I found an AI use case I like. And it's not saving but wasting time.

But first, here are two new freebies I created this week, with non-gated access to Marketing Fix readers:

10x Chapter #1 of Marketing Audit Questions (Notion)
LinkedIn Content Planning Template (Google Sheets)

Also, I'm launching a new marketing course (!) on B2B Ad Creatives.

I just wanted to change my blog's theme & aesthetics...

This week, I made the questionable decision to change my marketing blog's theme.

The previous theme (15Zine) had gone pretty much rotting, like a Seville orange long out of season. The developer support and updates ceased years ago = bad for technical SEO.

I did some research – on Reddit, of course – and chose the Blocksy theme for fast loading speed, fast support, and various add-ons.

After a reassuring message from Taavi, my hosting wizard ("Your blog is automatically backed up every 2 weeks" – he's the best, reach him at taavi[at]cloudnigma.com), I hit the "Change theme" button.

I had anticipated a bit of mess. It was a lot of mess.

I had to create my blog's Home page not from 0 but something like -3. After ca 30h of struggle, this is where I've got. Not ideal but also not awful (you should have seen the other guy).

The rare AI use case I actually like...

... is, paradoxically, a use case that doesn't save time.

Instead, I've spent hours and hours and hours playing around with Adobe Firefly – the dummy-proof AI image generator.

It is so. much. fun.

It all began with creating a new aesthetic for my blog. You wouldn't believe it but designing images for my blog, socials, and newsletter is one of the most time-devouring tasks in my life.

What about using AI-generated painting-style visuals like Intercom – their website looks amazing, I asked myself and signed up for Firefly.

My first creations looked like this.

Much better than stock photos, right?!

At 9:35pm, I closed my laptop for the day and felt a certain relief – at least I got something done for the new blog theme.

But I had a bad nagging feeling about the AI images.

The recreation of Dutch still life paintings with AI felt like a blasphemy, like spoiling high art.

If I'm already using AI for image generation, I thought, I should create something that's become possible only thanks to AI (or superhuman Photoshop skills).

Instead of creating paintings and drawings, I shifted to 3D renderings of glassy and unnatural... nature.

The new style feels just right. It also feels original. I haven't seen any brand or creator use this aesthetic.

It's all mine.

I've spent too many hours creating 400+ AI image renders (in 3 days)

The addiction is real.

I think it's the combination of surprise and quick gratification.

It's also really easy, once you learn the trick of uploading the perfect samples of Composition and Style.

Here's what the Adobe Firefly interface looks like. You write a description and select some styles. But really, it's the sample images that contribute 90% of the final result.

Want to see some more examples glass fruits and butterflies? Check out this landing page.

By the way, it's not expensive at all.

You can try it for free and pay €11/month for 2,000 credits. I've created 400+ images and have 2000/2010 credits left. Insane...

One more (very important) thing.

Nobody should be allowed to rave about an AI tool without the disclaimer about its carbon footprint.

So here are some stats (source):

The most carbon-intensive image generation model generates CO2 equivalent to 4.1 miles driven by a gasoline-powered passenger vehicle.
But the least carbon-intensive image generation model generates 6,833 times less carbon, equivalent to 0.0006 miles driven.
A single Google search takes 0.3 watt-hours of electricity, while OpenAI’s ChatGPT takes 2.9 watt-hours of electricity.
If ChatGPT replaced the 9 billion Google searches daily, the electricity demand would require the equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 1.5 million EU citizens.
By 2030, data centers are predicted to emit 3x the amount of CO2 annually than it would have without the boom in AI development. The predicted amount (2.5 billion tonnes) equates to roughly 40% of the U.S’s current annual emissions.

So beautiful and so yucky.

Image generation is still much less wasteful than video rendering. Which is why I won't be using Adobe's – or any other – AI video generators.

Let's move on to a happier and more humane topic.

New marketing course alert

Introducing: B2B Ad Creatives: On-demand Course.

I'm launching a mini course (3x 45min lessons) for marketers working with paid ads, both Beginner and Expert level.

You will get:

📚 3x 45min lessons
🍩 150+ ad examples library
👩‍🎨 20 editable templates

Take a Look Here

Simple, no-brainer math:

The course is designed to increase your paid ad campaigns' ROI by 15% of more. If you spend €1,000 on ads per week, you'll earn back the €369 course fee investment in 2.5 weeks.

AND you can get 20% OFF until March 26 (next Wednesday).

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💌🪽 Referrals are so back.

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Use it to refer fellow marketers and earn prizes:

🍩 1 new reader: Unlock the spreadhseet template: Marketing KPI Report for B2B + B2C Brands

🍩 🍩 🍩 10 new readers: Get free access to my new B2B Ad Creatives Course (€369 value)

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🪡 Needles in a haystack

Officially my favourite section of Marketing Fix.

Things that cut through the internet noise + what I've been reading, listening, watching, liking, thinking.

🪡 New hot job in town: Marketing Innovation Manager. Tom Orbach wrote an brilliant newsletter about LinkedIn, Wolt, Nasdaq and others are hiring a "new breed of marketer" with a $150-350k annual salary. The main job is to build up AI-empowered marketing systems (and reduce the number of human team members while the remaining marketers will have even more robotic jobs). "TL;DR: Find problems → solve them with AI → then teach the team."

🪡 What Happens When AI Joins Every Meeting? I enjoyed many points made by John Herrman in this article in the New York Magazine. "AI-generated media [e.g. transcribed meeting notes] ... doubles as evidence of work. You weren’t just sitting in meetings all day, you were participating in the production of content, information, and resources for the greater good of the firm! ... This create[s] the impression of productivity."

🪡 Unilever is shifting 50% of their ad spend to social media. In the previous newsletter, I wrote about social media having become a high-complexity marketing channel with huge potential rewards. Here's an example of a household brand with multi-million marketing budget placing a huge bet on social media.

🪡 "The future of B2B content marketing is about personalities (the mascots), and their opinions." One of the best brand positioning and conversion experts, Peep Laja, wrote a really good LinkedIn post about a shift in branding: "In content, the "what" stops mattering. The only thing that will influence things is "the who.""

Reading rec: Mary McCarthy – I've been really into McCarthy's fiction lately: the short stories in Cast a Cold Eye + her novel The Group. She's an excellent stylist and I like her unapologetic, clear-eyed look at human hypocrisy.

Life rec: Time to spring-clean your workstation – There was a mini trend of people sharing their home offices on LinkedIn this week. I took the bait, having just rearranged the plants on my windowsill and decluttered my working table (doubling as dining table) over the weekend.

Shopping rec: Midori Paper Pad. The perfect notepad is a rare creature. I've just ordered my fifth(!) Midori Plain A5 Paper Pad. I keep it on the table at all times: to jot down ideas, notes, and things to look up later. Check out their full range of irresistibly simple and beautiful notebooks and calendars.