kind of got some cool ideas and those ideas can turn into something, because everybody's kind of got some cool ideas and those ideas can turn into something. And like getting those crowdsourced ideas to me is really kind of important to helping jigger some of those cobwebs out of your head when you're stuck trying to figure out what is the next campaign going to be, what is the next story going to be? Right, like I think we all have a little marketing in our head somewhere. No matter what role you are in business, have a little marketing in our heads somewhere no matter what role you are in business.

Mark Schaefer: 27:11

Absolutely, and you know, that's something I'm helping companies with more and more, even like I'm working with a company and they're involving people that work on the factory floor and they're teaching them storytelling and they're teaching them how to tell stories on social media and how to build an audience, because, again, they're teaching them storytelling and they're teaching them how to tell stories on social media and how to build an audience, because, again, they're not just employees, they're neighbors and they're proud of what they do. So it's a big idea. It's one of the greatest opportunities that we have that most people aren't really thinking about. Yeah, it really is.

Stacey Miller: 27:53

So you've got the book behind you. I'm so bummed I was going to bring it and it's sitting on my nightstand. But the title Audacious like. Tell me why you chose Audacious and what it really means in the context of the book and in reaching more people.

Mark Schaefer: 28:08

Well, it kind of took on a life of its own. One of the incidents that kind of spurred the idea behind the book and really inspired me was I start the book with this story where I was at South by Southwest and I was having. I start the book with this story where I was at South by Southwest and I was having dinner in the evening with a couple of friends and suddenly people silently started to get up and leave the restaurant. They just left their food and my bag was to the door and I turned around and looked out the window and people were standing on the sidewalk. So my two friends, we looked at each other, we got up, we left our food, we went out on the street and up in the sky was a drone show. Now this was like four years ago, so it was a little more novel then. I mean, today we see them at music festivals and ballparks, but this is the first time we'd ever seen anything like this and the drones were telling the story of a new television series and at the end the drones formed a qr code in the sky. And so people are taking a picture of the qr code. Now they're seeing a trailer trailer for this new television show.

Mark Schaefer: 29:30

Now I just became obsessed with this because I've done a lot of cool things and fun things in my life and I've been around, and if someone challenged me, stacy Mark, we want you to create a story, a marketing story so great, so cool, that people would leave a restaurant to go see it. Could you do that? And the answer is no, I could not. And I just thought how did they do it? How did they come up with that idea? What was the process? Is there something there that every business could learn to use to stand out above the noise at a festival in Austin, texas, with 300,000 people there? And so I just thought this is just audacious. It's just audacious. So I learned who did it. It was an agency in New York called Giant Spoon, and I kind of knew those people a little bit and I called the president of the company. I said I want to come to your office, I want you to spill the beans, tell me everything you do, I want to sit in your meetings and learn all your secrets, and then I'm going to put everything in a book and teach everybody. He said, absolutely, and so that started my journey to talk to the most creative people in the world who are cutting through the noise, and you don't need a big budget like a drone show.

Mark Schaefer: 31:13

I was very intentional in this book. There's small companies, there's small businesses, there's big budgets, there's low budgets, there's no budgets, there's nonprofits, and so there's something in there for everybody, and I think there's a great story or inspiration on every page. And my plea is you know, cut through the dull. Marketing has become so dull. I call it a pandemic of dull and I'll just challenge your listeners in one little way.

Mark Schaefer: 31:49

So one of my favorite case studies in the book is liquid death. Now, the guy who started liquid death, he wasn't obsessed with water. He didn't dream of saying I'm going to start a new water brand someday. What he was obsessed with was stirring up a boring industry and doing something fun, and so it's just so different and so radical, and so it's creating conversations. And you think about most industries. Think about the wine industry. Who's doing something crazy in the wine industry? Who's doing something crazy in the automotive industry? Here's my biggest challenge why isn't someone doing something crazy with pizza? Pizza, everybody loves pizza. It's fun. Young people love pizza. And who's? Who's the who's? The liquid death of pizza? Who's shaking it up? Who's making it fun again? There's so much opportunity. And it doesn't mean being reckless, it doesn't mean being offensive, it just means being a little crazy, having a little fun. You know, breaking bad rules for good reasons, yeah.

Stacey Miller: 33:15

Oh man, you got me all excited. I'm like going to be thinking about pizza on the way home. How can I reinvent the pizza? But that liquid death example is so good because I remember the first time I saw it it literally stopped me in my tracks and I had to walk up to it and like squint at it and make sure I was reading it properly so that I understood what it was. It was so effective. And even today, anytime I see one of those cans, I stop and I look at it because it's just such a, it's so different.

Mark Schaefer: 33:45

I mean their advertising is just off the off the wall, yeah, I mean their advertising is just off the wall, yeah, and some of it is kind of even borders on offensive, like I'm not sure I want to see that ad again. You know, the mascot for the brand is this kind of cartoon figure called.

Stacey Miller: 34:07

Murder man. It's like, okay, and they kept just getting more and more audacious, right, like they did a collab with a makeup brand. It's like what? And they kept just getting more and more audacious, right, like they did a collab with a makeup brand. It's like what does water have to do? Like the whole thing, just genius, what was that it was death, Was it?

Mark Schaefer: 34:20

What was the makeup collab? It was ELF E-L-F. It was death mask or something, and it came in a coffin.

Stacey Miller: 34:26

It came in a coffin packaging Again, like what did that really cost them? They?

Mark Schaefer: 34:34

came together. But the thing is, you cannot ignore it. And even though and here's this is one of the most powerful statements in the book and it's from Mike Cesario, the guy who founded Liquid Death, and he said there is nothing we could do to differentiate our product. If we had a new flavor, if we had a new ingredient, if we put in a new vitamin, coca-cola or Pepsi would just copy it. There's nothing they can't copy except the brand. That's the only thing we have.

Mark Schaefer: 35:15

How do you make people feel, how do you connect on this emotional level? And there's just so much opportunity for that. You know, I think most industries are a country club. This is the way we do it, this is the way we've always done it, and we love working with our advertising agency and doing things the same way. We love talking about those Hemi engines. I don't even know what a Hemi engine is and you know why not shake it up, why not, especially with young people today? I mean, they are starving for something new, and, by the way, I mean Liquid Death. They've only been around four or five years. They're the fastest growing beverage in the world Insane.

Stacey Miller: 36:04

Absolutely insane.

Mark Schaefer: 36:06

Yeah.

Stacey Miller: 36:07

Do you think, okay, so Costco did something, and I don't know that. I mean it cost them probably, you know down the line, but like a no cost idea. Aren't they the ones that went viral for the fact that you can return anything, no matter how long you've had it. It's like a forever return policy. So people are like returning couches six years later and they get their full refund and like that's what people are talking about now, like I think that's pretty audacious.

Mark Schaefer: 36:31

Well, yeah, I mean, uh, yeah, you, you, you, you can go broke on that. I remember, so red lobster. They had the thing where it was like endless shrimp and it, and literally it made them go bankrupt because they underestimated just how many shrimp that people would could eat, and so you got to be careful about that Again, you know, don't be, don't be reckless, talk to your lawyer, talk to your accountant, you know, before you do something. But I mean, look, so you mentioned, I've got this copy of this copy of my book above my head and there's something quite remarkable about that cover. The whole cover is a QR code, and so the QR code. What I did is I fed the contents of the book to AI and I had AI create abstract images based on the stories in the book, and when you hover over the QR code, the cover of the book changes to show you art from the stories of the book. It's an infinity cover. That's never the same twice. It's so cool.

Mark Schaefer: 37:45

Wow, how much did that cost me? Almost nothing. Now, think about this. This is what I wanted to do, stacey. I had a book called Audacious. I had to find a way to make this thing audacious. How easy do you think it is to disrupt the publishing industry? That's done everything the same for 250 years. But I was able to think, look, there's this technology that people have. It's like I have this moment when I could create this cover that's never been done before, and create something conversational and new. So it didn't take me any money. I mean, I'm not a rich person, I don't have a big budget, you don't make much money publishing books but I just dug deep. Right, I dug deep and had the courage to be bold and try something that no one's done before.

Stacey Miller: 38:40

And that is a great example of being audacious, working alongside AI right. Ai is not going to replace your book, it's not going to write your book for you, but you created something you can only do with AI. Yeah, Really cool. I was really amazed. When I tried that for the first time I was like wait, is this? How is this real?

Mark Schaefer: 39:02

And I haven't seen that anywhere else? Everybody. No, it's the first. It's the first, it's first time it's ever been done, and the and everybody says the same thing. When they do it, the words are always the same oh wow.

Stacey Miller: 39:15

Congratulations to you for that idea, Because if you asked me what I would do.

Mark Schaefer: 39:19

I don't know this was unexpected. I get the data about how many people are clicking on the QR code and some people are doing it over and over and over again and what I'm learning is their children are doing it.

Stacey Miller: 39:35

That's great.

Mark Schaefer: 39:36

So the children are like engaging with the cover of the book because it's fun. So that kind of makes. That makes me feel good.

Stacey Miller: 39:42

I think that's that's a great feel good story, and it's inspirational too, because you're inspiring action and awe, you know, with all different age groups, like the kids not care about marketing, but they're there because it's a really cool activation and then maybe they'll learn that that's cool marketing and maybe they will get into marketing, who knows? It's just there's a trickle effect with all of this and I really believe in it and I just I love the philosophy that you bring to business and to marketing and I think that it applies in so many places, and this is exactly why I wanted to bring you here to share some of your best thoughts and ideas, get people into Audacious and get them really thinking about how to create these human experiences, how to work better with AI and not be afraid of it either, but to bring these really amazing things to their customers and their users and their communities.

Mark Schaefer: 40:28

So yeah, I think that's a great way to tie it up and wrap it up. Stacey, is this the comment that you made? Don't be afraid of it. You've got to embrace it and don't just use it like a search engine. Push the edges. It can do so many different things for your business. Just experiment and talk to it like it's another employee.

Stacey Miller: 40:52

Yeah, exactly, thank you so much. Where? Where can listeners learn more about you and pick up a copy of Audacious? Hopefully?

Mark Schaefer: 41:00

Well, it's very easy to to find me. You don't have to remember my name and let alone spell it um Sch. But if you just can remember, businesses grow. That's my website and you can find all of my books there. I have a blog every week that you mentioned at the top and I have a podcast, the Marketing Companion. That we're in our 13th year now Hard to believe, wow, congratulations, yeah, and all that's you know. You can connect with me. My social connections are there and I would. I would love to hear from your listeners and to hear what they thought about our conversation today.

Stacey Miller: 41:42

Fantastic. Thank you again. Work. So much for joining us. Thank you.

Mark Schaefer: 41:46

It was great catching up.

Stacey Miller: 41:47

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