Why AI Is Making Creative Strategists Lazy (And How to Fix It) | Hannah Houg & Matthew Gattozzi
In this episode, Andrew Foxwell and Brad Ploch sit down with Hannah Houg and Matthew Gattozzi to answer the question every team is quietly avoiding: how do you use AI for creative strategy without losing the judgment that makes ads work? The short answer is that you bring AI a hypothesis instead of asking it for one. You'll learn which four parts of the process to protect from AI entirely, why the briefing stage is where ad quality actually degrades, and how to give your strategists room to think without torching your output.
Hannah has built ads and campaigns for 300+ DTC brands. Matthew's studio has driven $100M+ in client revenue. Both use AI daily. Both have watched it quietly weaken the same muscle they get paid for.
We discuss:
Why every creative brief in the space suddenly looks the same
The difference between AI helping your research and AI writing your hypothesis
Why AI is good at following rules and bad at breaking them, and why that matters for scale
How Hannah lost the ability to write a script after a few months of AI-first drafting
What a genuinely good AI input looks like (and why it's built before you open the tool)
The one-sentence goal every brief needs before anyone writes a word
Why building 7 personas on a $10k/month budget is a math problem, not a strategy
What "deep context" actually means, and why most teams don't have it
Why the efficiency-vs-quality fight is a leadership conversation, not a tools conversation
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This episode is sponsored by Proppel, the hiring agency that has placed more than 75 employees for Foxwell Founders members. Get 10% off your first hire when you mention the Scalability School Podcast: https://www.weareproppel.com/foxwell-founders-proppel
This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It’s a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to www.northbeam.io/incrementality, they’re offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you!
To connect with Hannah Houg send a DM at: https://x.com/hannahhoug
To connect with Matthew Gattozzi send a DM at: https://x.com/MatthewGattozzi
To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email Andrew@foxwelldigital.com
To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch
To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck
Learn more about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com
Learn more about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com.
Chapters
00:00 Intro: why AI creative strategy is producing the same ads everywhere
04:08 Why every creative brief suddenly looks the same
07:18 What makes a great ad, and why AI can't break rules
10:22 Is research or briefing where AI actually hurts ad quality?
12:26 Why AI can't come up with the big idea
14:33 The danger of letting AI write your hypothesis
16:39 How AI quietly degrades your copywriting muscle
19:45 How to find an insight before you open AI
25:55 Why hyper-specific creative is winning on Meta right now
29:57 Why your team needs space to think, not more output
30:58 Has any LLM actually cracked ad copywriting?
33:00 Why creator talent match beats a perfect script
37:07 What a good AI input actually looks like
40:10 The one-sentence goal every creative brief needs
44:14 The persona trap that sinks small ad budgets
47:21 What "deep context" actually means
50:24 Why strategists want to slow down while owners push efficiency
53:27 Why this is a leadership problem, not a tools problem
56:32 Break your margins today for performance later
57:32 Bonus: the Michigan method
Full Transcript
Why AI Is Making Creative Strategists Lazy (And How to Fix It) | Hannah Houg & Matthew Gattozzi - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUtnSn0jNLI
Transcript:
(00:00) One of the biggest questions that comes up inside the Foxwell Founders community is around hiring. How do you know and how do you find great people that you can actually trust to do the job? That's why I want to talk to you about Propel. Propel has placed more than 75 employees for members of Foxwell Founders.
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(00:49) And honestly, the founder, Leandro, used to run an econ brand and performance marketing agency. So he gets it. That's one of the things I've always loved about Leandro and what I love about dealing with him. I have never even heard a negative review about working with them. One time, somebody said it wasn't working out and Leandro immediately replaced the candidate that he had put in the position for a person. That's like the only feedback I've ever heard.
(01:09) The way that they work is simple. It's performance-based. You only pay a one-off fee once you actually hire someone. There's no retainers, no ongoing costs, and every hire is backed by a three-month guarantee. So go to the show notes, check it out. Let me know what you think. And if you have questions about this, feel free to hit me up, Andrew at foxwelldigital.com. I'm happy to talk about it.
(01:27) If you go to the link in the show notes, you get 10% off your first hire with them. It's a great deal, really special for podcast listeners. So I look forward to hopefully helping your brand grow and scale. And now let's take a listen to the Scalability School podcast. Welcome to another episode of Scalability School. I mean, we have so much happening today.
(01:54) Honestly, this episode is going to be an absolutely wild one. First of all, we have Brad in his car because his kids are too loud and he's getting construction done at his house. Matthew Gattozzi is on the episode along with Anna Haug. This is a freaking insane episode. You need to just wherever you are, put on a seatbelt. If you don't, if you're not in a place where there is a seatbelt, you probably need to buy one. Brad, put a seatbelt on. Put a seatbelt on.
(02:19) Brad is literally putting a seatbelt on because we are going to just get into so much today. You know, the episode, I don't know if you guys remember this, but the episode is, is why AI is making creative strategists lazy and how to fix it, which is just, I mean, let's, let's like start some fights.
(02:39) I apparently is what our goal was with this. But the idea is really to kind of talk about AI in a real way as it relates to creative strategists and what's going on. And, you know, look, it's not a, it's like, it's so here, right? And we're all using it. And I think a lot of people are talking about this degradation of thinking and that's what we're into today. So welcome Hannah and Matthew and Brad, as always love you. So handsome.
(03:07) Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Live from, live from the car. Well, I think, I think both of you have like a really interesting perspective because we know that both of you use AI in your flows for sure. Right. Um, Hannah, you have some experience with Parker and you work with Parker and that's predominantly AI tool.
(03:24) Uh, and, and Matthew, I know we haven't talked too much about this, but like, I know you've used like definitely some backend tools, like help organize clips and things like that. And so it's not like we're saying don't use AI, but what we're saying is there's a, there's important parts of the process where you can't just outsource your thinking in your brain, uh, to AI completely.
(03:46) Uh, and so I think what we would love to just dig in with the both of you is, okay, how, where do those things differ? And if somebody walks away from this, I think they walk away saying, okay, I was doing that. That was dumb. I should stop doing this.
(04:01) And instead, this is where I insert my, my thinking brain or I hire some really smart person to help me with this part of the process because they just don't have the talent to do that. And so, um, I don't know there's anywhere in particular that you want to, either of you want to kick off on a hand. I know you have some, you have some thoughts on this, but, um, maybe where we get, maybe where it's worth starting with is just like, um, we can start with a simple, simple version of it is how good ads actually get made, or we could go right into the mistakes that people are making with AI. I don't know, uh, what, uh, what gets you more excited to talk about, but we can jump in in either direction.
(04:24) Yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, this is such a loaded and like new, um, new and upcoming problem in the scene that I feel like because AI is just like came through like a waterfall, we didn't really have a moment where we stopped and thought about anything before we started executing and just running wild with it.
(04:48) Sort of like the gold rush, which has been an incredible thing. But me as a strategist and as somebody who, who continues to write briefs and hooks and do audits brands and, uh, help them through their creative processes, um, it's been incredible just to see and to understand some of the common pitfalls that I'm noticing are weakening my creative judgment.
(05:12) And so this is really just coming from a place of personal experience, like anything that I say today as well, because, and I do just want to be honest about the process because I think that that's, that's, what's going to actually be able to help people understand how to best use it and when to also pull back and reserve their human judgment and, um, thinking processes.
(05:38) So yeah, there's a million different directions that I could go with this, but I think like the biggest thing that I'm just like feeling myself and also seeing from some of my other strategist friends and briefs I'm getting back from so-called strategists in the space, et cetera, is just, um, yeah, we're seeing a lot of the same sameness.
(06:04) And the only thing that I can really attribute that to is that, um, you know, we haven't, is that we're, we're degrading a muscle that might have already been there, was strategically there before and is slowly being, um, like off-put to AI over time. So that's kind of like my biggest thing that I'm seeing and, um, yeah, I have a lot of different experiences from like the research phase all the way through the entire journey of where, you know, common mistakes that I've found myself in as well as, um, I'm just keeping very close eyes on myself. So yeah, I don't know what your, uh, overall thoughts are Matthew from what you're seeing from your team, from the agency perspective.
(06:44) Um, I'm more of a siloed creative, uh, consultant and like more boutique agency. So I only deal with a handful of, you know, a small handful of clients, but, um, yeah, it's, it's been very something that I'm passionate about stopping before it gets too far. Uh, if that makes sense. So we can talk about what that kind of looks like here in this episode.
(07:07) Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I, I feel that I think it is really interesting to see how before it felt kind of dirty to use AI, like, especially like very early on, like even just a few years ago, felt like, uh, like, will people kind of see it as a bad thing that me as a service provider is using AI now it feels like it's stupid to not use it. Right. And it's also gotten way better.
(07:37) So it's definitely been this kind of this, this real big swing. Um, but I think what happens is, is that a lot of people, myself included, we think a lot about our workflows and how we're doing things and we want to be efficient. We want to be fast for our clients, et cetera.
(08:00) But I think, um, one thing that we always have to remember, and I think because we are so focused on creative at Goodo Studios is what actually has made great ads like in perpetuity. Um, so not even just thinking about in the last like year, but like what makes great ads. And it's usually when you can find an idea that can break through the noise, right. And can, can have something that is different, that is interesting, that usually breaks the rules. Um, and this is true.
(08:30) Like when you, when you think about like some of the best ad campaigns or whatever, they've done something, they had some sort of insight, they did something, they, they showed something that was very different. Right. And so I think that like, uh, AI is very good at following rules, right. But it's not good at breaking rules.
(08:53) And it, even if you're trying to prompt it, it has to kind of be confined in a certain space. And so I think what's happening oftentimes is that people are focused so much on efficiency and the creation of the ads and in the strategy and a lot of other facets that then they get a lot of ads out. And then they're thinking, well, why are we not hitting scale? Why are we not blank? And it's like, well, you need a different style. You need a different format.
(09:18) And usually your workflow is kind of set for a certain style or efficiency, like towards a certain way. And even if you took AI out of it, like, I still think that your team setup would kind of probably go the same route anyway. Like AI is just like making that even more obtuse.
(09:43) So the reality is, is that if you are not encouraging people to really have out there ideas and really get off of AI to do that, whether that's finding inspiration, trying to combine two different ideas from very different industries into one or whatever, if you're not teaching how to build formats and new ideas, then I don't think that AI can like really help you there. And I think that's what's getting missed for a lot of brands and agencies. And we're seeing that.
(10:13) And that's something that I've realized, like, we have to protect that. Or else, like, we're just going to be an efficiency shop. And that's not what Goodo Studios was built to do. And, you know, it's really about protecting the mission more so than anything else. So let's talk about this.
(10:34) So one is like, how do we go through and help people make better ads? Because I think right now, what's happened is you guys have talked about, you know, it comes, AI comes through and it's become a volume game. And it's like, how quickly can we get this stuff out? So where is the process being messed up? So I think right now, let's just as a creative strategist, what a lot of what people are doing is, you know, they're utilizing AI for research. And that I think that's okay. And I think that seems to be good.
(11:00) I think that where we have seen a degradation in quality of, and also like, help doesn't help in making a better ad is within the briefing process. I don't know what you guys think. But it's, it's almost like, there, you know, you look at somebody like who's Mr. Anti AI, like Harry Delmage, and he doesn't do any, you know, his team is like deeply researching. And that's, that's what that's what they're doing.
(11:29) And he talked about that in a previous episode. And so what are what do you guys see in terms of, you know, those that are actually making ads that are absolute bangers? You know, are they is it that they're researching, you know, manually, or they're using maybe AI little, and then they're briefing manually, as well? Or what is it? Yeah, for me, I mean, I, I'm with Matt on like, going back to the basics and keeping things very simple. Because those are the things that have worked time and time again.
(12:06) And so, like making sure that we're focused on just like, the basics of advertising principles, is it, is it real? Is it simple? Is it novel? Is it going to solve like the problem in the viewers mind? So those are like, from a very high level, some of the things I'm seeing, but I feel like right now, and I don't know, I feel like more of the thing that I've been heightened and aware of is what's making like, poor decisions and poor ads right now. And I know that that's crazy, because we always want to focus on like, what is making a good ad. But that's
(12:45) the whole point of even kind of like, my hypothesis around, around this is like, you, when it comes to AI, like, what I've realized it cannot do, is come up with the big idea, like, in plain old David Ogbe's like, understanding, and that's where I've seen it fall short, time and time again. So if you don't have a big idea, and you don't even have a format that you're like, thinking of between those two things, what do you actually really have? And so I've just seen like, this, this very ineffective form of prompting, hoping and doing
(13:29) all seemingly the right things with AI, finding extracting your personas, understanding and pulling out customer data to support it. But when it comes to like, actually building the ad, the literal idea, the connective tissue of it, like falls completely short. And that's just because AI doesn't have the opportunity to visualize an idea to an extent that the human mind can, we can find one really strong winner, and plug it into AI and say, like, hey, how can we make like multiple formats, and it will give us some like surface level ideas. But nothing will at this point in time, be able to beat
(14:12) the human ability to sit down and to understand all the different mechanisms from that audience perspective, format wise, that are possible within a simple ad. So right there, you're already breaking because you're leaving ads on potential ads on the table within something that's already worked before.
(14:43) And so I think like the the trap is like trying to use it to find not only yes, we're shortcutting thinking right now, which we can get into a little bit later. But we're also like shortcutting our end result or the open loop in our head, because the open loop becomes just efficiency, getting the ad out there versus like actually coming to AI with a true hypothesis. And now what I'm seeing is more and more strategists relying on AI to give them those hypothesis that are running their strategies.
(15:13) And I think that's such a dangerous game to play. And I have found myself. I found myself in that exact same trap before. And the the trade off is you're not able to validate. And if you don't have human mind that's able to validate, both with intuition and data, then you are you're you're walking, you're actually walking blind. So I don't know.
(15:41) Um, that's I'm, I'm super focused on the mistakes right now. Maybe that's just because I'm also building a tool that I'm able to really is like a red light of how people prompt and people work within these systems. Um, and it's, it can be alarming to see, um, what we're just so willing to accept without, um, and assume, and we already know what kills most ads are assumptions.
(16:15) And so if we are the ones that are prompting this tool and also taking those assumptions, then how much are we actually like leading on the table? Um, so it's something that I'm, I'm, I'm very cautious of. Um, and when it comes to making good ads, I have like, I know that sounds super kosher to say, go back to the basics, but this is what I mean. Like I do not go to AI to write a script first anymore.
(16:46) And I used to, um, I used to play around like that. We don't do that anymore because I realized, um, not just the quality of my copywriting or my scripts was degrading, but every time I would open up my laptop and try to go write a script, I would have a hard time doing it all of a sudden. And I've been doing this for five years.
(17:08) So then something, so where can this be attributed to? It can only be attributed to my brain knowing that there is a faster way of thinking, a more efficient way. And so for it to unlock from out of that, I actually have to untrain it already. And it's only been a few months since my mind's been operating this way.
(17:30) So I think it's just like really, really important to take a step back before you just like follow the races, which is what, which is the tendency and the, and the fear to continue moving on. Um, and that's how the best, the best ads are going to get made. And instead of like encouraging your team and making them like, understand how to be AI efficient, otherwise your job's going to get replaced.
(17:53) It's like, we actually have to be training the perfect balance of the two. And we don't know how to do that. Well, that is something that we actually have to use our brains to think about. Okay. I'm off my pedestal. No, that's good. It's good. And I think it'd be interesting to dig into. So I think there's, there's, there's the, there's the negative side of it, which I think is important to address.
(18:14) So people maybe stop making the mistakes that I think we're all seeing. So I think, uh, I think it'd be quick, cool to quick go around the horn and just say like, okay, this is something that we saw that specifically happened in the last week, or it's like, this is a really bad use of AI. And then we can kind of pivot into, okay.
(18:31) Um, like you mentioned, um, the idea, like actually having the idea and Matthew, you mentioned like finding the, finding the big idea and like actually knowing where to go to research that and come up with that. Uh, Harry talked about, uh, doom scrolling last time we, like last time we talked about this, just like doom scrolling organic. Uh, and so I'll kick it off with, uh, with some mistakes that I've seen.
(18:45) One of the, one of the things I've seen in the last like couple of weeks is, um, we've had folks who are just like, they do like, uh, how long is the ad analysis? And it's like, okay, uh, fit 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 60 seconds. And here's the, here's the efficiency associated with that.
(19:02) It's just like, okay, what's in the ad? Cause you could, you can make a static ad that, that converts extremely well and there's no, there's no motion to it. Um, and so it's like having, just going to AI and saying, what's the most effective length of like video is just like, okay, well you can tell a story in a second or, you know, if you have good copywriting or you can, you can over explain it over the course of three minutes and get nothing accomplished.
(19:20) Um, and so like, that's a specific use case where I've seen, uh, some issues happen like recently. And, um, that's a common one that pretty, pretty often pops up. Um, but maybe as you all think about your process and math, I'll kick it over to you. Like, as you think about your process, um, where do you like refuse to use AI because you've seen these mistakes? Um, just like what, uh, specific example for where you're seeing a pop up would be sweet. Yeah. I think, I think the, the, the big ideas, right. So I think the reason why people are
(19:49) struggling with AI is because they don't actually know their workflow to come up with content, right? Like let's take AI out of the picture. Like, let's say five years ago, how did you make an ad? We, you know, like it sounds ridiculous. I was just saying that, but it's true.
(20:11) Like what was the process, right? Like you'd have to like find things you're searching, you're thinking about the world. So I find that like, anytime somebody is like prompting, like Claude to be like, give me like, like whatever, put in, uh, the CSV of, of, you know, Facebook ads report and being like, they're, what are they going to do? Like find out like from the naming convention, like what the best like ad, uh, you know, is.
(20:39) And ultimately like the problem with that is that it's because it's only looking at what is exists now, but the best brands are always creating ideas that do not exist, right? That is how you get scale. And you think about like what makes, uh, any brand successful. It's when they can open up the aperture of their marketing funnel. And how do you do that? You have to go through new messages, new styles, new formats, not what is already existing currently.
(21:06) And I think that what I try to get my strategist to do is they they're going on walks during the day. They're taking notes, right? They're thinking about things. We want people to use AI when they already have that idea, um, or they already have certain things that then it can help in like go quicker.
(21:33) So for example, it could be, I know I need to do research about how the weighted blanket can affect a man's testosterone and deep sleep. Okay. I, I can't, I can't, I'm not going to go read a medical book about that, right? I'm going to go to AI for that, but I, I myself found that link. Oh, that's a new persona that we should hit on.
(21:57) If we get more specific there, maybe there's a link that we could do, right? So that's me doing dishes, thinking about that, trying to solve the problem for my client. Now I'm going to go to AI to do that. Or I have this visual that I saw, like this would be the most incredible hook. We're going to do this. Now, when I go to AI, I already am, I have the purpose. I am using it to maybe make things faster, but you've got to be able to, you know, go in and, and, and get, uh, ideas.
(22:22) The word taste comes up a lot. The problem with when people use taste and usually it's people without taste, but, um, the, the, the problem with that is to have taste, you have to have experiences, right? And so you've got to go and live life. You've got to go and watch reality TV, watch commercials, doom scroll, do all of the things, right? Like that is where you're going to get ideas to then connect it.
(22:48) And like Hannah was saying, like, there's this idea and the idea is the connective tissue across like the ad itself. And it's like, most people are just not like living life to do that. And I think they're just hoping that this almighty Claude is going to like prompt them into like success.
(23:11) And like, the reality is, is like getting off your computer, reading books, like meeting people, talking to friends, like that worked five years ago, 20 years ago. And that's like the same thing. I think AI can accelerate how you do certain things, but it's got to come from the soul of the person. Um, so I think that's totally what's missing in a lot of the, a lot of marketing, I think to your point, Hannah, right.
(23:28) It like goes back to the classics and I think that's true. And I think you, you know, it's, it's like one of the things that a lot of folks are doing is they're outsourcing the insight to AI, like letting AI decide what's interesting about the customer instead of doing the research themselves. Right. And when you get to that stage, that's really dangerous because it loses the judgment that you have as a human.
(23:51) Um, and you know, so I think if I look across those people that are really successful right now that are creating ads that are really working, um, it's not to say none of them are AI generated or that AI hasn't played a role in feeding the deep context into it, um, of customer language, brand voice, the offer, that kind of thing.
(24:13) But predominantly there's been a heavier hand of the person doing, let's say 80% of that ad was generated or created by a human. And that that's like, and there's, you know, so it's like, it's aided, but it's not necessarily the whole thing. It's not even close to the whole thing. It's just 20% of it.
(24:40) And I guess I would be curious of like, what else you have all seen of ads that are performing in accounts? What are the common traits of that ad? And where has AI played a role? All right, friends, quick break. This episode is brought to you by North beam, the marketing attribution platform that we love over here at scalability school.
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(25:26) incrementality testing. North beam builds tests using your own MTA data launches them directly in ad platforms and automatically monitors them throughout. If something threatens validity, you're alerted before it ruins the result with North beam. You can launch tests in platform with a single click, saving you tons of time and reducing any chance for errors.
(25:48) And when the test concludes, your results flow straight into your MTA, meaning you can easily see results alongside the rest of your data. Incrementality was broken. North beam fixed it. Or has AI played a role in that? I mean, I think I think what's winning right now that I'm seeing is just being able to be more hyper specific.
(26:10) So like, the more specific you can be the better, I think AI can help that because you can find like, for example, I'm looking at medical conditions. How can this one product touch all of these different people, but now I can be hyper specific. So instead of just being general in what I'm saying, like this thing can help with your sleep. I am saying this can help for this specific type of person.
(26:36) And you're really like going more specific to that. And I think meta now is at a place where you it's going to find the right people, the creative is the one that's doing the targeting, put in landing pages, you putting some other things, and you can really start to build like these super niche, like funnels, if you will.
(26:55) And I just think that like, that's what to me is working. And then there's just styles and formats based on that, right? Like, can a yapper work for one person? Yes, but maybe not for the other, right? So if you know exactly who you're trying to reach, then you would know what styles and formats they would need or want, and then go from there. But to me, it's about hyper specificity.
(27:19) How do you find like, are you doing, are you doing like manual research to find that is AI helping? Like, how do you like, if you even if you have an example top of mind, you meant you mentioned the weighted blankets earlier. It's like, how do you get that insight in the first place? Is it the review mining, and you're manually doing the review mining? Is it you have AI present? Here's like, here's, okay, we bucketed the 70, 70,000 reviews you have in these five personas. And here's like specific examples of language that people are like,
(27:41) yeah, like, let's dig into, okay, how do you take a take something and go deeper, and then more specific. And then the format thing you said was interesting, too. So if you want to tie in that, that's great. It's like, okay, now that we've gone more specific, we know that we're going for a mail 60 and up. We know that they spend a lot of time on Facebook. We know what they respond to.
(27:58) They say they spend all their time in Facebook marketplace. Like, how are you? Yeah, I think you know what I'm getting at. It's like, yeah, yeah. Well, how are the threads? How are you pulling those threads? So very like the downside of review, review mining, even if you did it manually and read through all the reviews is like, it's like, there are times where you will find a nugget where you're like, whoa, a persona that we haven't talked to decided to buy this.
(28:23) But a lot of times it's like, well, you're going to get reviews from the people you've already been marketing to, right? So like, you may or may not get like the new personas and the new things because like, you haven't been talking to those people. So they why would they come and buy from you anyway? Right? But first, this specific reason, our example, you know, we did see that some parents were using it for their kids, they mentioned ADHD with their kids. So then you're like, oh, okay, cool. Neurodivergence. You could do that for adults.
(28:52) And then you're thinking, okay, well, what other health claims could you go to? And then you start to expand that. And then using AI to say, how does a weighted blanket, maybe there's research that's connects to that. And there happened to be specific, like, because I searched on AI, there were certain medical journals that did link to certain things. And you're like, this is great.
(29:16) Now I literally have a case study or a clinical study on this. Like, I wouldn't have thought to have found that I'm not searching medical stuff. But I had some sort of insight. But I think also be careful because you may not find new personas in the reviews. So you also have to, again, think about how do you expand that. And that's, I think, where the AI falls short is because you always are needing to press and push and expand that aperture of the funnel. And that's, that's got to come from you and you alone, because AI is rules based. And you got to find how can we break those rules? How can we expand that?
(29:52) So, you know, then you go from there, you're like, okay, how can I use research? How can I like, you know, understand it? And I think that like, I think like the value of AI is that you can have an idea and you can validate it faster. And then that can give you, you know, do you spend the time and effort to get that made, that ad to get made and all that stuff.
(30:16) You can, you can test that out way sooner before, right? And you can also be able to test out, you can spin up an ad into a lander very quickly now. So you can test personas and more niche things way quicker than you were before. So there is value to AI, of course, but you've got to make sure that your team has space to think.
(30:40) And I think the problem right now is that AI is suffocating people because they are told to do more. And what we really needed to be is we need to give people space to think so that it can accelerate once they're ready to take action. So yeah, that's, that's my big thing right there. And I just said that yesterday I was talking about it in reference to copywriting and how, yeah.
(31:06) So I don't know, Hannah, I don't know if you want to talk about this, but you know, I know like, how do you feel like copy and the way to write copy and that type of like protecting copywriting almost like within this for a creative strategist? Cause I feel like that's a lot of the magic that a creative, like a real creative can put into a brief, um, especially within the cues and within like what the cuts might be. Um, if it's really strong, um, I'd love to hear your opinion on that.
(31:34) Yeah, no, I think, okay. And this is a hot take maybe, but like, I have yet to see a single LLM platform be able to like seemingly crack copywriting, like be able to actually create a good script. I mean, you guys are welcome to like fight, but like, even with deep context, with what is deep context to have like a perfectly copywritten ad is like almost near impossible at this point in time.
(32:07) Um, obviously those things can change, but I rather be on the side of things as a strategist, especially as I see how much is still out there that is subpar, um, when it comes to good copywriting from said strategy and strategist teams, and even founders, brand owners right now, still like common sense isn't always common practice.
(32:36) Um, so yeah, that's one of the biggest things that I have, um, been attuned to, like I said earlier with, um, just realizing that that is a muscle that needs to constantly be flexed and that I'm hesitant to give away to AI, because if you were to write a pros and cons list, the cons list is so much greater than what I would think is the, uh, a more appropriate balance because I'm obviously not, I'm also not for having the same strategist in the account writing every single ad, because you're kidding yourself also, if you don't think that that strategist, like
(33:14) assumptions, biases, tone of writing, it is effective for every single ad. Like that's also, um, on the flip side of quite being, you know, the dichotomy. Um, so where I have found success and where I've also seen you asked earlier, like what are the best brands that are actually hitting these numbers doing? I can guarantee you that they are providing the creator.
(33:44) So talent, that was one of the other things, Matt, that I do think was missed in terms of like the best, uh, brands right now. And for something we're super focused on is just that talent match. No longer can we just like afford to have a subpar creator, but they need to be able to affect, they are part of the message. They are not just an actor. They are literally part of the message.
(34:12) And so when you're writing copy for these ads, for these individuals, which we all know, Yapper ads and all these things, it's like, now it becomes less of like just a pure copywriting skill, but an extraction skill or a briefing skill, right? Extraction from the talent and briefing to them. And so where I found the balance is using, um, you know, AI through these research processes, through knowing your persona, I'm a big proponent of coming to AI already with your hypothesis, kind of like what Matt said earlier, and to use it as further validation and backup, uh, versus just like, what should I be doing here? What persona should I hit versus, um, and to, yeah, to create ads that
(34:55) give the creator and use AI to structure those briefs in a way that give creative strategists their best playing field, which is that ideation, that persona, uh, uh, identification, that, that big idea that they can craft the brief around, create talking points, potentially even hooks for the creator, and then let the creator speak or write the script in their own words.
(35:23) And then we get to tidy it up just from a very like pacing, um, you know, visuals standpoint. And that allows us to have more winners because we're actually authentically speaking in the customer voice. So yes, as a strategist, you can go, you can go mine, you can go and create ads from those reviews, but nothing's also going to, uh, change an actual, like as close to the real customer as you can get and letting them cook with a little bit of direction.
(35:54) And my process has only gotten stronger with AI with that. Um, but it's in a combination of me, again, stepping back because I cannot rely on AI for those big ideas to have that, those creative, um, formats, um, or to contextually apply from experience to experience. I can't offload that thinking.
(36:29) So, um, yeah, when it comes to copywriting, the biggest thing that I have done is to try to write the ad myself or to write it in the most simplest forms first, if I am writing the script and if not just like effectively crafting the message, um, in bullet points even so that if I can explain it through just that, then a creator is going to be able to speak upon it as well.
(36:53) Um, and so it's just, it's really helped get those authentic, like more authentic ads, um, from those, uh, specific talent, which is a huge portion of the unlocks right now, as we know, creators are pretty much make it or break it in 2026 and beyond. Yeah. I feel like you can get AI to like, you can get AI to give you a good script, but your input has to be so good and not from like a copy my prompt input.
(37:19) I'm talking like you already have had to have had the insights, the everything that you wanted, like you kind of need it to be like prebuilt. And like, that's kind of how I approach copywriting now is like, everything is prebuilt kind of in my head. And that's just like my process. Like it is about soaking things in. I'm seeing other things.
(37:40) I actually might be writing things down on paper or whatever. When I'm going to actually do the brief, this is pretty much done. Right. It's cause I already have the ideas. I already found the inspiration. I already know everything that I want. So like you can get that, but like, if you're starting the process, like way back with AI and just hoping that, you know, it's going to give you that output, it's just not, you know? Um, and so I think that's like the, the biggest difference is like how you, it is a tool, how you use it and how prepared you are when you are using
(38:10) that tool is the difference. Um, less so like, like again, like how good the prompt is. It's really about like the insights that you're pumping in and that's going to come from you. If you let it drive, I mean, it's going to take over the whole thing. Just want to ask a follow-up, like what, what are the good inputs look like? Like give, can you be, like give a specific example? Um, either of you, like what is, if you want to get a good output, what, what are the requirements going in? Is it a specific persona and how to find it is like, maybe use persona as the, as a deep example. It's like, what,
(38:40) what is the, what is the specific detail that you're saying? Is it, is it as simple as men's 16 up? And I'm assuming it's not, right? Like there's a lot of more information that goes into it, but like what makes it, what makes a good input? Hmm. So we already have like our process where we've built out a brand intelligence document.
(39:00) That's like all of the information about the brand, everything is like there. So one, just having, you don't want to start the AI prompt with it, like starting to like crawl the website. So having everything already like dialed in and ready to go, that's like step number one. Then I'm coming in with like, I might just literally say like, I, I will like put whisper flow on and I will just talk it out. Like this is who I'm trying to reach. I'm trying to hit whatever the pain point or like, I really want to speak to this emotion.
(39:35) And there's, you know, plenty of things that we do in our process that like would relate to it. So it's not just like a generalized person. It's like personas to me, it doesn't really matter.
(39:53) I care more about like the psychographics of things, but like, I want to speak directly to like the parent that feels wired after a long day of work or ends with kids and like, they need the weighted blanket. Right. Um, you're speaking to like everything. I might even have like formats of like, Hey, I really want it to be like this. This is what I want to talk about. I might even like say lines.
(40:13) Like I usually have like lines or words that I really, really like that just feel really like, like it just energizes me when I'm thinking about the idea. So I'm giving all of that there. And then I'm just like seeing what comes back and playing with it. Sometimes if you already have, like, I love this script from another video and I want to use the structure of this, like there's things you can do.
(40:37) Um, but like, again, having a lot of that deep research already done and like, you know, exactly what you're trying to accomplish. And like one thing when it comes to briefing, and this is before you even get to writing the script is there should always be a one sentence goal or angle and everything else is judged by that.
(40:58) Like, does the, does the brief actually accomplish what you wanted out of this? And that's what I teach my strategist, because if I'm reviewing their brief, I need to know what's, what's the goal of this. Cause then I'm going to judge the script on that goal that you had set out. Right. And so I think the same is true. I think people just need to be clear what they're trying to accomplish in the first place.
(41:19) And then that will probably improve their outputs already because most people just don't even know what they're doing. Um, and not because they're not capable marketers, but more so like they are not, um, very exact about what is the goal of this ad. Um, and I think that that gets missed a lot. Yeah. Sorry. I didn't mean to jump in, but I'm curious, like what, what does the goal mean? Like if you, like when you ask a strategist to tell you what the goal, you said it's a one sentence thing, which I think is awesome. That's super cool.
(41:45) I like that a lot. Is it, we want this person to experience this emotion and then buy as a result of it? Or like, what is, can you give an example? What is the end by the end of watching this, uh, video, who do you want to be continuing to watch this and what do you want them to gain feel or see? Right.
(42:07) And so, cause part of it should be like, are you kicking the right, the wrong people out? Right. Like you really want it to be like, I don't want a random dude watching this. I want a specific parent that has a specific, uh, you know, experience to, to, to be the person watching this. And this is what I want them to know or learn at the end of it, that their kids can improve, you know, their neurodivergence, you know, experience, whatever through this weighted blanket and this can help them, blah, blah, blah, blah. Great. Now does that brief that you just sent me, does that, do we get to that end state? Right.
(42:35) And so it's really about what's the end state of the viewer. Most people are not even thinking about that. Right. And that's just like, now we're not even talking about AI. And I think that's the problem is people, you just throw in AI now they're just like tool, tool, AI quad. And it's like, let's just get back to the basis of great advertising.
(42:52) Like, what are we trying to get people to feel at the end of watching something? Most people just can't even answer that question. And so that's like, that's why like AI sucks or is good or bad, whatever is because like, they're not even thinking about the practical parts of like what is advertising. It's to get people to feel something, to make a decision to buy something. Yeah.
(43:15) Hannah, are there any other inputs that you would add? Yeah, I would absolutely double down on, and I'm right with Matthew. Like when I think about AI, even script writing, for example, if we want to just like stick in the script writing, it's like there, it is virtually, it is a death sentence just to start from zero, as we all know.
(43:39) And so having what Matt was saying was like a big idea or a format are really kind of like the only two things outside. I mean, you can do some person, like you could have your, when I say persona, please know that I don't just mean like 65 plus and, you know, gray haired man, like we've, we've done the work to, to hone in on one. And I think that that's something that I've seen in terms of like input versus an output right now.
(44:01) So everyone is super excited about Andromeda and it being able to like serve to persona. So personas become like this hot topic, right? And so the trap that I've seen a lot of brands fall into right now is just like relying on AI to like, and from an endpoint standpoint, just like extract those. Great.
(44:20) They're done. Found them because that's better than I could do as a human. And what I have found to be more effective is to focus in on just one, like, and to focus in on the one that's like already worked for you.
(44:42) And to, because there's likely you, you have left so many potential angles and messaging on the table. So when it comes to like my input with, when prompting and through my research phases, I've really stopped trying to, and I'll have a lot of brands like come in and say like, okay, I'm hiring you to like, help me figure out who my personas are.
(45:02) And I really have to come back to them and say, and understand too, like, this is all great, but like, does your budget even support being able to effectively reach seven different personas, even though AI told you that it's a good idea too? We cannot even effectively reach them because we haven't effectively reached one yet. You can't effectively spend on all those ads. Oh, I automated a hundred ads. You're not even spending enough to statistically significantly find out if those hundred ads work. I mean, it's so true. It's so true.
(45:31) It's so true. And sacrificing the name of your brand or like not growing in parallel. And that's like, you know, a whole different conversation, but just, yeah, from an input standpoint, I have like really tried to dial it down because I did find myself getting lost in analysis, getting lost in just all, all these kinds of emotional mappings and trigger analysis.
(46:04) And, and then I would go in prompt with a LLM on a basic standpoint and realize that when it comes back to me for a persona, it's actually telling me that what I would consider are just plain triggers. That is a persona. I'm like, so you have to even know what you're looking for to begin with, because you get in there and someone can blindly say, great, these are my personas.
(46:25) An example might be, um, I don't know, like a Catholic mother, whatever for this thing. And it's like, no, just the fact that she's Catholic, isn't her persona. That's what I would call an identity be overlay, which is just a thing that she assumes because of her religion, but that can go across many different personas.
(46:48) So when you start segregating this quickly, it, you, you really get lost. So from an input output standpoint, I'm just like focused on like dialing it into like a very narrow focus of, um, what I am trying to accomplish or the goal of that ad, the persona that I'm trying to build and we can get to the rest.
(47:12) Like, I think that the trap is like, we just think we have to keep up with everyone else because they're having answers for their personas. And, and my, I actually am on the opposite standpoint, because like Matt said earlier, they're like, the reason we're in this position is because most strategists don't even know why they believe what they believe. Um, and that's like really forced. They'll come to prompt or to create an ad and they're just really going off of best practices or what they've heard on Twitter is working for someone else, but it's really through those lived experiences that we're able to like have that judgment. So if you take that away and the lived experience becomes AI, then like, yeah, we're, we're, we're in trouble there.
(47:51) So from a, from a prompting standpoint, I, I, I just, I just rather teams take the long road. And that's like my biggest takeaway is, and what I mean by the long road is like, everyone throws around the idea of deep context. Like, what does that mean? What is deep context? Like, cause everyone says, Oh yeah, I brought deep context in and I'm like, how it's been a month.
(48:16) So you mean to tell me you brought a up or AI up to speed on the past five years of your business and you now know everything like in order to, what does deep context mean? How do you actually feed it into your systems? And that's like a whole nother conversation we could have.
(48:36) But my, my, um, big thing is for brands to take the long road when it comes to like building out the systems that support like this balance alongside of your creative strategists and to focus almost on that first versus like the output of your ads, because that will come.
(48:59) And if you can help your strategists and your teams build the, the, the true deep systems, which I can't go into all of that now, but like the true architecture and deep systems of your brand the right way and play that longer road and allow them in the process to just experiment and have fun, use AI in your own life, not for like work all the time.
(49:21) Then I think that we're going to be able to see, um, just like more, more like long-term efficient ads, or those are the brands that are going to be around longer who are taking that longer road. So shortcut thinking kills. Absolutely. And it can happen at an org, org level too. I've seen it. I've seen it happen every day. It's, it's scary. Yeah.
(49:38) I think it's, I think, I think it's interesting because I, I think there's a whole bunch of stuff that was talked about there. And I'm, I, to me, the most interesting stuff that we got into was, and I think the thematic pieces of this are there's people are trying to take a lot of shortcuts, right? That's not necessarily a bad thing.
(50:06) There can be shortcuts to manual things that took, you know, that did take a long time previously reading reviews, whatever, right? Like that can be efficient. But I think in terms of actually speaking long-term to the customer and having a plan and having a goal, as you talked about, right? Which the goal is, I mean, we're all in advertising, like trying to make more money for these people really is like what we're trying to do is, you know, having, having a vision of what, what's the reasoning behind doing this. So I think is really fascinating. I think we've, there's, and I think it's also not necessarily around creative strategists.
(50:33) I think creative strategists are in a hard place because they're given an edict if they're within a brand or, you know, they're given an edict to like, go do this more efficiently with AI. And the strategist is like, I actually want to go slower. Yes. Right. Like, and, and so I think there's, there's a, um, a challenge there as well.
(50:54) So I think those of you that are listening to this episode that are agency owners or brand owners, like, I think there's, there is a really important conversation to be had with your strategists around what do you believe we are doing long-term well and like in short-term well, and then, you know, the inverse of that, what do you think we're doing poorly? Like, are we trying to push on efficiency too much? And I think there's also this, this idea that if you do these things, like you talked about deep context is a great example.
(51:24) There's a, there, if you, if you do that buzzword, then you're like ahead. Right. Or, you know, it's like, if you, whatever it might be, I mean, persona building is a huge one too. That's like, if you do that, then you just unlock. But the reality is like, I think sometimes I had a professor in college that always said, there's two types of people. There's simple problem complicators and complicated problem simplifiers.
(51:50) And I think that like, that's what it's, it's simple problem complication in a lot of ways. In terms of like trying to develop seven personas on a $10,000 a month budget or whatever it is, you know? And so, and you know, it's hard because you have these, these messages that are all over the place of like, you know, you look at somebody like Zach, we did an episode talking about a lot of their funnels and stuff.
(52:17) And like, you know, they had, it was some, I mean, they're spending tons and tons of money, but they had like 80 landing page tests live and they had, you know, some 300 variants live. And it was about, it was about volume. And then you kind of, you know, these smaller brands look at this and say, well, it's about volume. And it's, it's not though. It's like about, it's about quality as it relates to volume and like, and the, and what the inputs are that brought you there.
(52:42) So anyway, I was just trying to summarize all of the things that we talked about briefly. I don't know if there's anything else you guys want to mention, but it's, it's an interesting topic. And I think the greatest thing that we can all do is go and have a larger conversation with, with our creative strategists or with the people that work with us and set in that, in the, in the creative realm and say like, look, we want to make this more efficient. We both have the same goal. We want to sell more stuff and grow this baby. So like, what else do we
(53:06) need to do to be able to do this? And what's your opinion on this? Because I think there's, if you don't, that, that widening gap between what the creative strategist wants, which is to slow down and what you want, which is efficiency as an owner or an agency owner is going to become more disparate. And it's not ultimately going to serve the end consumer. Yeah.
(53:27) I think it's a leadership conversation. I think that's what, for me, I was going to say that even before you mentioned it, but it's true. It's the leadership conversation, because if you're in, if you are an agency owner, like you want to, like, why is somebody going to stay with you? It's not because you were more efficient.
(53:51) It was because you got them performance, right? If you're a brand owner, what do you want your people to do? Do you want them to make more ads or do you want them to make ads that are going to win? Right. And so I think the problem is, is that when you are focused on volume, then you are building systems to do more of the same. It's easier to do that. It's easier to do similar stuff. You've got the people in place, just do more.
(54:09) You have the SOPs in place, just do more of that thing. But sometimes the best ads are going to take 10 X the time. And you don't have, if you're not building in Slack to have moments where somebody can take 10 X the time and take the bet that it could even work, it could even fail, but like, you've got to be able to do that and allow them to do that.
(54:32) Like, but if you're just focused on, did we get 20 ads out every single week? Then, you know, the problem is, is that you're going to say, well, we, we doing, we got the 20 ads out, but now we're not, we're not, we're not winning. It's like, yeah, because you're doing 20 of the same ads every single week because they are, that's what their success in their role is.
(54:50) And I think that oftentimes, like, did we ever have like an efficiency problem? Like, I don't think we had, I don't think oftentimes bandwidth was the problem. I think we're saying that. I think people, leaders are saying that, but I'm like, I don't think that was the problem five years ago. I think now you just want to stuff more clients into one career of challenges. That's a problem. But like, I don't think that the efficiency was the problem.
(55:16) I think performance has always been the main issue. And so I think like, if you can use AI to help you with performance, amazing. But you also have to be ready as a leader to realize that it's not always about efficiencies. It is about ultimately performance and you have to be okay.
(55:44) And building a space where people can really take shots on goal that are out there that are different. And that's going to look different than how things are set up. Now, again, it's all about breaking rules. Every brand that stands out, they break rules. That's what great advertising is all about. Right. And so it's like, yes, do the things that work and like, like, not trends, but like, if creator content works, like do creator content, like don't not do the basics, right, that is working in the current moment, but you have to have these moonshots. And then, you know, I think just like, as a leader, you've got to be able to
(56:16) like, open up that capacity for your people. But I don't think it's ever been an efficiency problem. And I think leaders just want it to be. And they're saying that, but I think that's just because they're just looking after their margins. And it's like, no, you got to break your margins, you know, like, like, break your margins today so that you can have like crazy performance later. Like, that's how I'm thinking.
(56:40) I'm like, if I need to spend extra thousands of dollars to make this video idea work, great, because if it works, my client's going to stay with me for like, years to come, right? Like, that's worth the $2,000 if they're going to continue to play my retainer later on. Like, if something is like not working, oh, but I saved my my margin. It's like, what? So you got to be able to like, really think about performance.
(57:03) That's the biggest thing. You know, good, good wrap up. I mean, look, this thing, this episode is this episode is packed of information. So we're just gonna might even have to split this into two. I mean, it's got a lot of stuff that I think is really important to get into.
(57:24) And I think it is a fairly relevant conversation and identifies a lot of problems and hopefully can give, you know, some some some ammunition to good creatives among us to to say, like, hey, look what they said here, right? Like, slow down, right? Like, this is what's been said on this podcast, because I think a lot of it is like, what I did to make 3 million ads by, you know, a week ago or whatever. Like, it's so much. So do you remember the Michigan method, Brad? I do.
(57:45) Oh, man, I know. I'm really old. The Michigan method was when you had a bid, and you then put, it was the only type of manual bidding. It was like, and you would basically do a bid at a dollar amount and you take the same ad and then you do if the CPA was $30, you do, you do $20 below and $20 above and the same ad in each ad set. So it'd be like $31, $32, $33.
(58:14) It was and and then one of them would get spend and they'd vary like depending on what the bid was that day, you were just trying to play the auction. So that still works. I think there you go. Hey, if you guys want to start a drop shipping company, let me know. That's that's but thank you everybody for joining us.
(58:32) Appreciate it. Thanks for being here. And as always, please leave us a review. And if you have questions, we'd love to hear from you. Andrew at foxwelldigital.com. The only way that we grow this podcast is by you sharing it with your friends. Honestly, like reviews kind of don't really mean anything too much anymore.
(58:52) They're really meaningful, but they don't do a lot for the growth of the podcast. And so sharing YouTube links, sharing Spotify links, sharing Apple, whatever we call it under the podcast app. Now, anything you can share, the better we're going to be. Guys, anything else you want to say on this? Yeah, please go check us out on YouTube, rack up those views for us. We'd love to see it. And then subscribe. Make sure to subscribe on YouTube as well.
(59:16) And I relentlessly refresh the YouTube comments because it dictates my mental health for the day. So please say something nice about all of us. Thank you, everyone. Thanks for listening. Honestly.
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