Episode 272 / Alexa Lombardo / alxyz / Fractional CMO, Consultant & Strategic Advisor
Creating GPT Assistants to Free up Time for the Big Ideas
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Alexa Lombardo, former Chief Marketing Officer at FACEGYM and Fractional CMO, Consultant & Strategic Advisor at alxyz, is a self-described AI optimist. In a recent episode of the Shiny New Object podcast, she shared how she's harnessing the power of AI assistants like ChatGPT to boost her own marketing effectiveness.
Alexa sees AI as a tool to free up time and enhance her human creativity. "The people that are going to replace your job aren't going to be the AIs, it's going to be the people who are using AI to be better at what they do," she says.
This is why she’s created several custom AI assistants tailored to her specific needs as a marketer. One is an "Alexa as the CMO" model, trained on brand guidelines and tone of voice. This helps her team produce on-brand content and ideas more efficiently. She's also built AI assistants for her personal use, set up to think like respected marketers and creatives. Alexa uses these as sparring partners, challenging her own biases and pushing her thinking in new directions.
"It's almost like you build out an identity of these things that they then become almost like, if I want to test out an idea on this person that I've built," she explains. The key, Alexa emphasises, is using AI to complement and enhance human skills, not replace them. She believes AI should be leveraged to free up time for marketers to engage with culture, connect with consumers, and tap into their creativity - the true differentiators in an increasingly automated world.
"If I can get [my team] an extra five minutes to go see something or do something or be active in the culture, that is going to be so much more valuable," Alexa says.
Find out how to harness AI to do the “busy work” and give yourself more time and energy for the big ideas, in the full episode.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Alexa Lombardo 0:00
I think at the end of the day, the people that are going to replace your job aren't going to be the AIs, right. It's going to be the people who are using AI to be better at what they do.
Speaker 1 0:15
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Tom Ollerton 0:48
Hello and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of automated creative, the creative effectiveness ad tech platform. And this is a podcast about the future of data driven marketing, and I have the lucky, lucky job of interviewing our industry's leaders about where they think it's all gonna go. And this week is no different. I'm on a call with Alexa Lombardo, who is Chief Marketing Officer at FACEGYM,. Alexa, for anyone who doesn't know who you are and what you do, could you give us a bit of background?
Alexa Lombardo 1:19
Sure. Thanks so much. Tom Yeah, I am currently the CMO at FACEGYM. FACEGYM is a beauty services company that basically takes the best elements of a facial and adds in incorporates facial massage. So we've got our own proprietary techniques, tools and award winning skin care, all in which we deliver in a really cool in studio experience, and we've got about almost 20 locations globally, but that's my company. That's not me. I'm a long time brand marketer. I started my career at the Estee Lauder companies in corporate strategy, where I was working on transformation initiatives, particularly on omni channel, as well as retail. After being in corporate, I was in brand marketing roles for Bobby Brown and Tom Ford beauty, and then moved over to Unilever, where I worked on their prestige division for a bit, working with brands that had been newly acquired. And after kind of working within those big corporates, I started my own studio where I worked primarily with new to market brands as well as challenger brands, still mostly in beauty and CBG, and then that studio kind of grew and sort of continued to go on in the background while I focus on more kind of fractional leadership work. And worked for brands like Dr, Barbara Sterman and most recently Facegym. And I'm, you know, really passionate about working for purpose led brands that also really emphasize kind of community and that kind of experiential element, but also really, really interested in how technology changes the way we work in marketing and how we deliver better experiences for our customers.
Tom Ollerton 3:01
Wonderful, right. So with that impressive track record, I think you've had some bad advice over those years. So what are the bad recommendations that you've had that you're like, oh, that's no good?
Alexa Lombardo 3:14
Yeah, I hear this all the time. And this isn't just like advice necessarily in my profession, but it's that people just need to be told what to do. And I think that pretty no that kind of stuff for people, you know, I think some people definitely need to be told what to do and certain things. But I think for a culture to really thrive, you need people to feel like they their voice can be heard, and their ideas can be heard. I'm a big believer in kind of bottom up and building bottom up and thinking bottom up versus top down. And so while I think there's a time and a place for telling people what to do, I definitely think there's so much more when you when you allow people to express themselves, and then the other one is follow the data. I think data can tell you absolutely any story you want it to. And I'm a big believer that with, you know, doing more qualitative analysis and really talking to people, and whether it's being in their homes or just talking to your you know, these people, all of our consumers, are people that we know, and so really listening to people that we know, and then backing that up with data. Because honestly, you can spin most of this stuff any way. And so I think it's, it's a that's where the art and science of marketing comes in. And I don't think we'll, we'll ever really lose that. And I think actually, the art is is more important than ever, and as is the kind of human side of what we do. And that's really the you know, and when everyone's talking about AI, I think doubling down on our on our humanity, is, is crucial. And and that you know, is. That the data can only lead us so far without that.
Tom Ollerton 5:03
So what is your best advice when it comes to the data driven marketing? What is that top tip or silver bullet goodie that you find find yourself dishing out most often?
Alexa Lombardo 5:15
Yeah, so I kind of you know, keep that up with my last answer. I think the one thing about data is it can be extremely time consuming if you don't have the proper tools to help you use it, or the proper team to make use of it. Data is not just something that people innately, necessarily understand how to make sense of. And I see a lot of individuals or teams spending a ton of time, kind of, you know, parsing through data and just kind of wading in it right, like there's just so much of it. And so I think if you're ... a lot of it has to do with your tech stack. A lot of it has to do with your your your organizational design and who's on your team, because to have people who are more kind of creative wading through data is not a good use of their time or or yours, and is quite wasteful. And so I think empowering your teams of data is really important, and that comes down to, again, who's going to do that, and how are they going to do it. So that is kind of the team and tech stack. I think, like I said, data is a tool for empowerment, and it can really be used to reinforce the more creative ideas that we have that are rooted in true human insight. And I think that's what we don't necessarily always get immediately from data when we're looking at it without kind of the without necessarily knowing what we're looking for. But I think that if we use data to kind of support those human insights, that's when it becomes, that's when we become, you know, almost super human. And so I like to think that, you know, when someone has a hunch or an idea, I like to always say, okay, find me the data. And that's something that, actually, for me, is a challenge, because I work at a really, you know, my organization is really small. We're really lean team. We don't have a ton of data at our fingertips. Our data warehouse is is non existent, right? We're dealing with really, we don't necessarily have a single view of the customer. So kind of piece dealing to data data together very often, and that can be very time consuming. However, I do realize that it's my job to support any kind of instincts that I have with data, because that's just the world that we live in, and also, for better or worse, the data is what then I can point to if things don't go right, you know, I can say, well, there was plenty of data supporting this. There's also probably plenty of data telling me not to go in that direction, because that's the thing with data. But I think you know it is a box that that needs to be checked at an age when you know, you know we're whether you're answering to your investors or to your board or or to your shareholders, you know it is, it is on us to kind of present that, make that case. And so I think making sure that your team has access to it, knows how to use it, and can use it to to support their ideas. I think, I think that's, that's the role of data, but it's not a, it's not in replace of of true kind of creativity. And it's certainly not going to going to replace, you know, unique human, human insights, anytime soon. So I think it's a, it's a, it's a compliment, and it's a and it's a necessary one.
Tom Ollerton 8:54
So we're going to move on now to your shiny new object, which is GPT assistant. So we've not had this before in 250, episodes. So what's a GPT assistant? And why is it useful? Are they useful for data driven marketing?
Alexa Lombardo 9:11
So I think that's the name that chat GPT, which is, you know, what I use, and not necessarily in a work environment. I don't want anyone to think that their, you know, data is being compromised, or that our data is certainly not but for me, personally, right? And I, and I can't, I can't say that I don't think about my own brand quite often in the work that I do. You know, I build these things for myself to be a better marketer, to be a better thinker, to be a better leader, and to be more consumer inspired, and more and more victorious. So GPT chat. GPT calls them GPT assistants, but it's similar to like, what Microsoft calls co pilot. This is just oftentimes, you know, your own personal GPT that you've trained on specific information. So I've got several of them. I have some that. That one is, you know, Alexa as the CMO Facegym. It's got face gyms, you know, brand guidelines in it. It's got our tone of voice, all of that doesn't have any customer data or anything like that in it, but it knows that I'm, you know what I'm thinking about, and how to structure my thinking in a way that's on brand. That's one example I've also made one for my for my team, it's not public or anything, but basically, it just helps them with things like copywriting, I think, you know, just saves them time. It's a real productivity, productivity tool. It's not so much about kind of the thought partner or the sparring, but it's more, you know, checking for you know how we can improve copy a lot of the time, or even ideas for for campaigns. I think what's cool about about that on the brand side is that the more you give it, the more it learns, right? So it's almost like it's not the equivalent of having a custom LLM, I mean, we just, we don't have the budget for that. And then a lot of big brands, like chat GPT would be completely banned just because of the sensitive information. We eliminate all of that sensitive information. But like our brand guidelines, like, that's, you know, we're not that's, that's that can be in the public domain. And so we upload the things that are that are fully safe. And I think it just makes the team be able to ideate faster, and also produces outcomes that are more true to the brand. And I think it just it ends up saving again, like I said, it saves us a lot of time so that we can spend more time on the really big ideas. I think one of the great things about these GPT assistants, which, for those of for people who don't, I guess I haven't fully explained it, essentially, what you do is you upload, you kind of brief the GPT on, like, what you want it to be. So for example, mine is, I'm gonna actually, like, go to my, go to my, my personal GPT? So it kind of just says, like, you know, you are an expert marketer and strategist with, you know, a long time experience in beauty and CPG as and you've also got an enthusiasm for emerging technology, and you're an AI optimist, right? Like, I brief the GPT on me, and I give it kind of I've given it a lot of information, whether it be my full bio samples of my writing. I've given it some case studies of campaigns that I've worked on, as well as just a variety of different things. And so it kind of knows how I think. And then I add on to that. I also give it examples from writers that I not necessarily theirwriting, but I give it kind of, you know, here's some people that I really respect, winners of Canne Lions, etc, etc, so that it sort of knows. And Jenny Nicholson, I think she's, like, really amazing that she's done kind of with her GPT assistant. She was really, if you don't know who she is, definitely check her out. She was really an inspiration around how do you train these things to kind of think as like creative sparring partners, not because I'm trying to get it to not because I want to be more like them, although sure that would be great. I definitely want to want to align myself with the previous award winners. But you know more, because then it's sort of pushing me. So when I ask, it's not just thinking like Alexa, it's thinking like Alexa, but also with, you know, the this additional acumen and knowledge. So that's kind of how I build them. But I build them for different different things. So there's the one that's just kind of Alexa, the CMO Facegym, Alexa the marketer, and then I'll build, you know, almost like people, right? So it's like, you build out an identity of these things that they then become like, almost like, if I want to test out an idea on, on this, you know, this person that I've built, and they're very, you know, they're very easy to create. And it's not anything that's, like, overly intensive, but it's just, again, to really, like, get ideas flowing and almost challenge, challenge my thinking, and oftentimes challenge any bias that I might have as well. I think that's one of the key things that people call out. It's like, oh, you're training these AIs, but how are you not? How? Like, what about the the inherent bias? How are you preventing from that? So I think that's the other thing too. Is almost like, Okay, well, here's what I would say. But what about this other person that I know is thinks opposite of me? What would they say about this? And I say person, right. I think of these as like, almost like, like. These are, as human like as I can get them right without, you know, obviously, having any real emotion, because they are AI. But again, this is never going to replace, you know, a focus group. This is never going to replace a real conversation with a human but when you know you're doing some of that busy work, and especially when you're in that kind. Of rapid stage of, like, ideation, and you want to vet, you know, you want to throw out as many concepts and vet them as quickly as possible. It's really helpful and really time saving. And I think sometimes, like, we're we take this stuff so it is serious. And I'm not trying to say that it's not, but, like, we put so much emphasis on, like, how dangerous it is and how it's going to replace humans and or replace jobs. And I think at the end of the day, the people that are going to replace your job aren't going to be the the AIs, right? It's going to be the people who are using AI to be better at what they do, to free up more of their time for creative thinking to like, right? Like, I use AI. It saves me the busy work, so that I can then actually spend more time feeling, being in touch with my, you know, my own emotions, or those of my consumers, or my colleagues or my team, right? Like, bring up my team's time. It's so valuable. Like, we're so lean and like, if I can save them some time so that they can be out in the world seeing things more. That's what I want to do. We're so over stimulated, and we're so behind our screens. If I can get them an extra five minutes to go see something or do something or be active, or whatever it is like, that is going to be so much more valuable. And so that's kind of what I use these for, and what I encourage them to use them for. One more recent example, I do a lot of work in the Grant Space. I'm really interested in in alternative modalities for funding, beyond venture capital and grants are a space that is like incredibly archaic, and I recently built a GPT. A friend of mine wrote a book all about about designing grants programs, and I trained a GPT on that book. And now people have found that GPT online, and have have reached out to say how, wow, this thing, this was the most useful tool they'd ever encountered around grants, and how to run a grant program and how to apply for grant funding and like, that's also really cool, like these, because of the way people are engaging with With these, these GPT tools, like with with these chat bots, it's just such an easier, more user friendly way to get information, and it's also just way more intuitive. And so I think that's also the other part of it is like that more intuitive delivery, that more kind of conversational element of these, of these, assistance of these chat bots that actually, just like can translate information in a more compelling way, much faster, and again, goes back to that kind of that time saving piece. So there is a variety of use cases for these, whether it be personal, professional, for hobbies, they're endless. And I think it all is just about again, like delivering information faster, easier, sorted through, to free up time for the stuff that actually like really matters to doing, you know, the work that you love. So, yeah, sorry, that was a that was quite a lot I just threw at you there.
Tom Ollerton 18:16
You're making it very easy to do my job. I can just sit listen. Oh, good. Yeah.
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Right. So, okay, you're AI positive, I'm AI cynical at the minute.
Alexa Lombardo 19:10
I'm not, I'm an optimist, positive, I guess it's positive. That's true, that's true. But, yeah.
Tom Ollerton 19:17
You know you're not like, you're not like a not a fan girl, but you're optimistic, right? So that's fine.
Alexa Lombardo 19:23
Yeah, yeah, you're a little bit AI negative. I'm sorry we won't get into I'm I'm worried for you, if you're AI negative, considering what your what your agency does.
Tom Ollerton 19:34
Well, it's not an agency, but there you go.
Alexa Lombardo 19:36
No, your tech.
Tom Ollerton 19:40
My thing, and I'm sure it'll be not dissimilar position to yours. And our position is that advertising is a human to human business, right? It's a human, ie, the brand talking to another human, the customer, right? And the best work comes from empathy, listening, understanding, talking to, testing. Learning, and it's hard. It's a human qual thing, right?
Alexa Lombardo 20:06
Yeah, I agree.
Tom Ollerton 20:08
But yet, we live in the age of big tech, right? And big tech has had to deliver growth and growth and growth and growth and growth and growth, right? So it needs to keep doing that for the market, right? So it needs, it needs a new shining knight. And this case, it was the metaverse, it was blockchain. And, yeah,right now it's Gen AI, right? And my and why I'm fascinated by what you just talked about is because you're the first person I spoke to in a very long time on this subject who's applied creativity and technology together to deliver an outcome. I'm slightly worried that your outcome is minutes. But you know, we can get onto that in a second. But really, like, we get super excited as human beings about new things that can mean we have to do less effort, right? Like, oh yeah, of course, babies are time and money, yeah? But like, Oh, brilliant, that's gonna save me time and money. But the unwritten, I guess, rule of this gen AI stuff is that it's cheap and it's really easy to use, so therefore everyone is going to do it. There's no barrier to entry, right? So, and to be, I guess, a miserable, grumpy host, I'd be like, Well, anyone can make one of your your your gpts, right? It's like, it's not an advantage, right? It's just a disadvantage not to do it. It's not a competitive advantage, right?
Alexa Lombardo 21:21
For sure.
Tom Ollerton 21:22
So that's why, when I say I'm negative on AI, I'm like, what we need to do as marketers is to understand our audience, to care about them, to live in their shoes, to talk to them, to feel them, to give them ads that they emotionally respond to. It's not about creating efficiency.
Alexa Lombardo 21:36
But don't you think that we spend a ton of time not doing that as marketers?
Tom Ollerton 21:42
Which is why I love, which is what I love about your argument. You're like, Look, guys, don't sit there with with their spreadsheet and go and speak to someone. And here's my little tool to make you do that more. Brilliant.
Alexa Lombardo 21:53
Yeah, exactly, exactly and literally. Just it literally. It's that simple, right? And it and that. And I think that is an advantage giving your team more time to be out there talking to things, if that's what they use their time for, using AI. And then make making your team also sit and tear through spreadsheets or read these reports, rather than going out and talking to people, or not even talking to people about work, but like just being out in the world, being part of culture, you know, I, you know, talk about bad advice. You know when, when you know you are tasked with saying that when one of your when one of your goals, or one of the goals that's given to you, is to be more culturally relevant when no one on your team has time to actually be out in the world and see what's happening, because you're so you're just inundated with this deluge of information that you're processing and then content that you have to churn out. That how can you expect to be culturally relevant? Right? I think that you know to be culturally relevant, you have to be part of it. You have to be part of culture. You have to be out there. You'd be consuming it voraciously, not necessarily voraciously. But culture takes form in a lot of different ways. Culture is, you know, can be sitting on the couch and just watching, you know, a show with your family, right? It can be going to see a play. It can be going to the latest, whole new pop up. It can be like, I just think there's, it's all around us. I get inspiration everywhere. And people, you know, call me like a workaholic, because it just, it's literally everything inspires me. And I think, you know, my consumption of culture is, is, you know, part of what I think allows me to or helps me be a better marketer. And I think that's where AI can come in, that, that saving of time to get people out in the world more. Because I know what you're saying, that advertising is human to human, but that's that's not what it has, you know, I think focus groups, maybe, but like, for the most part, like a lot of these, these were a lot of us are starved for that in marketing a lot, a lot of the time, I found, I found, and I think a lot of that has to do with the surge of, you know, growth marketing, growth hacking, performance marketing, all of that, and brands that don't have, you know, big budgets to do these big campaigns and pay the agencies to do that work for them. You know, they're relying on performance to drive sales and and they're losing a lot of that magic. I'm seeing a lot of that magic being lost by a lot of direct consumer brands, even some of the kind of smaller brands that are or not smaller brands or mid sized brands that are trying to just kind of maintain their their market share and kind of post steady growth. Anyway, I'm now going off but, but I definitely think it does have it can give you a competitive advantage if you use it for what it what not, then to replace creative, right? That's not what's going to give you a competitive advantage to enable people to have more time. Time to think creatively and to really feel right, because that's the other thing too. You're standing staring at a spreadsheet all day, and you are or whatever numbers all day dashboards like, gosh, I I'm just kind of, you know, stripped of all sort of capability of feeling anything. And I think if you can free up more time to feel, for people to be emotional, for people to have empathy, to be vulnerable, that that will produce better outcomes.
Tom Ollerton 25:38
Yeah, I think ultimately, what it comes down to, and I think you've articulated it really beautifully here, it's being creative with AI. Not using AI for creative things. Yep, that is so, so different. And I saw, I was, we saw each other at Cannes.Wasn't that great for everyone who didn't go, don't worry about it. No, it was great, but I saw this boat interview on a boat with Jim Mollica, the CMO of Bose, our client, and he was, I can't remember the name of the influencer, and she said, AI, why are you coming for my fucking job? Do you know what I mean, like, go and solve a disease or something? Do you know what I mean? Like, we're really good at being creative. Why are you coming? But we're already really great. Not everyone's great. You know what I mean? Like, go and solve some like, financial issue over there for people who need the support or like and bullying. But no, no, you're coming. After my job. It was funny, man.
Alexa Lombardo 26:34
AI is great at creating a bunch of just, like noise, right? So if you use AI to create just because you just want to churn out more content? Great, yeah, sure, you can just contribute to the noise. But guess what's working the stuff that stops people from scrolling, and that's not what AI is creating most of the time, right? Like, if you're just creating content to have content, have the presence, feed the algorithm, right? And that's the stuff that we kind of do have to do that, because you do need to feed the algorithm. So there is a need for a lot of the noise. Use AI for that, but for your big, groundbreaking, creative ideas, from when you want people to really connect and feel like that's not going to be every post, you know, that's not going to be every part of every campaign, right? Like, that's not going to be you're always on right? Like, if it can be, if you can scroll stop every day. Great, if you can go viral every day. Great. I don't know how sustainable it is, but like, yeah, AI can replace some of that kind of, like, noisy, just, you know, checking the box stuff. But I don't think it can ever replace, and I don't think it could ever, you know, replace true creators who are, who are artists, you know. And I do believe creators are our artists. And you know, one other thing that actually, you know, I was on a panel, actually, I was at a round table at the day with with brand innovators. I absolutely love them, but the brand innovators team brings together really amazing brand leaders. And I was sitting with the head of analytics and data at Reckitt And she was talking about how they used AI to essentially, like, map all of the the function. Basically they, they took the marketing function. They like, hey, we think, we can. We think AI has a place here. We can use AI here in marketing, how can we best use it? Use it. So basically, they interviewed all of the marketers on the team, and they identified like over 300 tasks that these people were doing, and then they said to those people, okay, what tasks do you actually like? You think, deliver the most ROI. And they also had KPIs for that. They knew what tasks actually like, deliver the ROI. And then also, which ones do you enjoy the most? And I think that's another, you know, great, great thing. Like, you know, just actually, like, what brings people joy is so important to them doing really great work. And so anyway, what they ended up using AI for was just, okay, great. Here are all low ROI path that are kind of essentially mapped out ROI and enjoyment and figured out what tasks they could kind of use AI for to automate that would free up more of these, more of the time that were, like, really human intensive, but also enjoyed by their team, so that they were actually like, you know, doing more work. That was like, actually not the kind of spreadsheet stuff, but that required more of their attention and creativity, and also would produce the higher ROI and and that they actually love doing. And I think that kind of piece of like, again, bring more time to feel, to feel joy, and bring joy to your work. That's another great, great way we can, we can use AI and actually using AI to figure out what that is, right, and mapping that out. Like, I think that's another part of this. Like, there's not, it's, I think we've simplified, you know. But we're just talk about it so in such broad stroke. But actually, there are so many different applications of AI, and you just kind of have to almost, like, connect the dots, or kind of tie that parts them together. Or, you know, I've heard the term like daisy chaining. I think that's where you know getting creative with AI is really crucial. So I fully, I fully agree with you on that, on that point.
Tom Ollerton 30:31
So unfortunately, we're gonna have to leave it there. Alexa, for anyone who wants to get in touch with you to talk about any of the things we've discussed today, where is best place, and what makes a message that you will actually respond to?
Alexa Lombardo 30:44
Um, well, I'm not going to put my phone number on the podcast, but that's definitely the best way to get in touch!
Tom Ollerton 30:50
You, you'll be the first. I would kind of respect that.
Alexa Lombardo 30:54
It's definitely been, it's gotten let out. I've been getting calls from people out of lately, like marketing platforms, and I'm like, How has my phone number got there? Probably from from giving it out too much it can. But no, the best way is just my name, Alexa, a, L, E, X, A, at my full name, Alexa Lombardo, dot, x, y, z, that's like my personal email. And then connecting with me on LinkedIn. Better for better for me to connect personally on the topic of AI versus through, through face gym. So anyone who wants to chat about this stuff, please get in touch.
Tom Ollerton 31:29
Fantastic. I really enjoyed that I've been schooled and it's been funny, and I've learned a lot. So thanks for your time, Alexa.
Alexa Lombardo 31:35
Sorry. I really know how to go off. Tom, thanks for the time. I really appreciate you listening.
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