The Director Behind the World's First AI Film at Tribeca Has a Message for Every Marketer

Well, hello, hello, hello! Welcome back to The Marketing Companion. My name is Sandy Carter, and we are going to have a great time today and learn a ton about the future of marketing. Another series on experience, and I've got a phenomenal guest, Michaela. We'll get to her in just one second. I just want to say that we are sponsored by Brevo. I use Brevo in my company. If you haven't used it, you better check it out. Amazing to keep in contact with your customers and great use of artificial intelligence. And then Semrush, which we also use at my company to track all of the new geo coming out from artificial intelligence. So check out both Semrush and Brevo, and the links will be in the show notes so you can take advantage of some of the offers that they have for you too. So let's get started. And I really want to talk for a little bit about your, your career, everything you've done. But first, can you just give us an introduction of who you are for people who may not know?

Of course. Hi all, my name is Mikayla Tronasky Holland. Sandy Carter, thank you so much for having me on the podcast today. I identify as a multi-dimensional storyteller and creator, which basically means I play in a lot of different mediums and I use a lot of different technology with a lot of different types of clients. You know, so my awards are Emmy Award-winning, Peabody-nominated. I've been recognized in the XR industry as an original voice in XR. I've been recognized in the immersive influencer industry as a Blue Loop immersive influencer. And so really, you know, the way I approach storytelling and story living and story branding is really from this perspective around, can the audience be engaged? Can the audience be impacted in ways that we don't just traditionally do. A lot of my work is thinking about making 2D experiences into 3D experiences or 360 experiences and giving audience really a feeling of being a part of a story.

Well, and I— we met, um, in Los Angeles together. We were at this super cool thing at USC, University of Southern Cal, where they have a great film school. And, uh, Michaela did the opening keynote. And what I thought was really cool was where you started, how you began as a Disney dancer, right, on a cruise ship?

That's right.

And how did that impact what you do today?

Yes, so my, my lore or my beginnings start when I dropped out of college to pursue my dance career. I performed and danced on Disney Cruise Line. I then went on to dance and perform at Disneyland and Legoland and SeaWorld. And I was 19. And so at this time I was very much soaking it all in, you know, I wasn't just dancing, I was learning from the guest services, from the hospitality, from the operations, from the design of the ships and the theme parks. And so for me, the way I approach what I wanted to do next in my life was say, wow, people can be entertained, people can have these transformative experiences on these places like cruise ships and theme parks, but can we do the same thing with stories that aren't necessarily seen as theme parks or they're not necessarily seen as cruise ships, right? And so that's really been my impetus since getting into storytelling beyond just dancing is to really think about how we leverage immersive interactive technology, how we leverage the right stories to be able to create the biggest and best impact on the audience.

Yeah, and you know, one of the things Michaela saw me, keynote right after her. One of my favorite quotes is, "If you tell me the facts, I'll believe, but if you tell me a story, it will live in my heart forever." It's one reason that I think we bonded at this conference in, in Los Angeles. So, so then let me, let me just ask you a couple of questions here that I think will help all the marketeers on the call today. So I, I call it the scroll is broken because ads today are skipped, emails, oh my gosh, I have so many emails right now and they go unread and attention is at an all-time low. So how does that immersive experience design give marketers a different entry point into their customer's world?

Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I often think of that idea of the scroll is broken, like you mentioned, it's a very passive form of consuming, right? It's a very passive form of being exposed to. And so, you know, the work that I'm thinking about is how we don't just let the audience be passive in a standpoint, right? They're not just being fed information. I really love the concept of engaging beyond just the like or the click or the share, and really thinking about how you can take the audience on some level of a journey or some level of a participatory experience. You know, and immersive or interactive experiences can be, you know, as big as what you're probably thinking on your side of the table as marketeers, like experiences experiential physical activations, but they could also be something like creating some level of disruption in our day-to-day scrolling or our day-to-day advertising that we see. And, and that disruption can be that moment that like breaks the audience out of their day-to-day, like habits. And that disruption could even just be thinking about how you utilize social media as a treasure hunt tool, or how you utilize your, your daily scrollable ads to not just be a general click the thing to buy or go to the website, but actually think about a bigger, deeper call to action. Um, and so we're, to me, it's really about taking in aspects of immersive interactive design when you're usually supposed to be leaning back and letting the audience come to you as a marketeer and, and versus stepping into an actual conversation or an actual relationship with your audience in a deeper, um, more thoughtful way.

Hmm. Those are some good examples. You know, I just came back from South by Southwest and there were many physical experiences that you step into that I thought were really interesting this time. One from Amazon on a new movie coming out. You know, you went inside and you felt like you were in the movie with VR glasses and it was really, really, really interesting. But could you give me an example of somebody who's maybe not at a physical event but who's doing it digitally? Have you done anything like that that you think is just superb?

Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I think to me, when you think about a digital experience, you think about what's called like a wraparound material, right? So you can have the brand or the brand's website sort of be like the centric point of the whole experience. But I think about digital as like this wheel that sort of wraps around it. And so when I think about wraparound materials that I have personally been a part of, you know, I think about things like activations that happen from your phone, right? Like it's maybe not just an advertisement that plays on your TV, but maybe there's a QR code that pops up when people are sitting on their, on their couch and they wanna scan that QR code and continue to interact with the brand in some way, shape, or form. I think when you're thinking about creating a digital experience, it's making sure the audience is the protagonist without having them work too hard, right? So I've seen other, brand activations, you know, where they try to create a digital experience and the audience is either working really hard to uncover what it is they are trying to do, or the audience just doesn't want to engage in that super interactive way. And so one thing you can do is like a quick QR code scan that allows the audience to then take a quick survey of what it is they want to see, or how it is they want to see the experience unfold. This is something we did constantly at my work at the United Nations and Games for Change, where we were always making sure the audience felt like they had had a voice in the experience. Oh, I'm interested in learning more about my city versus learning more about my nation versus learning more about my county, right? And then based on their questions, we would sort of pair very specific answers to them. And so they felt like the experience was unique to them. And so, you know, one of my favorite marketing, um, one of my favorite marketing campaigns that I have interacted with recently was the Uber Eats marketing campaign for the Super Bowl where they allowed you to just choose 4 or 5 different like scenes from their commercial that featured 2 amazing celebrities. And then your commercial was sort of a more unique version of the commercial 'cause you got to choose the different scenes. And each scene of course was tied to, you know, french fries or chicken nuggets or hot sauce. And it was all centered around the Super Bowl. And I, and that to me, and we're gonna, I know we're gonna get there Sandy obviously, but that to me is where the opportunity for something like generative AI is really incredible for marketers because there is now a way where you can scale super duper personalized experiences to your audiences, whether you're leveraging generative tools or not. But that, that kind of idea of digital passive, not having to go physically somewhere, I think the way you really grab people now is making them feel unique, making them feel like a protagonist and not asking them to do too much work.

I love that. And I did love, I did love that Super Bowl commercial. That was That was awesome. That's a great, great example. So one of the things I loved when you told your story is you coined the term compassionate storytelling and you talked about it as an ethical framework. Ethical, which caught my attention for immersive media. I'm curious how marketers could apply that same principle to a campaign so they could build trust instead of just impressions. And, uh, Michaela, you know, you and I both know that trust is like, I mean, it's like the new competitive advantage. You, you have to be trusted. You always had to be trusted, but more so now with AI popping into the scene.

Yeah, that's a great question. So for me, the compassionate storytelling framework is really this concept of, A, how do we imbue compassion internally to our team? So it's not just what the people see externally from a brand perspective, but it's how are we employing a team of people to execute this marketing strategy? What kind of timelines are we implementing? What kind of budgets are we implementing? Is this a very like, and it might sound a little bit like, why does that matter? The audience doesn't see these kinds of behind the scenes, back of house types of things. But I'm a firm believer that the audience can feel and the audience can understand when a project has a lot of support and passion and a lot of people behind the scenes that are very happy and excited to work on the project, whether it is something very emotional and heartfelt or something even more general and sort of to the point. I think if you take care of your internal team, they will help you better take care of your audience, right? And so that's the one pillar of compassionate storytelling. The other pillar of compassionate storytelling is that whatever story you're telling, the hope is that it is leaving the audience better than when you found them. And even if you're having to market things that are very uncomfortable, right? Like for example, you know, a lot of the work I early did, a lot of my early work I did in social impact was around really intense subjects like gun violence and nuclear weapons threat and extractive technology. So I understand that marketing doesn't have to always be about rainbows and sunshines and butterflies. And sometimes it does have to get to a certain point for people. But how do you do that? How do you make the audience feel comfortable with being uncomfortable? How do you make sure the audience doesn't feel extracted from but they feel like they were a part of the whole process of getting them to buy or that they were seen in the process of getting them to buy. That's the other pillar of compassionate storytelling. And so really for me, it's how can we make sure the audience is better than when we found them? Are they better informed? Are they better energized? Are they better equipped? Right? These are all the power that you have and we have as marketers and storytellers in this day and age. And I really think I think this does 100% apply so much more to immersive experiences where people can very much be psychologically, you know, impacted by what they see in a VR headset. Or like you were mentioning, Sandy Carter, I think this definitely also applies to certain generative tools where audiences don't like being fooled, right? If they're thinking, oh, this might have been made with generative AI, or they're thinking, oh, is this an AI? A great example, I think, sometimes is call centers. If they're like, am I talking to a human? Am I talking to an AI? This is all that compassionate relationship that you're building with your audience, right? If your audience is emailing your company and they don't feel like they're being taken care of by a human on the other side of that email, or if they're calling and they're not being directed to somebody who can really help them with their issue on a timely basis, in a timely manner, Like these are all ways that you can build a compassionate or empathetic relationship. And those things sometimes go much farther than just an advertisement, right? Like I think a great example for me, and I will wrap up this point 'cause I know I've been pontificating. No, that's fine. Is, you know, I'm a firm believer that if I have a great experience as an audience member, I'm gonna go back to that brand again and again. And so I'll give example of like 3 different brands that are more physical and then a brand an example of a brand that's more digital. So I have great experiences every time with the Delta Airlines app. I have great experience with the Delta Airlines crew. I have a great experience with the Delta Airlines customer service. I am a very loyal member to Delta Airlines. If I can fly any airline, it will always be Delta. And so I think that's a great example of ways that I feel like that brand has connected me to them loyally. Um, another great example is the gym Equinox, which is very different than Delta, but every time I'm on the Equinox app, every time I'm in an Equinox Knocks Club, there's a consistency to the execution of experience that I really enjoy. Now, there was a really interesting example of a digital brand called Gofa, which is a courier brand. And I was very skeptical because I emailed them to say, "Hey, I think I've lost my package." And within 5 minutes they emailed me back and they were like, "Hey, let's help you." Their website was very helpful. Their chatbot was very helpful. Their online assistant was very helpful. And I was very impressed because that wasn't me interacting with people. That was really me interacting with bots. But the way it was set up, the experience it was set up as— your audience, if you want to make them feel like they are a loyal customer to your brand and you are experimenting with different aspects of digital technology and marketing technology, really think about the audience experience first. You want to remove as much friction as possible. Possible to build those loyal customers and to have that empathetic, compassionate experience for them.

Those are some good examples. You know, one I thought of immediately when you talked about a great experience and working with your employees was the Ritz. Um, and when I worked at IBM, we had the Ritz come in and they give authority to all of their employees to make sure that they have the capability of satisfying you up to— I don't— I can't remember the number, but it was like a big number, like $1,000 that all the employees get. And my experience was I was staying at a Ritz and I left my passport. I was headed to the airport, I was barely gonna make it, and I realized once I got to the airport, I forgot my passport. I had laid it on the counter. Well, 5 minutes later, I was on the phone with the Ritz and here comes a guy, the the customer front desk guy comes running in with my passport. And I was just so impressed with that, that he had the authority. He didn't have to ask his manager, can I go jump in a cab? Can I pay for the cab? Can I go get her at the airport? He just did it because he knew he was going to be supported. And that's made me loyal to the Ritz because of the way that they, you know, the way that they handled that. Michaela, I think you made another really good point too, which was you were talking about all these touchpoints. All those touchpoints for me are marketing. And I know some people feel like, oh, you know, marketing is like the brand. I'm doing the brand advertising and the, you know, the promotion. But all those touchpoints, customer service and AI agents serving you, how quickly someone gets back to you, all those are touchpoints for a brand, right? Do you want to expand on that? Because, because you didn't make a differentiation. You didn't say, oh, marketing owns this, and you were like, this is the experience, all-encompassing.

Yeah, I mean, for me, marketing really enables story branding, right? And so story branding is literally any time an audience member is touching your brand or being connected to your brand or being exposed to your brand in any way, shape, or form. And I think actually, like you were saying, Sandy, experience design for your audience members when it comes to what happens when they're having a problem or what happens when they need some support or what happens when they need some answers. That to me is the most important piece of the marketing because you can show all of the different values that your, your company has through really flashy commercials. You can show all the brands and values that your audience could get out of becoming a customer, but if you don't actually execute those brands and those values, those tentpole statements all the way through the experience that the audience has with it from first clicking on their website link or first walking into the brick and mortar all the way through until final purchase and even after final purchase. I just, and I think maybe that to me is my Disney background. You know, like you think about Disney, it's like the theme park isn't just the marketing, the toys are not just the marketing, the films are not just the marketing. It's a holistic story that's interwoven in all these different ways to make you be like, "Oh, every time I think about Disney, I get a warm fuzzy." And for some people it's because of Cinderella and some people it's because of Star Wars. And for some people it's because of a roller coaster or a cruise ship. But all those touchpoints, like you were saying, Sandy, are that center heartbeat of that Disney brand. And for some people it's that I just love the fact that cast members, like you said, feel empowered to help me, support me, remember my name, welcome me back every time I'm there. And I like to say, you know, And I know we're going to get there. I'm not trying to jump ahead, but for experience design, yeah. One of the most important parts of experience design and the way marketing can learn from experience design is really when it comes to people. It comes down to your first line of offense and defense with your audience is the way you train your people and how those people feel, like you said, empowered, how those people feel embodied how those people think they know the brand because they are the way your brand is represented. You know, I walk into certain stores and I don't want to stay in that store. And it's not because the store is not beautiful. It's not because the branding's not beautiful. It's not because the merchandise and the posters aren't beautiful. It's because of the staff that's working inside of that store. So I just think that's a really important piece of the puzzle.

It is. And I love it because it's human. And everybody right now is so afraid of AI. And for me, this is such a big differentiator. And I think it shows for me why humans will always be part of the equation. You just can't substitute it. I still remember taking my two daughters. They were dressed in a Belle dress and a Cinderella dress. And we went to— no, Sleeping Beauty. We went to Disney and Belle came up and then the Beast came up and my daughter was terrified. She started crying. She thought the Beast was going to attack her. And Belle got out of line because, you know, they have this line where every— and she stepped out of line. She went and talked to my daughter. She held her hand. She walked her back over. And again, part of that story, right? She was in character and she helped my daughter. My daughter to this day loves Disney and loves the Disney parks because of Belle, whoever that Belle character was. That's right. That's a human touch, right? That's a human touch that you need. Well, if I look at what you've done, oh my gosh, you've done so many things. Meta, the UN, the Museum of Ice Cream. You create experiences for all these wildly different organizations. But what's the common thread that makes these experiences actually move people to act, to buy, or to believe, which I think is equally as important.

Hmm. You know, it's so funny because you say those names and of course they sound so disparate, right? But, and, but everything that you just said as how do you make them buy? How do you make them believe? How do you make them act? Those are all verbs, right? Those are all actions. And so for me, what all those things really have in common is agency, the ability for people to feel like they have a choice. The people have a choice to say, "Yes, I wanna go this direction," or, "No, I don't wanna go that direction." And you know, it could be as simple as, "Yes, I wanna buy a ticket to this museum of ice cream." "No, I don't wanna support this thing at the UN," or, "Yes, you know, I wanna get into a VR headset," right? But at the end of the day, the audience always has agency. You know, it, it, people need to feel like they matter. And I do think, you know, back to your point earlier, Sandy, about human, at the center, the idea of being scared or frightened, scared or resistant to AI is really because people feel like they're not going to matter anymore. And that fear is warranted in a lot of different ways. I mean, you know, I talked a little bit about it in my keynote, the history of technology and humanness. Quick aside, you know, there's a really interesting statement that Plato made to one of his apprentices about how he was anti the writing instrument, and he was anti the written word, and he was anti painting, because he's like, these instruments are going to replace humanity. You know, if you can write something down, you're going to forget it just as fast. If you can paint a scene, then you're going to not want to live in human reality anymore, looking at a painting of mountains versus experiencing the mountains, right? And so there is a very long history of humans We feel purposeful when we matter. We feel purposeful when our physical or digital or online presence or our buying power matters, right? And so I think, you know, a lot of this kind of hesitation is this idea that not only that AI is gonna replace, but also that AI is going to make you not important anymore. You're no longer gonna have an impact if an AI can say what you should and shouldn't spend your money on versus you feeling like you have agency agency over what you should and shouldn't spend your money on. And I think that's a really big point. You know, the Museum of Ice Cream wouldn't be what it is without the Sprinkle Pool. The UN wouldn't be what it is today without the UN Sustainable Development Goals, right?

So hang on. So the, the, uh, the ice cream. So talk about the Sprinkle Pool because it's one of my favorites, but maybe not everybody knows what that is. And that's a great experience.

Yeah. So the Museum of Ice Cream has this tent pool experience in all of their locations called the Sprinkle Pool, which is basically set up like a pool and it has a lot of sprinkles inside of it. And they've changed the sizes of the sprinkles, they've changed the density of the sprinkles, but every Museum of Ice Cream has this sprinkle pool. And it usually is at the end of the experience, a sort of a capstone moment, right? That idea that you can swim in sprinkles, right? And I think the biggest thing to note is that some people get right in the pool, some people stay outside of the pool, some people just want to take photos of their kids in the pool. Some people just want to touch a sprinkle and leave, you know, and that is a big thing about agency. It allows people to have that choice, right? It allows people to understand how much they do or do not want to engage with the brand. And that's really all it comes down to is like giving your audience agency and not being, and not being so, I think like controlling might be a good word, right? And again, this goes back to things like call centers, right? Where like, the audience is asking again and again, I need to speak to an agent, I need to speak to an agent. And your call center is set up where the audience is just continuing to talk to this bot or this AI. And it's just like, they wanna speak to a person, let them speak to a person. You're not giving them that agency they need. So you're causing frustration, you're causing irritation. I think the same thing if you create something with generative AI and it's not, you know, Is that a real person? Is that not a real person? I don't think we're at the point where people wanna play guessing games, right? So it's really important, I think, that we do our due diligence as marketers and storytellers to really be transparent with our audiences, make our audience feel like they matter before the machines, before the AIs, and that we give them agency.

So I'm, I'm curious what your take is about this. You know, GEICO and some other brands too, have started using AI-generated characters in their ads, and people have responded, you know, very passionately that they don't want AI-generated characters in the ads. I mean, other than like, you know, an animal or an animated object, but for people, they want to see people. Um, one big major brand said, we don't care, we're going to keep doing this because we think eventually this will be the accepted mode. What are your thoughts about that experience? Do you think that that matters, and how would you handle something like that as a marketer?

Hmm, that's a great question. You know, I think everyone's always going to have an opinion, right? You can make a very controversial commercial and people are going to have an opinion. I think as a marketer, it really comes down to what are the values of your brand, and that should be your guiding light to how you move forward, right? You know, if you're, if you're a brand that's based on a human-first approach, if you're a brand that's based on, you know, creating a good impact in the world, then maybe you shouldn't align yourself with generative AI technology, especially when it comes to replacing, you know, actors with generative technology, because you are going to alienate your audience from what your brand stands for. Right? I think if you are a brand that might have looser opinions about things like that, then I think it's really coming down to what you think you want your audience to feel. Like if you want your audience to feel a little frustrated and activated by the commercial to get them to talk about it online, then maybe that is a part of that marketing scheme you're going for. Then I would say, you know what? There's no law that says you have to disclose it's made with AI, so go ahead and go for it.. But if you are the kind of brand that wants people to not be activated in a negative sense, but be activated in a positive sense and, you know, say something like, we casted real people in this, in this commercial or something like that as a reversal to the AI discussion. I think it, as a marketer, for me, it's really coming down to the story and the story can be experienced in many different ways, right? Like you have a Universal Studios with Harry Potter versus the Star Wars, a Disney versus the princesses. It's, it's all different for different audiences and there's certain There are certain things that are appropriate for certain audiences that are not appropriate for other audiences. And it's your job as a marketer to be savvy and to be thoughtful and to navigate the waters around what you think is appropriate and not appropriate for your audience. Mm.

I think that's really good advice. And I love the fact that you kept coming back to the brand value. Um, at South By I was talking to a couple of retailers and boy, how different it was, right? I was talking to Walmart versus Patagonia. I mean, think about the brand values and the differences there. So obviously they're going to have different marketing and different activations and different experiences because of who their audience is as well. So you were one of the very first directors to premiere a film made with OpenAI's Sora at Tribeca. What does that tell marketers about how to use GenAI to produce richer, more immersive content faster and smarter? Did you use it as a creative accelerator or as a replacement?

Hmm, I always think of it as a way to automate or enhance, you know. I think sometimes some people want to use it as a replacement, and when I hear that, I get very cautionary because I don't think the tools are A, sophisticated enough or ready to be full replacement tools, right? I think you still will need a designer. You still will need some level of a copywriter. You will still need a storyteller, a scriptwriter, a storyboard artist, like all the things that you think about when you think about building or creating a campaign, you know, an analytics person. Like these are very key people that I don't think an AI is ready to replace. And if you try to use AI to replace them, Oftentimes I find that you are gonna get a little bit more headache in the long run, even if you're getting maybe some upfront interesting, like, um, ex— like, even if you're getting some quick shortcuts in the short term, you are going to get a long-term headache because it's— the reality is I don't think these tools are just quite there for full replacement. You always need a human. That being said, I do think that with generative AI tools, it goes back to what I was saying before, especially as someone who's playing in the tools all the time, is that this is a real opportunity for brands to very much personalize their content, their strategy to all the different platforms they're constantly having to navigate, right? The types of content you make for Facebook versus Instagram versus TikTok versus your website versus your your digital strategy on YouTube and your TV ad strategy on Amazon Prime streaming, right? Like marketers are constantly having to juggle so many platforms and I think generative AI is a really great way for you to be able to quickly create bespoke pieces of content, bespoke versions of your spot while also maintaining the value of having a team of people working on it and expanding the impact of their work. This is also coming back down to all the different audiences you have to reach. You know, I think of a really great example, like Apple is trying to market their new laptop to the Gen Z, Gen Alpha audience. And they have a whole different TikTok strategy for marketing this one laptop. And it's a very bespoke marketing strategy that is very anti-Apple, very anti-the brand, very anti— it's a very big step away from what they're known for and how they do it. But they saw the value in saying, we need to target this audience. Now, there are a lot of brands out there who probably have the same desire to target certain audiences in very specific ways. It's very hard to scale the work of a team, especially with budget and timeline and all the things that we deal with on a day-to-day basis. So I think utilizing Gen AI as a way to potentially exponentially grow your audience base by targeting certain audiences, by targeting certain platforms is very much viable in this day and age with these tools.

Why did you decide, I'm just curious, like why did you decide to do this Sora, this OpenAI Sora at Tribeca? Like was it, was it, you know, to showcase what the tools can do? Were you trying to reach a different audience? Were you Are you trying to prove a point of value of GenAI? What was your motive for doing that?

That's a great question. You know, my history with technology has very much been about if the story fits, then the technology needs to enhance or support the story. I very rarely use technology just for the sake of using it, especially because, again, I'm an artist, I'm a storyteller. And so my first foray into generative AI was when I created an installation about speculative futures. And it was a great tool because we were using generative AI as a metaphor for a speculative future. We were using the idea of grief and loss and like knowing that these people existed in the past and they could exist in the future, but we don't have connection to them because of things like you know, global history, and using Gen AI as that metaphor to say, there's something synthetic about imagining things we know existed versus seeing them in real life, knowing that they're still synthetic. And so I was like, wow, Gen AI is a very powerful tool. And then I was introduced to this program at Tribeca, and I was invited to be a part of it. I was one of 5 filmmakers. And, you know, this was a really unique opportunity to get access to the tool and to get access to, you know, this idea of premiering at a festival like Tribeca as a Tribeca alumni. And so, you know, it took me a few days to really wrap my head around what the implications of using the technology would be to create a film. And I decided that the reason I would make a film, and I continue to make films utilizing GenAI workflows is because there needs to be people who are building the case for humanity and building the case for humanity can also mean you are being wise about using the tools, you are educating yourself with the tools, you're creating creative work studies or case studies around the tools, and you are still injecting it with a lot of human artist So that was the first thing I did when I made my OpenAI Sora short film was I called two of my amazing animators that I've worked with. I've called my score composer who's also a sound designer. I called my friend who's a voiceover actor. I called my friend who's a creative technologist and I said, "We have to make a film with this untested technology. I need to go away and write a script." And how do we control what the technology can do versus what we know as humans we can do and making sure the two are fitting together and collaborating at the highest level so we can have a really great film at the end of the day. It wasn't about, oh cool, this access to this tool, let's just use it. It was how do we make a really great film? And I think every marketer should approach it that way, right? It's not about like, oh, how do we, you know, cut 7 people off our team by using AI? It's how can we help this AI make our team slightly more productive? Or how can we use this AI to reach more audience members than we've ever reached, right? I don't think the end goal should be about pure reduction of human labor or human presence. The idea should be the exponential growth of human creativity.

I love that. I think that's great. And I love the logic and the reason and, you know, kind of why you used AI tools. Um, it's kind of a related story, but this weekend I was at Duke in the master's program. I'm a Duke alumni and they had us judge a case competition. And it was really fascinating because the kids didn't use AI in their presentations. We had a rubric that we had to judge against. So we got all the judges together. Humanly, we spent an hour going through it, kind of fighting like who was number one, who was number two, et cetera. And at the end, we gut-checked it with AI. So we fed all their presentations in, we fed the rubric in, and we said, how would you rate them? And it was fascinating because the ratings came out exactly the same as what we had done as humans, but for different reasons. It was quite interesting to see the contrast. I think the big lesson there is we didn't walk in and say, we're going to just hang out here for an hour, drink margaritas. Let's feed it into AI and have it spit out. We as humans went through it, participated, wrote feedback up, and then had AI take a peek at it. And I think that's part of what you're doing. Like, what is the— what's the goal that you have for the technology and how can it make you better? Like, for us, it was just another point of validation versus how can it replace the human judges? For example, at this competition as well.

Yeah, and I think a big part of that is limit— like drawing the circle around what the AI should and shouldn't be doing, right? And I think that's, that's a very specific, you know, you and I could probably pontificate about that all day together. But I think that is something we as humans should constantly remember, is that we can draw a circle and say, this is where the AI sits and this is where we sit. And I know it doesn't feel that way right now because everyone is forcing it down our throats and it's everywhere and it's being marketed everywhere. But I do think there is, especially for managers and high-level people in corporate and high-level people in companies, you are sort of the leader that can say, here is the line we draw. I don't think it should just be full carte blanche. Like I don't use AI every day in my day-to-day life, like not for everything I do. Right. And if I'm using it, I might be using it as a creative tool. It's like, it's like opening Adobe Premiere Pro or opening Adobe After Effects or opening Canva, like I'm using it as a part of a creative suite, but I'm not using it to write all of my emails. I'm not using it to plan my own vacations. Like there are certain things I as a human, I'm like drawing the line to say, this is the thing that I want to do. These are things that I enjoy doing. These are the things that I as a brand stand for that I'm not going to just let AI come in and completely replace for me. And I think that's like a little bit of a personal thing, but I think it's also, shows also in a professional manner too.

Well, I think it's interesting. This morning I read that Mark Zuckerberg is creating an agent for him, and it's going to do some of his CEO roles. And I was thinking almost right to what you were chatting about, like, how do you draw a line about what you do? And people are all over the internet, they're like, oh, is he going to delegate my one-on-one to AI? How awful would that be? Like, I wouldn't get get to talk to him in person. So I think that, you know, drawing the circle around, especially for somebody like Mark, who's going to use this to help him manage a business, drawing a circle around, I'm going to do this, I will never give up this, and this is what I'm going to have AI to do, is a really great lesson for sure. I'm anxious to see where it comes out. So, you know, I've been a CMO many times before, and marketers live and die by their numbers, by their metrics. Asks, uh, how do you make the case for investing in an immersive or experiential campaign when the ROI is so much harder to track than a click? What do you recommend?

Yeah, I mean, and look, I, I, I get to kind of live more in the qualitative emotional world. I have created really strong case studies that show like a 75% return on impact through these immersive technologies. I have created really strong research case studies that show, you know, people feel emotionally more connected to something when they can experience it and they don't just consume it. And so there is a very real part of my work too that is about showing that return. But I tend to say, you know, it's about changing our mentality around impact. It's around changing our mentality around return on and really thinking about it being an investment in quality over quantity, right? Just because you get 6 million people watching your advertisement doesn't mean you're going to get, you know, the, the conversion over to actually buying the product, right? 6 million people could watch it and maybe only, you know, 5,000 people actually convert and buy the product. And so I wonder, you know, especially for me and experiential, I'm like, well, okay, so maybe only 5,000 people come to the event or come to the experiential or, you know, work with the digital technology with like an Uber Eats commercial. But after that, you know, over 3,500 of them come back to the Uber Eats app, or over 3,500 of them are now returning clients or returning buyers. Like, that to me again is quality over quantity. And I think the reason that way of thinking probably doesn't swing high for some people is because there is this concept that, well, if I reach more people, we'll get more people. And And that's to say, that's very valid in a marketing strategy. You want your brand name, your brand presence out in the world as much as possible. But the minute you're really thinking about creating those like lifelong customers, like we've been talking about, right? The, your daughter and Belle, me and Delta, you and the Ritz. Those lifelong customers are not made because of some piece of content they consumed. They're made because of the emotional experience they had with the brand that made them feel that made them feel taken care of, and that made them feel like, wow, this brand will go above and beyond for me as a customer, and give them agency to choose between them and other brands. And I really think that's what experience design comes down to, right? And again, it could be a hub with the spoke and wheel approach, right? You have your core brand, you have your core ideas of branding and marketing, and that is valid. But how can you think about all the different ways that hub could have a little spoke coming out of it. Maybe one spoke that is slightly smaller is experiential, or slightly bigger is R&D and like doing things that aren't just the norm. Because if you keep doing the same thing and you expect the same results— or sorry, if you keep doing the same thing and you expect a different result, that's to me a form of bad business, right? If you want to do a bigger, better result, you have to do something different. And why not experiment with experience design? Why not experiment with emerging technology? Why not experiment with something that pushes the envelope a little bit.

Yeah, that's so true. Um, you know, I have to tell you, when I was the CMO at IBM WebSphere, which was our largest brand at the time, we kept doing events and events and events, and we were thinking, if we just do for this big announcement another event, it's just going to be like everybody else's. So we deviated and we created a movie. Yes, I've created a movie. We created a movie for our product launch and we had a villain which was the product and our hero of course was the new product we created but we had people and characters and so we decided to do the movie and to set it in movie theaters and I have to tell you, Michaela, because we did something different, so many people came to our event, so many more people came, so many new customers came because they're like, What the hell is she doing? She's doing an IBM product launch in a movie theater with popcorn. This is crazy. And so it was quite fascinating that doing something different that was an experience, it created so many new customers for us. And then of course everybody wanted to recreate it and everybody wanted to do a movie. And that of course then defeats the purpose again, right? Because you're not being different again and what you're doing. So I thought that was really be an interesting case study to see how people responded and reacted to IBM being not IBM.

Hmm.

Well, so we're, we're down, you know, this conversation has just flown by. So I would love to know from you, what is one thing that marketers, everybody listening to this podcast, should steal from your immersive design? So if a brand marketer walked away from this conversation and applied just one thing from your world to next campaign, what would you want it to be?

Hmm. I mean, the audience journey, you know, and I know that marketers are thinking about the audience journey, but I just feel like the audience journey or the user journey has become sometimes so predictive. Like it's a newsletter email, it's a funnel, it's a this, it's a that. You know, and I just feel like audiences are very smart, you know, they're not necessarily looking to be fooled or they're not looking to do anything that is totally out of their normal. But I do think the audience journey, if you think about the audience as like a protagonist in a video game, right? You think about video games are able to maintain, you know, someone online for hours on end because they keep giving them not just obstacles to overcome, but also like rewards for every time they engage or every time they complete something. And I think that that is constantly missing in the experience of brands, right? You know, there's some things like rewards, there's some things like, you know, frequent flyer miles, but you know, there's just those other things along the way that could keep people engaged. For example, I'm going to go back to Delta. Every now and again, I'll fly on Delta and I'll go to my seat and there's a handwritten note from one of the attendants. Attendant saying, "Dear Michaela, thank you so much for being a, a gold or platinum medallion member. Thank you so much for flying with Delta. We hope you have a great flight with us." And that to me, like a video game or an experience design, that's like, you just dropped me a little, little 100 pieces of gold, right? Like even if it wasn't like something that took thousands of dollars and hundreds of, you know, minutes of people's time to make, it's just that one flight attendant writing me a small note. As an audience member, I feel engaged on my journey with Delta, right? I feel like connected to that journey with Delta. Even making things as frictionless as possible is really important to your audience quest, right? A great example of this would be, you know, when I called up Gofa and I was like, hey, I'm missing a package. And right away they were like, here's what we can do. Here's where you can find the photo. Here's some things you can help us with. If you don't feel comfortable sending us that, it's okay. Just let us know what you would like your next step to be. That to me is even an audience journey. And so yeah, that's the thing I would say for marketers. Think about your audience journey. Think of it as a holistic journey. I know it's a lot to take in. There's so many aspects of marketing, especially dependent on how big your brand is. But I promise if you start with one small change, especially if it comes to humanness, if it comes down to like writing the note or having your people at the brick and mortar greet people as they walk in or having your person in the call center be the first line defense as soon as the bot transfers them. You know, little things like that. I think the audience can feel that. The audience even subconsciously can feel it, even if they're not consciously aware of it. And it makes for a more loyal customer base and it makes for a better experience for everybody involved.

Hmm. And I have to end with, I was just reading the latest Gartner report and Gartner said that their prediction and that's what most of the Fortune 1000 companies look at is Gartner reports, is that customer experience will be the last form of pure competitive advantage when you create these experiences for people. And I was just sitting there thinking, I'm exec plat on American. I just reached 7 million miles on American and I got nothing. Like I didn't, I thought they were going to mail me something. I thought they were going to leave me a note. Nothing at all. And I was so disappointed that I called up Executive Plat and I said, you guys should think about this, like 7 freaking million miles. I think that's a lot. Anyway, so I love your story about Delta. I love everything that you do, Michaela. I'm a huge fan. I'm so glad I got to meet you in person and I'm so thankful for you spending time with our marketing podcast. This has been another great edition of the Marketing Companion. And again, if you guys want to reach out to Michaela, how would they reach out to you?

Yeah, the best way is just my website. It's my name, michaela-tarnaski-holland.com. You can email me at hello@michaelaholland.com. I'm also on LinkedIn. I'm very good about LinkedIn as well. It's just my name. So definitely lots of ways to find me. And Sandy, I'm happy to send you those links so you can drop them in the show notes as well.

I would love that. Thank you so much. And thank you again to Brevo and to SEMrush for being our sponsors, because that is how this show gets made. We really appreciate it. But their products are awesome. Try them out. I'm happy to walk you through how I use both of those products if you ever want to know. And again, thank you for joining us today. Michaela, thank you for joining us, and have a beautiful, beautiful rest of your week.

Thank you so much.

Thanks.

Okay, so with Riverside— yeah, I was gonna