This week on Stacking Growth, we've got another Call to Action episode on being a creative in the AI era. Today, Eric Senna joins us from the copyrighting side of the creative house. He talks about the tools he uses, the lines he draws, and what he thinks is coming next for marketing teams. Hope you all enjoy!
Welcome to Stacking Growth, Call to Action, a show for the Trailblazers, change makers, and paradigm shifters. Each week, a different marketing hero who is called to make a change in their field will join us to walk through each step of their journey. They'll cover the highs, the lows, and what's coming next. Together, we'll help you find the changes needed for your own business to win.
I'm Steph Grignola here with Evan Hughes, and today we're excited to welcome Refine Labs Copy Manager Eric Senna. Eric has been a force behind Refine Labs investment in our own brand voice identity, as well as that of countless customers. Eric, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me.
Stoked to be here. Yeah, I think you have a lot of good stuff to talk about, so very excited to just dive in. Yeah, me too. Before we get into the juicy stuff, I want to hear a little bit about your path into copywriting and the creative field in general.
Was marketing something that you were always interested in getting into, or did you find yourself here by accident like so many of the rest of us? Yeah, my answer is a little bit layered in a sense. So I did not always want to do marketing. I always knew I wanted to be something in the creative field, right?
Since I was a kid, I can remember being in first grade just drawing silly little anime characters at my desk, learning math and all this stuff. I was just so distracted and so in my world. So I would draw characters, I would write short stories, and that got down the path of being creative and really never looked back since then. But getting into marketing specifically, I can remember, as I said, I always wanted to be creative in some capacity.
I didn't know exactly what that looked like. But I remember being in college was jumping a few different majors, and I watched the first episode of Mad Men. I don't know if you guys have ever seen it, but I had no idea of what it would be about. And there was one character named Paul Kinsey, and in the show, he's a copywriter.
I thought he'd already copyrighted. And I was like, what is that? Like, copywriting? I thought that was some legal stuff.
I didn't really know exactly what it was. Then I looked it up, come to find out. You get paid to just daydream for a living, and I'm like, that sounds incredible. I'm there.
So I went from, I think at the time I was a public relations major, quickly switched to advertising under the journalism program at my school. And since then, I've just sort of been in this field, sort of doing my own thing. So yeah, I think I would all the Mad Men really. Don Draper and Paul Kinsey.
What are my guys? We owe it to Mad Men too. Thanks, Mad Men. That's awesome.
Do you think about just your experiences younger and in this creative mindset? Do you find yourself going back into those moments of where you just disconnect from the reality and just really hunker down and imagining and embracing that? How do you think? Because I feel like there's so much noise and distraction right now.
And I'm curious that before we get to the next question related to AI. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to say because we get so busy. So it's hard to find the time to just, like I said, daydreaming and tearpoint, imagine things. But when I can find those moments, I'm just like, peace and quiet to just close my door, like myself in, even on my own time, like doing my own side projects and things like that.
Like, that's when I get the most energy. That's when I get the most sort of like, simulation mentees when I'm just like, at my guests, sort of just like thinking about, you know, different things during stuff at the wall. So yeah, I think that's my favorite part of the job, honestly, is the brain-southing aspect. Yeah.
I think it's such an important piece of a lot of us. Wish we had more time, right? That's one. That's not, not anything we can just pull out of thin air, but I think it's important to sort of hear that it's the reality of any role in any situation, especially marketing, but honestly, this goes across different verticals functions.
Silos is that if you have to find the time in order for you to get creative, whether that you're like mathematical or you're actually truly in the creative art and space, it's just about finding that. And I, as we think about kind of your journey and how you moved forward and thinking about like this adventure and to creative and copywriting and kind of finding your path, what was this moment where like AI really started to influence your decision-making, really started to influence like the path that you were going down? Talk to us a little bit about what that was like and how you kind of just addressed it. Totally.
So I think like everyone, my first real foray into AI was like, you know, early COVID, right? When mid-journey and Dali were starting to come into the fold. And at the time, I mean, it wasn't great, right? Like there were some cool funky visual things that were happening, but like, and that was only what, I don't know, four years ago, something like that, just about.
And we're like, ah, this is not going to take off. Like this looks kind of janky right now. Kind of find out four years later, holy cow, AI can do a whole lot. So I think my personal journey with AI and how it's impacted me has been sort of within the past like three years this year or five labs where it's like, AI is efficiency for me, right?
But I think like any creative, like there's some initial hesitancy, right? Like, and we'll talk about this in a bit, but like it's AI going to replace me, right? Or can AI do what I do as a creative? Can it replace that sort of like artistry and things like that?
So it's always going to be like an uphill climb and some resistance initially, but as you mentioned, our days are so busy. So I think for me, the way that AI impacts my job is when I'm finding time to like, yeah, as like a brainstorm partner or as a tool for thought starters, like just to speed things up because I mean, like I have six accounts right now, I manage two writers and that's a whole lot to do one day and I'm just like, all right, one way is going to just make things more efficient, right? Totally. And I'll get into like the tools and aspects too because I think that's really interesting.
But do you find that like a lot of it comes from, you know, you're embracing of AI or the ability to use AI in different aspects of your role. Is it pressure? Is it kind of fear? Is it motivation?
Like what was it really the driver behind you kind of adopting it post kind of the COVID era and the newer tools and. Yeah. Great question. I think pressure is a great word and it's not necessarily bad thing, right?
I think one, they're the external pressures of if you don't adopt AI, you're going to get left behind. That's sort of the reality of the industry for better for worse. So I think that's one part, but I think the other part is internal pressure. Like I said, the need to meet deadlines.
The five six accounts to work on. I mean, and I've sometimes overlapping accounts overlapping deadlines. How can I possibly get everything done at once? I think that's pretty much just that it's like, you know, how can we keep up and how can we not get left behind essentially?
Not get left with us, you know? Yeah. I am curious to hear what sort of tools you are using and, you know, they can be like the actual programs that you're using or even just ways that you use AI and then you check yourself to make sure that everything is still coming from your creative unique place. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the main tool that I could say to myself and probably the other writers here are fine especially that we use is chat GPT, right? And I think for us, it's mainly, as I said, like a partner for creative concepting to bounce ideas off of, but also like, Hey, I'll check this.
It's this idea good enough for the brief or does this stop you to hear to what the client's feedback is? Things like that. So I would say for us, chat GPT isn't so much a first line of defense as it is like a second matter defense, right? And to your point, Steph, like human ingenuity will always win out in my mind.
I'm just a creative creative and I always think that like nothing can replace human artistry and ingenuity and tasty crafting like that. So I will say that, like I said, AI does help in the sense of like editing and sort of narrowing things down and chat GPT has been a godsend in that sense. So I would say, chat GPT is the main tool sometimes Grammarly as a sort of like, like I said, spell check sort of tool, but aside from that, that's really it. I know the designers have several more tools I use, but writers, it's really just chat GPT I would say.
No, I think that's great. And it makes it really like accessible for other people who are trying to get into the creative field, maybe if they're trying to like hone their skills in a way to see like raise their own bar and their own personal creativity, it's a good tool to be able to like challenge yourself. Yeah, totally. And then my philosophy, it's always been like iron trucking iron, right?
So like if we could, I don't know, it has a creativity even more with this AI functionality, you know, it's got to limit my mind. Are there any, oops, sorry, quick question. Are there ever any times where you use chat GPT as like a brainstorming tool and then you look at what it outputs and you say like, oh, I'm so much better than this robot. I'm just so curious to hear like creative perspective on that.
Like, oh, I have so many better ideas in this robot right now. Careful and salty. Like, like I said, when AI first started rolling out dolly in the journey few years ago, I think the line was much clearer. I could be like, oh, like we blow this out of the water.
Now it's gotten a little bit scary where I'm like, sometimes it's hard to tell if AI wrote something unless you see like the tells like a lot of m dashes or like there's certain things you can like see, but yeah, it gets closer and closer each day. So I don't know if it's, I mean, obviously, like I said, nothing can replace what we do. And I don't think that'll ever happen. There's something innate about creative and whether that's like in marketing or even like in film or painting or whatever, like there's certain things that AI can replicate, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it's kind of scary these days, like how close it's getting, you know, which is the learning model, right?
So it's learning our behaviors, our way of life, how we're thinking about things like as much as we give it, it's kind of regurgitates that back to you in like a more of a formatted way. And it's just really interesting. It's there moments, you know, where you just like question like, holy shit, did I write that like that feels just like me. I kind of this kind of this kind of to be.
Yeah. I want to get like a little unconventional in this, but you talk about using chat GPT as a tool, kind of a brainstorm and unlock a thought partner, but maybe could you give us like a specific example for this nurse, maybe exactly like a prompt type of prompt or what you really would do and it can be anything, whether it's like a creative brief coming in and you're creating ideas or if you're, I just love they learned kind of a bit more behind the curtain of how you think about using it. Yeah. I mean, where to begin?
There's so many different applications, especially at Refine Labs. One that comes to mind is so we call it a creative scorecard. And essentially what that means is we input like different copy decks and different like ton of voice style guides and things like that. And we're like, all right, look, in terms of adhering to this brand, so on a voice, how closely does it align and chatting, you could just like look at these documents.
Sometimes I send like 10 documents at a time and like plugs in place. It looks at them in like a matter of seconds and it's like, Hey, you know, this is a seven out of 10 on the scale. This is like a 10 out of 10. This is a five out of 10 or whatever.
So that's how I've been using it. At least more recently. Again, there are so many different applications, but like just to like get closer to like a brand just on a voice and like, you know, are we here into the brief and things like that? I like that.
Because I think that somebody that's new to it or maybe overwhelmed by it to some degree, right? You could start as simple as having like say your employee parent guidelines and then something you've drafted and just kind of feed that to the tool and be like, where are the gaps here? What am I making this interpreting? And it almost helps you refine your brand guidelines I found because what you think you wrote down is not actually how it's interpreted whether it's by the client, whether it's internally.
So it's a good tool to just kind of test your internal messaging first and like get by and from stakeholders and feedback. So I love that you use it that way to just kind of gut check yourself in an honest reflection of what we're drafting. Does it make sense? Maybe there are the gaps.
Yeah. And if an AI can't understand your brand narrative, then how is a customer? Totally. Exactly.
It's a powerful tool. People shouldn't be overwhelmed by it. Like AI shouldn't be overwhelming. I think you can use it at whatever level you want, entry level, you can be a master in it, but it constantly changes that nobody's going to be at the forefront of AI, right?
And how we define it, what we define internally, like something as simple as a refined lab's utilizing a scorecard simple in our mind because we're familiarized with using it could be super complex to an organization that hasn't really adopted this idea of how to speed efficiencies and the ability to bring in all our experts on the creative at refined labs into a think tank basically to merge ideas to merge the way we think about things. And so it's just I love your like don't be overwhelmed by it. Just use it specific to what your action is in the moment. If you overthink everything, that's where the tool become a bit blurry.
Totally. Well, that's so AI is fun. You know, I feel like we all use it. I feel like we all kind of feel the pressure to admittedly to keep up, but also to it outpaces me in my role, right?
Like leading marketing marketing. I oftentimes like stuff and I'll just kind of vent a little bit and I'm just, I don't know which direction to go or I have too much access to data or information and I don't know how to set the size of down at times or you just get overwhelmed. And I think that part of that comes from the pressure of like AI is consuming all of these marketing roles. AI is taking away different jobs or skills or techniques.
And I would love to hear like from your perspective, kind of in your journey here, like as AI is really started to influence your role directly and or people tell you that is how do you keep pushing forward? What is like the like the driving force behind you to not be consumed by this and almost feel like that impostor syndrome on how to move forward in the greatest space? That's a great question. I don't know.
Like I said before, there's certain things that AI can't replicate like be a taste or just like there are things that you can't put your finger on, right? When you read an AI piece of copy or see an piece of art, it's like some about this is like uncanny value, right? So I think there's certain things that you know, it just can't do what we do. But how do I fight that feeling overwhelming this?
I don't know. Like it's you really had in a sense, like I think, you know, when I started getting really good with the past couple of years, I did feel a little bit overwhelmed. Like, oh my God, wait, this might be it. Like I might be out of a job in a few years.
Like this is, you know, like the writing is on the wall sort of thing. But I think to your point earlier, Evan, it's about embracing the tool as opposed to being afraid of it, right? Like it's how can I use AI as sort of, I don't know, something to augment what I'm already doing as opposed to some of the other places? Like it's funny.
Like, I realized recently that I actually wrote a whole thing post about AI like two years ago, when like a mid-journey and then Dolly, you're first taken off. And I was just looking at it right before this. And what I said was AI should be a tool not a substitute. And I still for the same way a few years later, you know, it should be used to just enhance the human thinking and craft we already had as opposed to, you know, be your placement.
Because you could tell when something's AI, like, even though like it's getting closer and closer each day, like sometimes it's pretty clear and obvious. Okay. That's your question. No, it did.
It absolutely. I think all we wanted to find rock bottom in this moment of like, holy shit, I have to adapt or I'm just going to be consumed by it. So for you to be like honest and for listeners too, there was a moment where I'm just like, oh crap, you know, like in my pivoting, am I going in which direction? I think that honest reflection is what everybody's feeling right now.
And I will say I can actually pinpoint the exact moment too. It's like when sort of first start taking off, I think like maybe a year or two ago when the first world out initial test videos and I'm like, holy shit, this looks like incredibly real, you know, and like I said, there's certain things like, if you look hard enough, you get to point this to AI, but God, like when it first came out and I was like, oh yeah, this is a very fine. Yeah. And I think it's good to like say that, you know, because a lot of people are feeling it and I really appreciate your ability to balance.
Yeah, it's a little scary. And also here's how I'm using and embracing it because it's okay. You know, it contains, we all contain multitudes. We can be a little afraid and also ready to adapt and grow at the same time.
And there, I find that in the broader space of AI conversations, there isn't a lot of room for that nuance. And so I'm glad that we're having these conversations where, you know, you a creative can say it's all right to be both. Yeah. And you're right.
It's like, it's not so black and white, like, yes, AI, no AI. It's like, AI is just the reality. But we have today, it's like, how do we accommodate, you know, this future of technology? So yeah, I think there's definitely a lot of people in complexity with this conversation for sure.
Yeah. Well, so outside of AI, I want to focus back on you as a creative for my last question and talk about what this journey has taught you about your self, your ability to adapt and embrace and grow and change and not lose yourself to that overwhelming feeling. What is something, you know, I make everyone say something nice about themselves in this podcast, which just brings me joy. Yeah.
What's something that you really appreciate about yourself and your skills? Oh, yeah. This is the worst question to ask me because I'm saying about saying good stuff about myself. It's hard.
It's hard. Yeah, it's weird. I don't know. Like, there are so many things.
I mean, creative in general are multitudes. Like, there's that new notion of like multi-hyphenics, right? Where like, someone's not just copywriter. They're also, they could be an art director, a photographer, whatever.
And I feel like I'm sort of a multi-hyphenic in that sense, like, love copywriting. I've also been dabbling in like, stand up recently and screenwriting and things like that. And especially within those fields, like an AI, stand up comic, wood, fucking bomb. It's so hard to do my language.
But, um, like, it's true. No, it's true. And, like, you know, the conversation in entertainment these days is like, AI actors, AI, like full AI films. And I'm just like, I don't know if we're there yet, you know?
And I don't know if we'll ever be there. Like, I don't think, if I think about someone like Steven Spielberg or like, I don't know, the great Christopher Nolan, can AI make that? You know, and I think that's where I feel solace is like, they're just true great works of art from throughout history that I'm like, yeah, I can never replicate that. Even if you go back to Renaissance, I think there was a project that an agency did way early on, maybe like 10 years ago or something like that, where they tried to, um, it was like AI, an AI replication of, I've got the artist, it was like some Dutch artist or whatever.
But it got pretty close. But again, it's like, it's never going to be a one to one. And that's the thing. It's always going to feel like sort of a bootleg.
So that's where I find solace is like, just there's something innate about creativity that can never be touched. And, um, yeah, I don't know, that's where I find my comfort, I suppose, that makes sense. Yeah. And if I can turn that into the nice thing about you that you were supposed to say, um, I think what I'm hearing is what I'm hearing is that you as a creative have been able to draw a line for yourself on where it can be a tool for productivity and efficiency and where you want to focus on your human voice in that creative space and knowing where it works and where it doesn't work for you is a really great skill to have.
Yeah. Yeah. I think the word human gets thrown around a lot these days, but like I truly believe in that. Like as just someone in this industry, I would say I'm a human first, creator second.
And I think that same thinking applies to AI as well as like, you know, the way I write is like, there's a lot of like heart in what I write, whether it's for like an education brand, a finance brand or whatever that I know there's like just an emotion that people have, like it stole that, you know, AI can have enough work at that. So if that's one nice thing, I just say, I guess that's it. I don't know. You're a human.
That's the word fire. Yeah. Yeah. That's the most about mine.
Yeah. There's emotion that comes with that, whether we can describe it or not, that just is, I don't know, you can feel when somebody puts their heart and soul into a project, we see it here with our client work and we see the stuff that the team does. And that's a different site versus a transactional check the box versus like this is really a ability to come together with great minds and talk about it. A hundred percent.
I love that. So the last question we always like to ask on this and this is a non AI. Yeah. Sort of a question, but kind of in this greater world for listeners, maybe that are new to this space or thinking about this as a journey or people that have been here for a long time and kind of evolving their way of thinking about creative.
What do you see as coming next or what do you expect is coming next in this creative space that people should prepare for? Sure. So we just talked about that word human, right? And I feel like that's going to come within the next like 10 years is like we're going to see sort of a U-turn.
I think this is my, I'm not looking next for my name, but like I think we're going to go down this AI rabbit hole for a few different years and then we're going to be like, oh, like, you know, maybe we'll see like a full AI film. Maybe we'll see a full AI series and we're going to be like this kind of blows like can we be more human? And I think that's going to be the next era is like being more human, being more, I don't even know what the word is just like having more cultural awareness and insight. I don't know, but I think we're sort of going to see the wind just turn a little bit and we'll put it back to away from this sort of weird, wacky technology.
But I know that wasn't your question. So I know it's spot on. What are you anticipating coming next in the creative space? And I think for people to take that and kind of think like that human approach, the present tense, like being in person experiences, whether that means like conveying that message through some sort of creative deliverable or there's truly like in person marketing events or bringing people together from an intimate setting.
I think there will be this like robotic piece that is interesting and we find out ways to leverage it. But like how do we bring back the intimate conversations, the intimate feeling that people feel again? And it will be interesting to see like I think that the roles are going to be important where you have the leaders that are coming in and able to communicate, right? So I can spit out a piece of content, but it can't pitch it to a client or an internal stakeholder of what that emotion is behind it and why we did that.
And I think that that's that piece, right? That personal touch that is so important. So that's kind of how it might be a little bit different, but I don't disagree with you at all. No, I guess what it is.
Connection community. I'll be above for sure. And the last question, if you were to give advice to anybody starting their marketing journey, right now, what would it be? Yeah.
I would say be proactive. I think 20 steps ahead. When I was first getting into marketing, when I graduated way back when. I was trying to find a job.
At the time, the big thing was Snapchat. That was a big platform, right? So what I did was there was a new technology called like geofilters. I don't know if you guys remember that.
I was a geolensist where it's like you could swipe through and it's going to be like, this is your San Diego filter. This is your LA filter. At the time, it was a very burgeoning sort of new technology in its infancy. So what I did was I was applying for jobs and I put my name in my title, Eric Center, Kagueradri Adiada, and I geofenced those at different agencies, like in LA, in San Diego.
It's a weird, like awful, in my deal. And then I ran it for like a day and then I immediately sat down in a Starbucks and pitched it to like different tech publications. And I got some press out of it. It was kind of cool.
Didn't get a job. So that didn't work. But like, you know, I think that's the thing is just like getting into this industry, especially in this economy, in this job market, which is so tough these days, I think 10 steps ahead. If AI is a thing today, what's it going to be tomorrow?
You know, so just look for new pieces of technology, new sort of like cultural goal posts and things like that. Like what can you find? Yeah. No, it's like don't run away from it.
You sell it, you're the expert and utilizing it and you bring that special edge. And that's you using the technology to geofence. It's the same kind of thing. It's like what layers do you add to the inevitable that make you different?
And I think that just you don't want to put up a hard stance one right or the other because I think that that is where people get overwhelmed. So you answer it perfectly. Yeah. Great.
Well, Eric, thank you so much for sharing your journey with us. We're so grateful for your time and insights. And we hope everyone listening will embrace change, be proactive and keep your heart in your work. Thank you all for listening.
We'll see you all next time.