12 February 2025
Here is a story of how generative AI enabled a media agency CEO to do the work of several people in a matter of days.
Dave Gaines was the CEO of Media By Mother when he was asked by a global multi-national client to deliver an RFI that led to an RFP just as the holiday break in December was beginning. Gaines refused to name the client but said that it was a large pitch, which would normally take a team at least a couple of days to put together.
Gaines said that AI in particular forces some changes which are necessary for us all. “AI will fundamentally change what it costs to ask a query. Sometimes, a customer asks a query and six or seven people have to sit down together and figure out the answer. And that’s just not necessary.”
Instead of ruining the holidays of his staff, Gaines sat with Chat GPT to get to work. Here’s what he did.
Why did you do this?
I was forced to write a proposal over Christmas, and I tried to avoid bothering anyone else at the agency. People needed a rest. I thought, “I’m going use this as a test to see if I can write a complete solution in two weeks.”
How did you begin the process?
I built a channel that I fed with books about strategy from authors I respect and from which I learned a great deal. I added strategies that I had written and that I thought were great, as well as work that we’ve won and that our clients have liked. I then created another channel that was about marketing and ad technologies. I created another channel that was about the evolution and dynamic content. I created another channel that was full of quarterly business reports from the client’s brief as well as all its competitors.
It took me two days to upload everything I would have read if I had the time. There’s way more information than I could possibly consume before a presentation. Things like quarterly earnings reports of all the activity of this company for the past three years and all its competitors.
I was amazed. If you use it as a research tool, and not just a search engine like Google, you can create a project. Then you can attach the libraries. It will then start pulling information from the channels you created.
What was the AI effort?
80% of the time, I think, was validation of things I needed clarification on. It is important to be granular. It managed to go through all my quarterly business reports, for example. I asked, “What are the real key drivers of revenue margin, and how can they be translated into KPIs that the CEOs will understand, not just the CMOS?” It then produced a matrix that showed how to measure the growth of a business. It broke it down into standard, luxury and premium (because it was in the category) as well as how you think of revenue allocation for the business by country. This was a global pitch. I sent back a RFI with answers on how we would tackle this in China. I didn’t even have teams in those markets. I sent this RFI and I didn’t really care if I won or lost. We’re unlikely to get it once they see that we are not a holding firm, but I want to know whether I can get through. All I needed was a designer at the end to make it look like we wanted.
What happened?
We did [get through]
They said this is fantastic — it’s exactly what we wanted. We didn’t get the final RFP because our offices aren’t in all of those countries.
How do you apply what you have learned to your agency?
At Mother, I’m starting a new course on how to use this as an additional stimulus and a partner. Stop being afraid — it won’t take your job. The person who takes over your job will know how to do the same thing I have been doing. Because I’ve scaled myself up by at least a 10 factor. I wrote a whole pitch by myself using Chat GPT.
https://digiday.com/?p=568488
