| Good morning, Marketer, feeling a little illogical today? When we interviewed JĆ³hann Benediktsson, Icelandairās digital marketing manager, for our story on the airlineās successful programmatic campaign, he told us this story about the limits of artificial intelligence. āWe tested out an AI solution through another company. The purpose of it was buying against keywords with machine thinking at the speed of a million people. āWhat we found out is that the AI was a bit too rational where we needed to work irrationally. In some cases, the AI would say you shouldnāt spend a lot on your brand name. But there are periods where we have a competing airline really close to our markets which is pitted against our brand and then we go into defensive mode. So then weād spend a higher percentage than we would normally on defending our own brand. āAnd there are times when a destination is underperforming for us. So we would invest more on it, be willing to lower the return on investment where the AI would be thinking like, āWhat are you doing? This doesnāt make sense.ā Itās thinking about the quickest steps towards a goal but that might not be what we need at that point. āThereās still a need for human beings.ā Constantine von Hoffman,
Managing Editor | 