THE AI ADVANTAGE Issue No. 13

To AI or Not AI: Is It Even a Question?

THIS WEEK IN AI

A Search Engine Goes Viral for Saying "No" to AI

For once, a tech company made headlines not for the AI it added, but for the AI it let people turn off.

After Google rebuilt its search around AI answers last month, a group of people revolted. They don't want a robot summarizing the internet for them. They wanted blue links and their own two eyes. (Some people don't like change, especially when AI is involved.) They voiced thier opinion by heading over to DuckDuckGo. Get this, traffic to the company's AI-free search page roughly tripled and U.S. installs spiked around 30 percent in a matter of days. Well, someone at DuckDuckGo was paying attention to the data 9as they should) and had a thought. If this may people are anti AI, let's use this to our advantage. They rolled out browser extensions that let you make "no AI" your permanent default, and posted "It's time to Fire Google" like they had been waiting years to say it.

Here's the plot twist we love. DuckDuckGo is not actually anti-AI. They run their own AI chatbot. They sell an AI subscription. They are using AI behind the scenes like everyone else.

What they actually did was read the data, spot a group of people who suddenly felt seen by them, and run a fast, focused campaign aimed right at them.

OPINION

It's a Campaign, Not a Whole New Business

We are firmly in the to-AI camp around here (have you met us). But this week got me thinking about what DuckDuckGo was REALLY doing by leaning into the No-AI message.

Their marketing department saw the spike in numbers and said we need to capitalise on this, as any smart business would. What they DIDN'T do was decide to change their WHOLE business to try and capitalise on this. They didn't get rid of their AI features elsewhere. They just developed a marketing campaign around their AI-free search page with "no AI" extensions and the "Fire Google" messaging. 

And it's working! This is what I was just talking about on IG in last week's post when I mentioned BOLD branding and the 5 things you can do to have a bold brand. One of them is being willing to say the thing others are scared to say out loud, then put it on a billboard.

When you see a market for something, you can run a focused campaign around the one message that is clearly landing.

This is how professional marketers think. I don't expect you to naturally think about these things because you aren't a marketing specialist, but if you are a business owner without a marketing department, it's time to start thinking like a marketer. So next time, when you notice something resonating, a certain phrase, a type of client who keeps showing up, a problem people mention over and over, you don't have to overhaul your brand to chase it. You run a focused, pointed, often temporary campaign aimed straight at the people lighting up. It's low risk too, because if it flops, your real business is sitting exactly where you left it.

Your marketing message is allowed to shift from season to season, with what's on trend, with whatever your audience is fired up about this month. That isn't you being flaky or inconsistent. The core of your business stays put, your bold positioning, the enemy of your brand, what you actually stand for, what you sell. The message wrapped around it is what adjusts for the moment. You're marketing the business you already have in a way that meets the trend while the iron is hot.

Take the cola wars. In 1975, Pepsi ran the Pepsi Challenge: blind taste tests at malls where people kept picking Pepsi over Coke. Pepsi didn't change a single thing about their company. They ran one bold, focused campaign aimed straight at Coke, and it put them on the map. Coca-Cola, meanwhile, panicked. Instead of answering with a campaign of their own, they changed the actual product and launched New Coke in 1985. It flopped so hard they brought the original recipe back within months. The lesson? Don't CHANGE your business, come up with a better campaign! 

What is everyone making a scene about in your world?

What are they saying or complaining about in the comments? Are they saying they are tired of feeling like a number, tired of talking to a bot, tired of being "coached" by someone who quietly handed the whole relationship to AI. If that's the drum your audience is beating, there's likely a campaign that can come from it. If your coaching has a human touch, use AI to run your analytics, draft your blogs, and clean up your site copy behind the scenes, but create a campaign around the fact that you refuse to use AI in your coaching. (I am not saying this is what your people are saying, you have to go do the market research, get into Reddit, the comments section of social and see what people are saying, hating, or craving, and make a campaign around it. 

TRY THIS IN AI THIS WEEK

The "Find Your Gap" Prompt

Someone at DuckDuckGo was able to spot an angle no one else was talking about, and now it's your turn, except we're going to have AI do the digging for you. I have shared two prompts below, depending on what you're working with.

AI Level one: If you're just using an AI chat.

Jump into Claude, ChatGPT, or whatever LLM you like to use, and open up a chat. Turn web search ON (so it's pulling real, current info instead of making things up), fill in the brackets, and paste this in:

(Quick note: if you've already uploaded your AI Brand Brain - Copy Edition into your LLM, you can skip the setup line, because it already knows your business. The Brand Brain - Copy Edition is the free welcome gift you get the second you join AI CLUB, which is just $5.55 a month.)

PROMPT

"You are a sharp market research strategist, and your job is to help me find a gap in my market that no one else is talking about. Here is my business: I run [type of business], I serve [who you serve], and the one thing that makes me different is [what makes you different].

Don't just summarize what you already know. Go out and dig through the real, current places where my people actually talk. Search Reddit and find the subreddits where my potential customers hang out, then read how they complain, what they wish existed, and the exact words they use. Do the same thing on Quora, in any niche forums, and in the public Facebook groups in my world. Read the comments under the most popular YouTube videos and social posts in my space, and pull up real customer reviews wherever my kind of buyer leaves them (Amazon, G2, Yelp, the app store). Then go study the actual websites and sales pages of three to five of my competitors [list them here, or have it find them for me].

Once you've done all of that, tell me: (1) what almost everyone in my space says in the exact same way, the stuff that's gone completely generic, (2) the one group of people, or the one desire, that nobody is speaking to or that everyone is speaking to badly, (3) three specific angles, messages, or content ideas I could own that my competitors aren't claiming, and (4) the single gap you'd bet a whole campaign on if you were me, and exactly why. Be specific, quote the real phrases you find out there, and skip the generic advice."

AI Level two: If you want it to read your actual emails.

The best customer language in the world can often be in your email support inbox or your own comment sections. There you will find the exact words your customers use when they email you or reply to your posts. A regular chat can't get in there, but a tool like Claude Cowork can get INTO your documents and accounts and read them for you. Connect your email and your social accounts, then run this:

PROMPT

"You are my market research strategist. Using everything you know about my business [or fill in: I run (type of business), I serve (who you serve), and what makes me different is (your differentiator)], I want you to find my gap using my own real customer language instead of generic web summaries. Go read through my recent customer and support emails, the replies and comments on my social posts, and any DMs or messages you can get to, and pull out the exact words my people use, the things they keep asking me for, and the frustrations that come up over and over again. Then cross-check all of that against what three to five of my competitors are saying on their websites, and what people are saying about my niche on Reddit and in the relevant groups. Finally, tell me: the three most overused messages in my industry, the two underserved groups or desires nobody is speaking to, the single positioning gap you'd bet a campaign on and exactly why, and three campaign angles I could actually run with, each one tied to something I really sell."

Read whatever comes back with a skeptical eye (it won't all be gold), but somewhere in there is almost always one angle you can grab and build a whole campaign around. Or it will give you a starting place and spark some creativity and maybe you will land on your own idea based off what it finds you. 

Not in the club yet? AI CLUB is $5.55 a month and it comes with the AI Brand Brain - Copy Edition as your welcome gift: a guided interview that teaches Claude your voice, your story, your clients, and your offers, then hands you ready-to-upload skill files so your AI actually sounds like you. Plus a bonus prompt and a member-only deal every week. Join AI CLUB here.

And if a friend forwarded you this, you can subscribe to The AI Advantage here.

XO Krissy (+ Claire)