A short bonus episode showcasing a few stand out moments from this weeks guest interview with Vikki Ross. 

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[00:00:00] Hey, welcome to the bonus episode of the Daring Creativity Podcast. This is the bonus episode number 20. I'm here to unpack some of the gems from this week's conversation, pulling out those moments that deserve a second look, and digging deeper what matters and what makes them special.

 This week a welcome back, Vikki Ross, and it was a great way to catch up on the latest views of the brand world in the times of AI automation and the latest technological advancements 

The episode that I published a few days ago was titled Dare to Question The Noise, and the whole conversation is packed of her observations of being a global tone of voice specialist working today.

If you haven't checked out a full interview yet, let me start with these four standout moments from our conversation. 

Vikki Ross: I think we've just gotta remember that we will always be human and AI will never be human. And so it will never be able to talk to another human, in a way that will be truly meaningful to someone. yes, it [00:01:00] can, it can tell them something interesting, although that's debatable because you have to fact check what it comes out with.

but if we want to make a difference in people's lives, then we have to respect what goes on in people's lives and talk to the truth of that. And AI can only do that at a surface level. so yeah, I think everyone needs to calm down on whether AI is good or not. It is good. It's fine. it's good enough, but who wants good enough?

 one of the reasons why I wanted to get Vikki back on the show was the fact that she has a great views on human creativity and how AI will never rise.

Some of the copy headlines that we see in advertising today, because her quote cuts through the AI panic with profound clarity about what makes. Communication effective. Vikki isn't dismissing AI's capabilities per se. She acknowledges that it can be [00:02:00] good enough, but she's identifying the fundamental limitations that no amount of training can actually overcome the absence of lived human experience.

Meaningful comms requires empathy. Born from shared human struggles, cultural understanding, developed through real world interaction. and emotional intelligence that come from having a heart. When the brand connects with someone on a deep level, it's because a human copywriter understood loneliness, joy, frustration, or aspiration from personal experience.

AI can pattern much these emotions from text, but it cannot feel them or genuinely understand their nuance impact on decision making and brand loyalty. and the reason why it matters more than ever before is because brands are being tempted to replace human creativity with efficiency.

Vikki Ross: Vikki's Reminder serves both as reassurance for creative professionals and warning for brands. if you optimize for good enough, [00:03:00] you'll create transactional relationships with customers rather than emotional connections that drive long-term value. I think social media has a lot to answer for in all sorts of ways, in everything. But with ai, in particular, I think the vibe is the economy is shit. Companies don't have any money. They're not paying for creatives because they can use ai and so that makes the creatives think, oh shit. I'm going to be out of a job or because they don't have a job, they can blame that on AI and it makes clients think, oh, everyone's using ai, so I should use ai.

But hardly anyone knows what to do with it. So I'm really enjoying the posts on social media that I see and that I've been seeing for the last six months. talking about copywriting specifically where a marketer has [00:04:00] said, I tried using AI for a campaign and it just didn't deliver.

So I've hired a copywriter or copywriter saying I lost a client to ai, but they didn't like what happened. So they got me back and. It's that noise is not as loud as the noise that is screaming. AI is taking our jobs and the industry publications are not helping. I find it irresponsible and insane that the industry publications run headlines.

Like AI is gonna wipe out creativity because who is that help? It's not helping anybody and it's unfounded. This was amazing revelation because yes, I think there is a ton of noise about AI and we have to question it. I've only just learned the other day that 95% of AI implementation. Has failed or totally failed to actually, bring any value to organizations, and that is [00:05:00] 95%. So when you think about Vikki's quote, it calls out dangerous pattern of fear mongering that's inflicting real psychological harm on creative professionals while benefiting.

No one. Vikki identifies the media's role in amplifying anxiety beyond what the actual reality of AI warrants. She's not mincing her words. She calls it irresponsible and insane, and I really appreciated those words because when you think about it, it is irresponsible and fucking insane.

The damage of these sensationalist headlines is threefold. They terrorize creatives who are already navigating uncertainty. They give clients full impressions that AI is more capable than it actually is. leading to poor business decisions most often, and they create a self-fulfilling prophecy where the noise about AI replacing humans.

Becomes louder than the evidence of AI actually succeeding [00:06:00] at creative work. What made Vikki's perspective particularly credible, is that she presented her talk. The robots aren't coming back in 20 19, 6 years ago in AI development time.

If AI were truly under verge of replacing human creativity, we would see far more evidence by now. Instead, we seeing brands trying AI being mostly disappointed and returning to human copywriters. but these stories don't generate clicks the way apocalyptic headlines do.

And this matters because industry publications have a responsibility to inform rather than and socialize When they prioritize engagements over accuracy, they contribute to mental health crisis among creatives, distort market perceptions and undermined very industry they claim to serve.

I do have a good look around because as much as it's important for me to know what a brand is up to, it's equally as important to know how a consumer or a [00:07:00] fan is thinking and feeling about the brand or the product. 'cause if I'm trying to find a voice for the brand to talk to them in, it's gotta be in one that's going to mean something to them.

so yeah, I do a lot of that. And then when I do talks and workshops, I do always say to whoever I'm talking to, you have a free focus group at your fingertips 24 7. You can see what your, audience is, as I say, thinking and feeling at any point. So to ignore them when they're expressing themselves without you asking them to, is foolish.This moment reveals a blind spot in modern marketing strategy. Brands spend thousands on formal research while ignoring the constant stream of authentic feedback happening organically on social platforms, review sites and forums.

Vikki reframes social listening, not as optional market research, but as continuously available resource that Brands are foolish to neglect. What makes this particularly powerful is the phrase without asking. [00:08:00] This is unsolicited, unfiltered truth.

when people discuss brands in their own spaces, they reveal what actually matters to them. Not what they think researchers wants to hear. They use their own language expose their own real frustration, and demonstrate what genuinely excites them for copywriters and brand strategies, this quote emphasizes that finding an authentic voice isn't about creative intention in isolation.

It's about listening deeply to how we audience already thinks and speaks. The most effective brand voice. Don't talk at people. They reflect people's own thoughts and feelings back to them in ways that feel validating and understood. Ignoring these real time intelligence means creating brand communications in vacuum disconnected from the very people you're trying to reach.

Vikki Ross: And the last moment,in 2019 I did a talk at a really big conference and for some reason, 'cause it wasn't in my wheelhouse [00:09:00] at all at the time, I decided to call the talk.

The robots aren't coming in which I presented the case that AI cannot create adverts, and write copy like real people do. That was six years ago. That's six years in AI years is like 5,000 lifetimes. We're not there yet. I just don't, I just can't see that it's going to completely take over. it is just not good enough.

And you know what, the clients that do think it's good enough, they were writing their own copy or didn't value copy or didn't know what good copy looked like before the whole AI noise came about. So we didn't wanna work for them or we weren't working for them anyway. So I don't feel like we've lost much.

other than, the effect on people's mental health has got worse.

It was really great to hear how Vikki reframed AI as a threat [00:10:00] narrative with remarkable clarity. Vikki wasn't denying, and I think Vikki's observation about how some clients are choosing AI over human copywriters was always revealing that this represents a clarification of the market rather than a distraction of it.

The insight here is that the quality focused creatives have always struggled with clients who don't understand or value craft. These clients can see copywriting as a commodity, words on a page that just need to be good enough.

They were already writing their own copy. they were already writing their inadequate copy, hiring the cheapest freelancers or treating copywriting. As an afterthought, AI hasn't created this problem. It's simply given these clients a new tool that matches their existing low standards. and this matters because it liberates creative professionals from competing on wrong battlefield.

Instead of panicking about losing clients through ai, skilled copywriters can [00:11:00] focus on serving clients who understand that effective communication requires human insight. Cultural fluency and emotional intelligence. The separation of the market, those who value crowd versus who don't, is actually healthy for the industry.

The quote also contains a subtle confidence that's essential for creative professionals navigating technological change. Know your worth when you're excellent at what you do.

Serve clients who appreciate the excellence. You're not competing with good enough. You're operating with different category entirely. This mindset shift from defensive fear to confident focus is perhaps the most important lesson for any creative facing disruption.

Thank you for joining me on this bonus episode. I hope that you also check out a full episode and full interview with Vikki Rose. It's always so great to chat to Vikki about what she does and how she sees the world, and we [00:12:00] definitely need more people like her to stand on the right side of the equation right now.

Thanks for being here, and I'll see you on the next one. Thank you.