Is AI Making You a Worse Marketer? | Ben Feys, PrettyBoy
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Is AI making you a worse marketer?
AI makes you a worse marketer when you use it to skip work you never learned to do, and a better one when you use it to speed up work you already understand. Ben Feys runs PrettyBoy with one co-founder and holds every AI build to three tests: the result has to be measurable, it has to beat the alternative, and it has to save money. He automates research, planning and briefing on workflows he knows end to end, keeps people on the creative judgment, and tracks AI-made ads separately from human-made ads so the performance question gets settled by data.
In this episode, Andrew Foxwell and Will Sartorius ask Ben Feys, co-founder of PrettyBoy, how a two-person DTC brand uses AI to get more done without losing the skills that make the work good. Ben explains the three tests every AI build has to pass, why he tracks AI-made ads separately from human-made ads, and why he thinks human-written content could be a small brand's moat.
PrettyBoy is a men's skincare brand run by Ben and his co-founder Kevin Niehoff. Ben automated the brand's email workflow end to end with Claude, built a company brain on top of their ad, retention and creative data, and has strong opinions about where that stops paying off.
We discuss:
The three tests a two-person team uses to decide whether an AI build is worth it
Automating an email workflow with Claude, from performance analysis to briefs loaded into ClickUp
Why vibe coding your own version of a SaaS tool is misguided for most operators
How automating creative entirely makes you settle for "nice enough" ads
Tracking AI-workflow ads separately from human-workflow ads to see which actually perform
What a company brain is good for, and the two kinds of people who benefit most
Why AI works best for people who already know how to do the job
Why hiring for "Claude native" backfired, and what to hire for instead
How to use AI as a creative strategy teacher instead of a shortcut
Why going all in on human-made content could be a small brand's moat
Show site: https://www.ai-dtc-wtf.com/
Connect the Foxwell MCP to Claude or ChatGPT: https://www.foxwelldigital.com/mcp
Guest: Ben Feys, Co-Founder, PrettyBoy
PrettyBoy: https://www.yoprettyboy.com/
Ben on X: https://x.com/fenbeys
Ben on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-feys-23112950/
This Episode is sponsored by Motion's very own Runneth. Runneth is the AI Tool that is quickly becoming the go to decision maker brands turn to when it comes to creative decisions within their ad accounts. From Creative strategist to hook inspirations and creative briefs, runneth can do it all. See the case studies and try runneth yourself https://runneth.com/
AI DTC WTF is the show for brand owners, in-house advertisers and agency operators who use AI every day and want tactical workflows they can implement now. Published by Foxwell Digital: https://www.foxwelldigital.com/
To connect with Andrew Foxwell reach him here Andrew@FoxwellDigital.com
To connect with Will Sartorius DM him here https://x.com/will_sartorius
To connect with Thomas Moen DM him here https://x.com/thomasmoen
To learn more about Foxwell Founders and conversations like this one, go here: https://www.foxwellfounders.com
Learn more about Foxwell Digital and join our newsletter: https://www.foxwelldigital.com/email
Chapters
00:00 Is AI making you a worse marketer?
02:28 Automating an email workflow with Claude, from analysis to ClickUp briefs
05:16 Why vibe coding your own SaaS stack rarely pays off
07:00 Does automating ad creative make your ads worse?
08:55 What a company brain is good for, and who it helps most
15:29 Why AI works best when you already know how to do the job
19:54 Why hiring "Claude native" strategists backfired
23:25 What to look for in a creative strategist now
29:29 What running a DTC brand looks like a year from now
32:54 Why human-made content could be a small brand's moat
Transcript
Is AI Making You a Worse Marketer? | Ben Feys, PrettyBoy - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQesxp49GUY
Transcript:
(00:04) If you work in DOC and you use AI and you're wondering what the f is going on every week, this is your podcast. The AI TTOC WTF podcast, your home for tactical tips, strategies, and ideas that you can implement right now in your AI workflows to make your brand or agency more money. Welcome to another episode of AI DTOC WTF. I'm so glad to be with both of you.
(00:27) We have Ben here from Pretty Boy. We have Will here, co-host. Uh, and I'll be honest with you guys, kind of a hairy week, right? Like, it's smoky right now in the Midwest. It's smoky in New York. Uh, can't barely can't breathe outside. Um, Ben is obviously living his best life in California where I kind of still was to be honest with you.
(00:48) >> Um, but Ben reached out in the community. Ben is a community member of Foxville Founders and he w was talking about all of the crazy stuff that he's been doing. Has been putting some of it on X. If you don't follow Ben, we'll put that in the show notes. Make sure that you do that.
(01:02) Um about all the stuff that he's been doing with their small and lean team on AI. So um Ben, could you tell us and if you want to if you want to, by the way, like are a guy and need great facial products to keep up, you know, the the the mug that you have. Pretty boy is where it's at. But Ben, tell us about uh like what you've been doing with AI and what it's changed high level.
(01:24) >> Yeah. Um first off, thanks for having me on. Love Foxwell. love both of you guys. Um, I think, and this was one of the things I posted on on X probably now about 3 or 4 months ago, but similar to a lot of people, I think it was probably February or March for me when the new Claude models came out and it just like right out of the gate just seemed like, oh, something has changed here.
(01:49) Um and in that first moment it was I had asked to build some type of marketing model and it just it it generated the full model full calculations and made like an interactive artifact that you could like kind of maneuver an app and I was like oh wow like this is just like insane and so the first thing that I set out to do there um and I'd heard this from Craig Folds who's doing things at chat wall it's really cool some of the stuff I've learned in Foxwell was there's this concept of a creativity gap and that that gap now or that that concept has
(02:18) been more prevalent than ever, which is basically the only limitation to what you can build is just like what can you think of and then just figuring out how to do it. And so I kind of took that to heart and the first thing that I set out to do um because we were having some challenges with an email agency and I can kind of go through that more in depth if it's interesting was I'm just going to talk to Claude and that's the one I use mostly but using multiple of the models at this point but I'm just going to talk to Claude and explain a
(02:44) process that I would love to automate and I'm just going to ask how much of it can be automated. And so I walked through our entire email workflow. Like I'm responsible for email and when we work with agencies, I'm responsible for the agency side of that. And I basically just walked through and said, "Hey, like I really want to find out how we can not only analyze through the lens of kind of like a best-in-class retention marketer.
(03:05) Uh then go and plan the content that we need. And then for the content that we're planning, especially we're a skincare company, some of that content has to be more clinical or more educational. You can't be making like wild claims. like we wanted to still sound authoritative and have uh good credibility the claims we make.
(03:20) So, you know, build in a component of this that's going to make sure that we're not going way too far off base with what we say. Um, we want to then generate those briefs and then we want those briefs to get loaded into ClickUp. And I was like, how much this can you automate? And it just goes I can I can actually do that whole thing up until loading it into Claio and sending the campaign.
(03:36) I was like, wow. Like didn't think that was possible. And that was what unlocked some of these are going to be rudimentary concepts for people listening for you guys. But at the time like that's what unlocked the concept of like connectors for me. That's what unlocked the concept that like Claude can actually put really interesting information to metap fields in ClickUp and load that whole concept.
(03:55) So that was the first thing that we did. And the big thing that I mentioned you uh Andrew before coming on was it's very exciting right now and depending on where you're at in your company or what you do for work like you can get shiny object syndrome. And for me, we're a twoman team. Like anything that we do, like it has to be quantifiable and that it is genuinely making us more productive.
(04:15) It has to actually be doing better than what the alternative would be or it has to save us money. And that example kind of knocked on all three. Uh, one, we were able to save money. we rescoped um kind of our agency contract to be more leaning into what we had built on the AI side of things so that we actually had their like worldclass strategist managing the account and coming up with ideas not writing briefs like that's a waste of time um I think in that relationship it led to so that's rescoped us it led to us saving money
(04:45) then on the new scope and we were able to put out way more content than we were because like it takes a lot of time to do some of that research needed and there's an element of the research now that's still yes you need human intervention at certain points but I mean we all know like the name of the game with emails volume and so that was I think that was like one of the most exciting things um and then the second thing that we've really been working through is just building out that concept of a brand brain company brain
(05:10) and that's gotten pretty advanced here in the last like one or two months um and so doing some pretty fun stuff with that as well >> nice I I like the notion that you're focused on ROI right and we talk about this I think in every episode so it's just like very easy to go down like the sort of AI psychosis state and like be building for the sake of building and like feel like you're being productive because you have like 20 clawed chats running simultaneously.
(05:35) So I guess to that end, you know, I think this is, you know, particularly helpful for our listeners, like what is like sort of like one thing that you maybe built and like aren't using anymore because it like wasn't ROI and creative? Like what do you see other people like trying to build right now that like hasn't been helpful, but like it feels like you're being productive? Uh it's a great question. Uh two things come to mind.
(05:56) Uh one is less that we stopped doing it or stopped using it. But I think what you're seeing a lot of people and as soon as the these models came out like you saw it all over X, you saw it on LinkedIn like why would you ever pay for a SAS platform again? You can just vibe code the whole thing. And I think like that's like so misguided.
(06:13) There are people who have built very impressive products and they have like insanely smart minds behind them who actually do know how to code and are leveling up their ability to code by using AI. Um, but like the average person like you're not going to recreate a triple whale or a Northbeam.
(06:29) The average person is not going to re recreate like an MT an MTA kind of platform. um you might be able to jerry raig together something that feels productive to your point will but like at the end of the day you're going to start just kind of continuously encountering gaps and you're going to be spending so much time trying to fix it that it's like well how much should I just pay for the platform that does this really well and not worry about this especially I mean I'm on the product side and brand side for us the name of the game is go get more sales um and so
(06:52) like anything that takes us away from how we can be more efficient and getting more customers is really just like a total waste of time um the second one is something that we're going through right now via the Brand Brain Buildout, which is automating creative entirely and not like sorry, not automating it entirely, automating certain components of the creative process entirely to feel like you're just getting so much more output out.
(07:21) But when you do that, what I've noticed is you start to lose sight of all the little details that go into say like an ad. like you just like get all the outputs and you're willing to put up worse stuff because you got volume and you think volume matters. But each little time that you do that you kind of like watch your brain atrophy in real time.
(07:37) You go like that's not really the best ad I could have put out for this concept but it looks nice enough and like it's work it can throw it in the ad account and if you're someone who believes and just have thousands of ads in the ad account then like you could probably justify it. Um, but that's something that we're going through right now is like we have found serious limitations to where we're at personally and others may be further along or have have dialed this in.
(07:59) We've found limitations to where just running the creative process through an AI workflow entirely is very difficult to get what you want. And then you have to again to the first point I made like you have to beg the question of like well if you do have a really good graphic designer or you do have a really good video editor and then you just spend your time doing the research and writing as good of a brief as you can and then maybe run that through one or two passes of an AI that's trained on what you needed to be trained on. You're going to get better
(08:24) results and it can just sometimes feel really cool to like toss a prompt and manice and see like 40 ads come back in 10 minutes. But are you spending the same amount of time critiquing those ads that you would have if you had done it yourself? And that's why now like on our creative tracking process, like we're starting to actually track ads that were made entirely through the AI workflow differently than ads that were made via the human workflow because I think we do have to start figuring out like do these
(08:50) ads perform as good or better or do they perform as good or worse or just purely worse. >> What's your thesis on building a a a company brain? I mean I think this is a very popular topic right now and I think a lot of people are are doing this and and going through it and you know my thesis of this is basically that we as human beings feel that uh building an AI bra building a brain on top of ours allows us to sort of if if you if normally you see and your periphery vision is what is it uh not 180 but it's like 120 degrees or whatever it allows
(09:25) you to see you know a 360 almost right and allow cause you to be more aware of other situations that are happening in your business. And I think it's a sexy topic because it puts everything in one place. I feel like we as marketers sometimes at digital marketers feel like a lot of this stuff's all very disperate, right? There's like things in different places.
(09:42) You log into Claio, you log into to Northv, you log into motion and it's like in different places and the brain brings it all together and helps you synthesize this information in one place. Is that what is does that resonate with you or what's your thesis on this? because I think you are and your co-founder Kevin, you know, you guys are you guys are are are interesting business owners that you you don't accept the role of a traditional business owner like you are digital marketing and AI enabled business owners which is a different story. So like I'm
(10:10) wondering what layer it's going to unlock for you that you're sort of thinking about. >> Yeah. Um it's really funny you asked that. I talked a little bit about that with Grant yesterday, another Foxwell member, and I've been just thinking about this a lot, and it really boils down to what I said about the like brain atrophy thing.
(10:27) Um, so I'll give you like examples of the positive and examples of the negative. the the overall my opinion on the brand bra brand is I think these are going to ultimately become overall most likely net positives for certain specific types of people and those two types like kind of where I've landed on this is either people like myself and Kevin like very very very small teams who right now are trying to compete and win against bigger teams with a lot more resources and you have to find a way to still be able to produce what's needed
(10:56) not only on like you just have to be able to fulfill all your responsibilities And it's never been easier to start a business in the world that we all play in because of all the access we have to these various different tools. Not only AI just like I mean even contracted work and remote work and like the acceptance of people being you know working with outsourced people in different countries like that has changed the game in the same way that AI is and makes it easier for you as a as a small business owner. And the
(11:20) other is someone who's kind of on the other side of that where they're in the executive kind of suite of or very upper level manager management vice president whatever you want to call it in the or chart of bigger companies where they have done all of the work needed to get to the knowledge base they have and now again they're trying to just like you said compound on that knowledge and give them access to be able to do more with it and to give it to downstream to give it to their teams. So I think the brain
(11:45) is awesome. The concept of the brain is awesome. every single day when I talk like Kevin and I literally we basically do like every other day like an AI workshop but every time there's a kind of a caveat in that or a disclaimer that says like this is really exciting. Let's keep working on this.
(12:01) Like we have to constantly be on each other to not allow this to take over like the human element of what we've built and what we're capable of. Um and just kind of push ourselves to not allow that atrophy to happen. So some good examples of this is our brain. you mentioned some of the, you know, motion and, you know, we've got meta and we've got it trained on every single document that's kind of important internally.
(12:25) Um, so one thing that's great is if I'm making an ad or Kevin's making an ad, we can just go and call like, hey, I need the best review to marry up with this ad and because it has all of our reviews, it can spit out a verbatim review. That that just makes it easier. Like that does save time. >> Sure. >> Yeah. That's just faster.
(12:44) Um, we have a lot of our retention data like we use retention X. Um, like I can we use Outer Signal like I can go in there and call it and say, "Hey, um, for our top LTV persona, like what are the top five messaging talk tracks right now that are under represented in ad spend?" Um, and create the pairing like we track things by like angle, angle, category, persona, subpersona, skin concern.
(13:09) what is the pairing or the uh taxonomy that currently has gaps that we think there's a higher than likely chance would fulfill kind of like a need right now in the ad account and that's something that like yes you can do as a human but I think like the data if you understand data not as like a data analyst if you understand the concept of how to use data then being able to pull in all those disparate pieces of information easier does just save time and that's not necessarily like I don't think I'm meant to become a data analyst that's
(13:36) not going to help our company as much as having really creative ideas about how to sell a product and working with Kevin to do that. So those are like the positive examples. The negative examples are going into AI and saying I need 20 ad concepts this week. Write me 20 briefs. Five are iterations. Five are net new. Five are videos.
(13:55) And all of a sudden you're going and seeing okay it looks kind of similar. Um I'm I I feel like I'm overwhelmed this week with work. And so like I would just rather get volume out than kind of fall behind. And like slowly but surely those muscle memories do start to get eroded. And that's where I think it can kind of be concerning is if you treat the brain as this is my now this brain has replaced my brain so it can do everything I can do just as good as me.
(14:20) So I'm just going to rely on it and I'm only going to seek output. I think you go kind of down like a bad path. If you look at the brain and say you have all of this information that it's very difficult all of us in the day of information like the information era and the internet we consume so much. It's unrealistic to expect someone to be able to remember everything they need.
(14:40) And having tools that allow you to go and find something that you remember exists and you might even remember like directionally what it says, but you just need that like explanation and backup and sources. I think that's like a major win. Um, but again, that's cuz we're a very small team. Like we we have to do all of this stuff on our own right now.
(14:57) um and we could easily fall behind um to other people who are m who are getting better at that and being able to put out more and more intentionally. Yeah, I I totally resonate with what you're saying and and that's that's essentially like how I'm using it a lot is is that it's like a memory bank of you know of stuff that it's like what did I say about that like you know you know and how did I phrase that right with a call notes transcript or whatever to make sure that I'm being accurate to a member and what I'm saying or whatever. So I think I
(15:28) think that that is a that's a huge one. The interesting thing about it to me that I've been thinking about recently too is there's there you know we have the access to the information we have the access to data specifically and what's interesting is I don't know that we have a huge understanding of how the data or the data is only good as the plan that we have in place to that we're pushing it towards like and I feel like that's you know Matthew Gossi put out a great newsletter um recently that was basically that says you know AI is
(15:59) making us worse marketers. And a huge part of it was his point of yeah it's it's it's not you're not thinking through this, you're just doing. And I think that if somebody asked me today like what are the human elements that need to be in the organization? It's the strategy of like this is why we're doing this.
(16:20) This is how we plan to assess this and here's what the data will allow us to plug in. So it's like you almost have to have the you know a framework before you start right of before you start on the task because otherwise I feel like the amount of stuff that you get is like it's cool but it's >> super overwhelming you know. Well, Matthew I think Matthew just did >> it for you >> to dude I totally agree and I think Matthew it might have been on Twitter today but he just put out like I think we can all remember it's right around that time I said Claude like you just
(16:49) went in and you got these like documents made for you but we all have experienced where you ask Claude something and then it spits out like a sevenpage PDF that's like very well formatted. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's what he said in his newsletter. It says nobody wants nobody wants your PDFs, >> dude.
(17:05) And it's hilarious cuz like I saw it and at first I looked at I like wow this is like amazing. I like sent one to Kevin. I was like, "Dude, check this out." But then you look at that and go, "This is so much wasted BS." Like there's just so much in here that I don't actually need. And so I think like to your point, and this is like something else I've thought a lot about, and I'd be curious how you guys have done this.
(17:21) And to be honest, I'm like, if anything, there's a part of me that's a tad jealous of people who have even more real world experience than I do leading into this because I just think for everyone who had to cut their what's the phrase? Cut their teeth. Cut their teeth. Yeah. For everyone who had to cut their teeth, do it. Yeah.
(17:35) I was like, what is that right? for everyone who had to cut their teeth doing this the really really hard way. This stuff is going to be most impactful to those people cuz you know you do know the right way. You know what you're doing. Um the people and I'm very I want like I'm nervous but at the same time we've watched humanity's ability to adapt when new things come out.
(17:56) So like the people I'm most worried for are the youngest people right now who they only know this and just what will that do for them as a whole and like how productable they be and like will they learn the skills and they'll learn new skills that like I didn't get a chance to learn. But all that to say is like one of the biggest things that I talk about when I talk to anyone about this or try to teach what I've learned other people is you're going to get the best results out of this.
(18:17) You mentioned like defining what the plan is. You're going to get the best results out of this if you knew what you were doing beforehand and you're just trying to reduce the amount of time you have to spend doing that one thing. So the best example I can give is like I've had AI platforms build me some relatively complex like financial things various different models marketing models those if you do not know one how to instruct it to build what you want and what inputs to use and how to define those inputs and then you don't know when it spits something out you don't
(18:45) have at least a base level knowledge of Excel to go and check the formulas that they're actually putting in there and make sure that those are right you don't know how to go spot check a couple of different outputs and say you're saying it's this I'm going to go do my own calcul population. Yes, that's directionally either it's spot on or it's directionally correct and I can see where the nuance would be.
(19:03) You also run the risk of just like acting on incorrect information. And so I think it's very important to your point, Andrew, of like you need to be able to define prior what you want the output to be and you need to know how you would get to that output and then you're basically walking it through how you would do this.
(19:20) But again, I'm good at Excel. I'm not investment banker level at Excel. It's more advantageous to me to have AI help me get what I want if I know what the end result is because I can guide it that way and it's just helping me with complex calculations and formulas that I may not have the skill set to do um than it is for me to again similar to um trying to learn to be a data analyst.
(19:42) Like I'm not I don't need to learn to be an investment banker level in Excel right now. Like that's not what's going to help my company. But I do need the outputs that that can generate. So, I have to at least know how I would get there, the questions to ask to make sure it comes out the right way. >> Yeah, I think that makes complete sense.
(19:57) Um, and speaking from experience as an exin investment banker, uh, >> yeah. Uh, I I think you're you're hitting the nail on the head and like this is less of a question and more so just like building on your point. It's like I again was like in a bit of like an AI psychosis state and where I was like if I build this system for my team like we will be unstoppable like you know this is you know I I've always taken a very analytical approach to marketing and like I have sort of a formula on like how to make winning ads
(20:29) right like you know you use ship 20% uh iterations 20% reskins oh sorry 60% iterations 20% reskins and 20% net new personas right you do that um and you know how do you do that You pull in ads, you tag them with persona, angle, emotion, then you cross reference from Reddit and you say like, you know, what haven't I tested? So then you can find sort of net new personas in Reddit.
(20:51) And I did all of this and then I was like, okay, great. I can just like hire junior strategists to just like run this workflow. And like that was just like I guess my naive and like the outputs I got were just not thoughtful. And I think uh Ben to your point, it's like you need to be able to run everything that's happening in Claude on your own before you run it in Claude.
(21:12) And I think that is like a really core piece that people miss. And like again, I made this mistake in a job posting. I was like, you need to be claw native to like, you know, come work here. And then I got all these like junior people being like, I'm really good at claude. And then it was just like our outputs were atrocious because it was the work wasn't thoughtful.
(21:29) And so like now we sort of gone back to be like, okay, like we're going to start teaching creative strategy 101 and you can't touch Claude until you can generate briefs on your own. Um, so like again, at least where we are today, like Claude is definitely an amplifier and similar to you, like I've built like an agentic static flow, but like I only touch that like if an if the account's, you know, in a pinch.
(21:49) Um, or like we just like need more volume and like I've gotten it to be pretty good. I think the copyrightiting is like probably 90% of the way there and like that's still the last piece of the puzzle I'm working on. Um, but you know, in any event, it's just like you can't the market is full of people who think that they are a lot more powerful than they are.
(22:07) And I know I know that sounds sort of mean, but like I think that's just like, you know, a truthful folks a truth pill folks sort of need to need to swallow. Um, so I guess just like, you know, to that end, you know, if you were to sort of talk to folks that are maybe like learning creative strategy or like want to go work for a brand like you, like what should they be doing right now? like how can they be bettering their skill set uh to go you know work for Pretty Boy or you know an agency or a brand like what is like the most valuable thing you look for in people?
(22:42) We have an awesome tool that's a little bit of a secret and I'd like to tell you about it. It's called the Foxwell MCP. The Fox MCP connects into Claude, connects into your chat GPT Pro, and it gives you direct access to every single thing we've ever said in the Foxwell Founders community. Check it out at foxworld digital.com/mcp.
(23:02) It gives you access to every podcast transcript we've ever put out, every workshop, every course we've put forth. It's honestly very inexpensive for the value that you get. You could get it plugged in and say, "Put together a report on this account of what I could do better." I mean, it's endless what this MCP can do, and I encourage you to check it out today.
(23:22) foxhalldigital.com/mcp. We'd love to have you. >> Yeah. Wow, that's a really good question. Specifically to answer the what we would look for to work with someone like us, I think there's an element in this place to both the AI piece and anything you're talking about, which is just like you want selfstarters who are just genuinely motivated by the concept of like learning and education.
(23:43) And I know that sounds like super cliche and like most people would probably say that they are that. I don't think that's necessarily true. And again that to your point like maybe that sounds a little mean, but I think like there's a very big difference between people who say they'd like to learn, but what they really are saying is I'm excited to see the final result of this and I'm going to speed my way through until I can get to the result.
(24:04) And they may learn correctly throughout that time period, but they may also not. They may take shortcuts. they may copy off of other people's works or like kind of like just go in a direction that's the fastest path to output. Um, and then I think there's other people who, and this is not to toot my own horn, this is just like the way I sometimes like to learn is with even this AI stuff is like I'll get really excited.
(24:24) I'll go build something, but then I'll like take a couple steps back and say, okay, like do I really know what I did? And if I didn't, then like am I going to keep going down this route or do I need to learn the thing that I like kind of got that speed version of to the output? But like how important is it for me to learn the underlying things that I did? Um on the creative piece, I mean I think again I go back to just like the people who had to cut their teeth doing this the hard ways like there if you go I'm I'm actually watching Mad Men right now for
(24:49) the first time and it's been like so interesting to watch and like it makes me really excited about what we do and I miss that era. like I love to read like novels and I like reading fiction and non-fiction and so like one of the things that makes me the most sad is like that there is not as much of a place anymore for long-term cop or long long form copy.
(25:09) Um the whole you know I'm sure we both all of us saw the interview with like Ben Affleck and uh Matt Damon around how they had to like make that Netflix movie to basically account for the fact that nobody like pays attention. So you just have to repeat the themes like every like 2 minutes to make sure the people watching on their phones just like will remember it.
(25:27) And so I think like for people who are trying to learn creative strategy, the best way you could use AI for learning creative strategy is to just ask like what do the best like best in the world advertisers do? like what did the the Ogal like what did the people who cut their who like made their name in long form copy and really selling on emotion do to create really good ads and almost like use AI in that way as like an educator a professor to kind of like point you in the right direction of the concepts to learn and be your sounding board when you're just writing copy what
(25:56) I would want to see from people is like really understand how they approach research because research is still research has never been easier because of all these platforms but that doesn't mean it's good research So, like how do you research and not just like how do you go look at Facebook ad library or go look at motion? Like how do you take something that you think is winning or you're using inspiration and break down exactly why that would work? And I just saw someone post about this recently where it's like no matter if if you
(26:21) think that you're if you're duplicating an ad or you're making an iteration or a reskin, but you don't actually know why you think it is that that thing won, then you're really just kind of like retesting everything each time you do it because you're just assuming that you know what the reason was that that converted so well.
(26:38) And if you don't really and it's I guess it's kind of difficult to prove that you know that but I just think there's such a skill that goes into it and it's the people who had to do this for longer than we did and had to do it with the least amount of resources possible that breaks something down from what is the thing I'm trying to achieve and backing into each little step you need to have to kind of create that output.
(26:57) So really good research. How do you write really good copy that takes to your point Will and like Andrew, I'd be curious like your thoughts on this um on just like what you've done is like the copywriting piece of AI. I mean we fed it I fed it a 115page PDF of every single email campaign that we had written up until the point we started using AI.
(27:18) It's all pattern matching. So now it's going and seeing exactly how we do. Right. That got us the most dialed in of like what comes out after. And those wereund and however many emails of human written copy that was very intentional. And so that starts to kind of get you down that path. Yeah.
(27:34) Sorry, I feel like I kind of got like a little jumbled there, but I guess like in summary, it's really like I want to see people who are very motivated to learn concepts. Yes, being AI forward is obviously a plus. Like it's not going away. Um, but just like what is your desire to learn how these things work versus just being excited about how easily they can output stuff to you. on the creative stuff.
(27:52) It's like you just have to learn the fundamentals of how to make these good things. So Kevin, where he's really great, my co-founder is I mean he's made probably close to a thousand ads for us over the past four years. He knows how to make good ads. He's made banger ads. He's made a lot of loser ads. He knows what his process is to go make those.
(28:11) And if he can now translate that to an AI workflow that just gets him better ideas, refineses ideas, you know, really cuts down or makes more concise various hooks and and scripts and whatnot, like then that's a win. But like I don't think that someone going in and just being like, "Write me 10 video briefs is going to just be consistently pumping out like banger ads unless they know how to do that from the start.
(28:31) " >> Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot that you said um in specifically around the long form creative piece. I think that there's never been a better time to do manually written long form creative. And you know, I mean, I think you can use AI to inform you based on historical stuff like you talked about, but I also think that using human intuition of what you know is going to resonate, I think, is really powerful.
(29:00) And I think it can be trained, but the you know I think about people like Harry Delme who we've had on the podcast before like going through and talking about not utilizing AI and it's basically like a I mean for everything like it's AI is enabling them to help write better scripts and everything but then they're like taking it and scripting it and saying all right this and then this and then this and and and I think that that that is really important.
(29:24) So it's it's interesting. It's kind of a it's kind of a big mix. There's a lot of ways that business owners can can do this, can go about it. Um, I guess my question is, you know, you've been you guys have had this business for a while. You're somebody that asks a lot of people, Ben, their opinions and how to do things and you're constantly changing and and refining way you guys do things.
(29:43) What is a way or or what do you think it's going to be like to be a business owner like a year from now with all this stuff? like >> what are the things that you think because it's already changed so significantly, right? What are the things that are going to shift um that you're maybe not aware of or I don't know or that you're you know that you're not you're kind of feeling like oh yeah you know what like that's going to get bigger.
(30:04) >> Um I guess I'm just curious. >> Yeah, it's other God you guys are asking like pretty hard-hitting questions here. Um these are good questions. >> You know this is what we're trying this is all I'm doing is asking questions that are in my head we don't have these on the brief. Okay. Like these are the thing.
(30:22) The reason that I started this podcast is I always tell people is because I don't know what the hell's going on and so I just ask people and have a curiosity of like what does this look like? >> Um, >> you know. >> Yeah, I totally feel you. So in the same way that it's never been easier to create something and start working on something because of that and again because I do believe there's certain people who are motivated by the outcomes they want to happen and there are certain people who are motivated by like they genuinely believe they're doing
(30:55) something different. They're doing it for the betterment of their customers. They're doing it betterment for society. Like they are motivated by different things. So even though it's a lot easier, it's going to be a lot harder to execute properly in a way that is going to lead to longevity. And so for us, this is something that we talk about a lot between Kevin and I.
(31:18) Um, you know, Andrew, I think you know, we're actually going through a rebrand later this year. And uh I won't get into the details of that too much cuz it's really irrelevant. But one of the things that we have always struggled with on meta is click rates. And I swear this will get to your question.
(31:35) We think that part of the rebrand's going to help with that. Just like initial interest seeing us in like the public forum. And one thing I say is like we've had a really hard go at it. You've been a major person who has helped us through that. And Foxwell's been a major reason that we've gotten through this. Some of the people in Foxwell have given us so much of their time during like our darkest days that we were able to get through.
(31:53) And I don't necessarily know if we would have without having people do that. And so what I'm really excited by is like if any of our assumptions are true about what comes with this rebrand. Um we have spent so much time doing the hard stuff that there is a chance it gets easier. I don't think it's going to become like easy.
(32:10) Uh this world's not easy at all, but I think there's a chance it get easier cuz we have had to focus on all of the mundane and all the really tedious stuff because sometimes like we were never the brand that just put an ad up in meta and just printed money. like we've always had to scratch and claw to make certain things work. And where I think this is going for business owners and just for business as a whole is like saturation is real, but there's always room for like every Kevin says this, like every Uber needs a lift.
(32:34) So, you're always going to be able to compete if you have something unique and different. People are never going to stop buying services, softwares, products, but it's going to be harder to stay in that game longer unless you're really, really good at doing kind of the fundamental things. And those are things that AI cannot replace in my opinion yet unless you have the knowledge to do so.
(32:55) And so where that lands or ends I guess for me is that one of the best ways that people will be able to be different in the next coming years is to intentionally resist the draw to make things easier. So not to throw shade, they're massive brand and they're doing very great and this is not throwing shade at all.
(33:15) Not that I have no idea if anyone would ever hear this from there, but like IMA is now releasing like kind of a lot of like what I would call like kind of like AI slop content on the platform. Now, they're already doing phenomenal and they're they just raised a boatload of money and like they seem like they're going to be fine and they've built something really special.
(33:31) But for the smaller people who may be trying to replicate IM8, that's not necessarily going to work unless you have the resources they do. unless you can go and acquire a customer for 300 bucks right out of the gate because of your funding and an LTV model that's going to take 12 to 24 months to kick in.
(33:46) And so the way that you're going to have to find to be different is or the way you're going to succeed is to find ways to intentionally resist trends at times and to just focus on your core competencies in a way that allows you to build a moat. And so I've said this to Kevin many times where it's like moving forward, man, like we may actually be able to carve out our unique moat and difference by like going all in on human produced content and finding a way to make that be the thing that's different because when I scroll through
(34:14) and see all these AI generated ads and we have AI ads in our account that have been top spenders for 6 months now, but like it all starts to feel the same. And so I think every couple years in ecom, I've been in this for 5 years, you've been doing this way longer, you see cycles.
(34:29) And I think sometimes you need to like zigg when others are zagging. Um, and right now I think the way to do that is going to be double down on humanity and human content and double down on the skills that if you can nail long- form copy and you can nail human written copy, like I believe that will have a net positive impact for you.
(34:46) And I believe that people will be able to start seeing that. Like we're we're all getting inundated with this. So, how do you be different? Well, you have to find a way to excel at something that's not what is as easy for people to excel at in the masses. >> Yeah. I mean, I think it's I was thinking about this when I saw something on X about this yesterday that really resonated with me that was like keep what's your plan? Keep stick to the plan >> and then see where it comes in because I think so much if you're swayed easily,
(35:13) which it's easy to do in this with AI, it's like it's stick to the plan and say, "Okay, can that help me achieve this goal?" That's that's the framework and I think that's a huge takeaway for me from this episode. So, I think it's really important. Um, Ben, thank you for joining us uh and for being here.
(35:29) We're grateful for you and we'll uh we'll look forward to a lot of people learning from this episode. >> Awesome. No, thank you guys. And shout out to Foxwell. I mean, seriously, without what you guys provided in the summer of 25, I genuinely like that was some of the darkest times for us. So, um this is a great community.
(35:46) I love this stuff. I love chatting about this stuff and um yeah, it's really exciting. I think everyone should lean into this as hard as they can because it's not going away. Like don't resist the calculator. Um but at the same time, like I think the people who will succeed the best are the ones who are able to kind of compartmentalize all of this and say like this is what this is really good at for this, but like I've got to be really good at this so I can show my excitement for AI, but I have to equally show the excitement for the things that are
(36:12) harder and require more mental power. And you're just going to have to kind of like keep it's the what what is it the the uh Ryan Holiday the only way through the I'm botching the quote but just like the only path forward is through and just like when things are tough like you got to steamroll through the hard things and yeah just it's not good as a human in my opinion to just like always seek the easy path like that just is very tough.
(36:39) So you just got to keep finding the ways to like challenge yourself and we're all being faced with that right now. So thank you guys for having me on. This was super fun. >> The only way to cut your teeth is The only way to cut your teeth is >> No, I didn't. >> Yeah. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. Sweet.
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