Episode 195 / Mihir Haryal / Apex Group Ltd / Assistant Vice President Marketing
Why Content Marketers and AI Will Work Together for the Future of Marketing
AI content creation tools have seen a rapid rise in utilisation and availability, but they’re not about to render humans obsolete. Marketing leaders like Apex Group’s Mihir Haryal see a future where content creation can be facilitated and accelerated by AI, with human intervention keeping an important role.
Mihir Haryal started his marketing career in content writing and considers himself a “true blue digital marketer.” His experience spans the financial services space, cybersecurity, fintech and more. He is now in charge of influencer marketing at Apex Group Ltd, where he is the Assistant Vice President for Marketing.
In this latest podcast episode, Mihir tells us how his beliefs have changed to consider that work life doesn’t end when you log off in the evening. He’s also sharing his top marketing tip and he explains how he sees AI content creation tools contributing to the future of marketing, without rendering human intervention obsolete.
Learn more on the latest podcast episode.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Mihir Haryal 0:00
Success is not really dependent on creativity. I think actual marketing success is incredibly scientific. It's extremely mathematical.
Tom Ollerton 0:09
Hi, before we get to this week's podcast, I'd like to tell you that automated creative are releasing a book called How to make it in marketing Volume One, it is a collection of the best marketing career advice we've had from over 200 episodes of the shiny new object podcast to hear from some of the biggest, brightest and best names in the industry showing you telling you how to grow your career, you can reserve yourself a copy at this URL, so get your pens out, it's bit.ly/MAKEITINMARKETING. I think you should get your heads around that and enjoy. It's a great read.
Hello, and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of automated creative and this is a weekly show where I interview marketing leaders about their vision for the future of the industry. And this week is no different. I'm on a call with Mihir Haryal who is Assistant Vice President for Marketing at Apex group. So Mihir, could you give the audience just a overview of who you are and what you do?
Mihir Haryal 1:41
Thanks, Tom. Happy to be here. So essentially, I'm a true blue Digital Marketer. But last 10 years, having worked in the financial services, space, cybersecurity, fintech. And, of course, in the media space, which every marketer is guilty of having worked in, I basically enjoy content writing, which is how I got into the space. And then as I've progressed along the different industries, I've been fortunate to learn from them, and understand enough people to market them and make a good career for myself so far. So I think.
Tom Ollerton 2:19
can you give us an overview of what you do currently,
Mihir Haryal 2:22
of course course. So right now, I am an Assistant, Assistant Vice President of digital marketing for the Apex Group, which is one of the world's largest financial services industry. I mean, one of the largest companies in financial services industry, in the sense that we have assets under management of what $3 trillion, which is a larger than the GDP of a lot of countries as well. So in this role, I essentially take care of influencer marketing, where I get in touch with influencers and make sure that they have a good name for our brand. And that we're able to market well to them, make good connections, and then hopefully create a better brand image.
Tom Ollerton 3:10
So in the last five years, what new belief or behavior has had a positive impact on your career?
Mihir Haryal 3:17
Well, this is actually a little controversial, but I think the fact that your office life, your work, life essentially goes beyond nine to five is a belief that has really improved the quality of my work life. Now, when I say this, I obviously don't mean that you need to keep overworking or deprioritize the other things in life and not maintain a balance. What I essentially mean is that when I was growing up in my career, I came across a lot of leaders whose brains, you know, didn't really switch off after work. It's not like, after five o'clock or six o'clock, whenever they shut down their laptops, they were totally detached from work. And I realized from these people, and in most cases, from personal interactions, that they were really enjoying what they were doing that they were a part of an industry, or they were at a level where, while there was other things that you know, would be categorized as usual work BS, but they wouldn't really keep it from doing what they really enjoyed to do so that way. It didn't really cost them much brain cells to remember what was happening at work and what would be scheduled for the next day. It essentially relates to it essentially results in two things. First, is that you're better prepared for any work related emergency, if it comes in a little beyond your working hours. And the best part is that you're extremely prepared the next morning because you know exactly where you left off, and that your entire week is planned. So that way. Then that three I've seen leaders do extremely well in their careers in the last five years as I've grown it In my career, as well, I've tried to utilize that advice. And it's always worked well for me.
Tom Ollerton 5:04
And in your career, what has been your best marketing tip that you've received, or that you give most often?
Mihir Haryal 5:12
Oh, it's again. You know, it's, it's, again, a little astray from what we generally hear. But the best tip that I ever got was from one of my bosses, who incidentally happened to be a finance guy, by academics. And then he got into marketing during the 2008 recession, when there weren't a lot of jobs. So just to continue his career, he moved to marketing and was doing exceedingly well. I mean, by the time I interacted with him, he was already the CMO of three different companies. And again, he's doing extremely well in life. So the reason I add this is, so that you know that this person has tasted success. And his simple advice to me was that marketing, success is not really dependent on creativity. And I think this is a misnomer that a lot of people have, they believe, because they're creative they would want to get into marketing. Because I think actually, marketing success is incredibly scientific. It's extremely mathematical. And the deeper you get into it, the more mathematics comes into place. So I believe, if we, if we differentiate advertising and actual marketing, which is more strategic function, people will be able to perform better. That's how I've been able to kind of focus on the actual impact and that work is creating, and will lead the data kind of narrow down the creativity and let me deliver the best results that I possibly can.
Tom Ollerton 6:51
This episode of the shiny new object podcast is brought to you in partnership with MADfest. Whether it's live in London or streamed online to the global marketing community, you can always expect the distinctive and daring blend of fast paced content startup innovation pitches and unconventional entertainment from MADfest events. You'll find me causing trouble on stage recording live versions of this podcast and sharing a beer with the nicest and most influential people in marketing, check it out at www.madfestlondon.com. So we're gonna move on now to your shiny new object, which is the use of AI in marketing. So that sounds pretty broad to me. So can you tell me specifically why that is your shiny new objects and why you think that that represents the future of the industry?
Mihir Haryal 7:43
Sure, sure Tom. So this is actually, this actually dates back to a conversation that I was having with a friend of mine, about six months back, where, you know, this guy, again, you know, he's somebody who spent like 10 to 15 years in the industry, has worked across a lot of different roles, and knows the marketing industry, as well as business management quite in depth, he was starting his own agency. I mean, the agency was live a few months back as well. But then, about six to eight months back, he was really scaling it up. And then he was speaking to all of his other friends in the industry asking for references of people that they could hire or, you know, things that they could do just just tips like that. And then when, when he and I started to talk about brand, which is one of the areas that I really like to talk about. So when we were talking about that, he made a statement saying the, the content writing industry will essentially go extinct. And the brand managers of today will become the content writers of tomorrow. I mean, so to say that these roles will eventually merge. And that sounded very weird to me, because in all of my career, whenever we were hiring for marketing roles, we very, very pointedly made sure that the brand and the content people were distinct. This conversation essentially led us down a rabbit hole into describing what he meant, which was the use of AI to replace a lot of monotonous work, that that does come in, in the marketing operation. So you know, this could translate to letting AI write content for you. There are several marketing tools available today. That probably wouldn't want to name them right now, because that would seem like endorsement, which I don't want to but but still, you know, there are several marketing tools, which just a few words on Google search engine will let you know, which can actually write content for you so so as to saying that you put a brief in there you let them know what tone you want, what language you want, what impact you would like to create your call to actions or you know, whatever. The kinds of briefs that you would essentially give a copywriter, and the AI would write it for you. Of course, there is some tweaking needed to do it. But then there are also tweaks needed when the copywriter does it for you. And the copywriter generally takes time, whereas the AI does it in a couple of seconds. So that is just one example of what could be. There are also applications and that that just led me to research more about this. There are also a lot of applications of AI, in creating your marketing graphics, getting a lot of other things which, at least for a smaller startup, or for a smaller player makes their entire copywriting team and the design team redundant because they can have these amazing, fantastic tools, some of which are free as well, to do this entire work for them. And I think that is revolutionary. And I can't wait to see how the next five years will evolve this part.
Tom Ollerton 10:58
So can you tell me about a time when you used this technology?
Mihir Haryal 11:01
Well, since we're extremely process oriented in the companies that I've worked with, most of them have had very serious business with cybersecurity and all. In terms of copywriting, we couldn't really do that at my work. But then, if at any time, I'm say, having to get a creative done having to make a presentation really fast, I can just use these tools to make sure that my presentation looks immaculate, it gets the job done, and also looks incredibly beautiful without you know, having to hire a designer brain. In most of the profiles that I've worked with, this has come in incredibly handy when the designer has been unavailable. And you know, something needs to get turned around immediately. That's when I've used these tools without really understanding how Photoshop or any of those softwares work. And that's really helped when I mean in getting quality looking designs, which makes it feel like some expert designers have done that. And I've been able to do it without really knowing much about how to.
Tom Ollerton 12:20
So what's the blocker for using it externally? So I understand that you can make a design look nice, and you can pad out a deck with some automated copy. But there's a problem there, right? So yes, you can do things quickly. But there's, what is stopping your brand handing over the copywriting to AI?
Mihir Haryal 12:40
So, see, I mean, so like I said, Tom, you know, when you start off with something like this, and your company is much smaller, then you could easily replace your entire team. So, especially for companies, which have, say, a workforce of zero to 10, this can be an incredibly useful tool. Because for them, though, efficiency, I mean, in a speed of delivery is more important. But then, because I've mostly worked in industries, which are extremely serious, they would require a lot of copy checks, they would require a lot of specialization in the writer itself, which sometimes AI fails to provide. For example, when I was working in the cybersecurity industry, I was actually it's very fortuitous that I was actually working with a player that used to create content for cybersecurity education as well. So, whenever we were whipping up briefs, or probably creating a social media copy, then it was easier to rely on a tool like this. But then when you're writing extremely technical content, say for the actual courseware, then you would need a couple of humans to get involved.
Tom Ollerton 14:00
So I think there's a challenge there, isn't it that yes, you can have AI produced this content, but fundamentally is not good enough. You need a human to augment it. So why not just get the human write it in the first place.
Mihir Haryal 14:10
Exactly, exactly. Which is why, which is why what I said was, I'm really interested to see how this pans out in the next five years. Because the way I look at it, it's very ironical that on one hand, you know, with applications like TikTok and Instagram, and a lot of others and YouTube of course, there's a huge creator economy, which is getting created, you know, people who would, would work voluntarily leaving their jobs and moving to create their own company, so to say, in terms of their, their Instagram identities or their YouTube channels. But then on the other hand, while the creative economy is rising, the ease with which you can create content in today's time, with blog writing and all. Unless, you're doing an extremely specialized content creation. This, this, this AI tools, they just help you do that in a few seconds. And that for them, at least for these these, these these people, these creators or the small time companies, I think it just helps them save a lot of time. So this irony is what really surprises me at the moment,
Tom Ollerton 15:33
I think that the issue that I have is that for a small business I run that was 16-17 numbers now and, sure, time is in short supply. But the idea that just producing content quickly, it sounds appealing, but if it's the wrong content, or it's not really good, then it's better not to have it at all. Because the issue with AI driven content is you have to train the AI on the type of contents to write. So what, you give the AI like a million instances of copy or a billion or whatever, whatever your data set is, what fundamentally it suggests is an aggregate of what has been before to suggest what should be in the future. So I write a blog post about takeaway food, what I'll do look at all the previous blogs about take away food or whatever it is, and it will spew out a blog post. However, that is a regurgitation of everything that's been before. And quality content is something that is produced that challenges or is somewhat different or better than what has been before. Hence, hence its value. So my issue is, is that certainly for business like mine, or a similar one, if you have an AI that could just churn out a blog post based on what has been before, all you're going to be left with is a version of what has been before without the cool thing that really matters, which is the view of my business, or the person writing that content, the individuality of the person. So I'm just curious to know how you think that AI will get around that in the future, that it's brilliant, replicating the past in order to suggest the future, but it is removing the one thing that is exciting what content, which is the people who are creating?
Mihir Haryal 17:14
As somebody who's literally started his career with content. And that too, when, you know, I thought I thought content writing was literally the only skill I could have. Because I didn't, I didn't come with an engineering degree. And since I'm from India, literally everybody else is an engineer. So, you know, for somebody who's had content literally start my career, I really relate to what you just said. And that's why I like to add that creating content for your business directly as a, you know, let's just call it a saleable as a saleable asset, as a sellable asset, as a sellable asset, is probably just one of the uses for which I think AI is not good enough as of this moment. But then there are several other uses, right? And content is just one piece of it. Let's say let's say even even if your business is, is really specialized writing and for that course, you know, when you creating something of an asset, like a white paper, or, or an article or, or anything which you would rather use to sell or, or to even market your company, you might want to put in a lot of thought, which is great. But then there are also things like making sure that your Twitter account is active each day, that you're posting something regularly, that is seemingly related to your work. And that also shows you as a thought leader, things that a lot of people would want to hire a company for, which is to maintain their social brand. And make that you know, even even repetative content, but then one that is trending is still maintained, which is why I did allude to the Creator economy when I said this. But the point is that the way I look at it is more from the angle of liberation, where it takes up all of these little bits of content that you still need to produce. Because if you say I'm not tweeting about two to three times a day, the Twitter algorithm will not push your, again, maybe Twitter might be a bad example considering what's happening around. But I'm actually you know, in a generic scenario, let's say the Twitter algorithm will not push your profile to more and more users if you're not tweeting consistently and regularly. And for somebody who's actually in the business and has to make business decisions all day. This might consume a lot of your time. But then with the use of AI for for this bit of content, you could easily just spend say a half an hour max to plan your entire work week. I mean, your entire work calendar as far as your online posting is concerned, use AI to create content which is seemingly similar to what you would want to say anyway. Given your brief to the, the AI, and then focus of your mind to, to really apply yourself to the things that really matter to your business, you know, like creating a really splendid white paper, or you know, any other asset that would really showcase your skill, which is not dependent on the AI. But even then, you know, using AI tools like, like Grammarly does. And the reason I use it without wanting to sound endorsing is because Grammarly is almost used as a synonym, these days for any tool that can help your grammar be edited on the go. Tools like that will come in handy. Even if you're writing really specialized content for which you probably have worked for years or studied for years. But then, the best part about this is that it really frees you up to do things that you would want to do. And again, this is just one application of whether you would want to create a brief for even your designer to work on. I remember having to struggle with that. At the start of my career when I would want to communicate to the designer what I wanted to create. And then I would create a very bad looking sketch by myself using pen and paper. And that might not always be convincing enough for the designer. And then there would be some back and forth. But then now using AI templates, I can literally just put things on paper within a few minutes and send it to the designer to create something which is attuned to our company's brand image, and also saves a lot of time in shedding brief to that individual. Were I doing this on a on a personal level. I might not even mind spending a few more minutes on the design, just to you know, just to put that out there because because for young business, then, especially from the Creator side, maybe speed would be more important than getting all the design intricacies in place that that larger businesses would refer to something that we will as limited. By a way, the only thing that's limiting us is our imagination. As far as these tools are concerned
Tom Ollerton 22:35
Mihir, unfortunately, we need to leave it there. So if someone wants to get in touch with you about any of the topics we've discussed today, where would you like them to do that, and what makes a great outreach message to you.
Mihir Haryal 22:47
I'm always active on LinkedIn. And I think that's where most people could get in touch with me. My profile is my name Mihir Haryal. And I'm not very active on Twitter, because I can't really keep creating content all the time. But my Twitter handle again is @mihirharyal. And always happy to connect with people here.
Tom Ollerton 23:11
Thank you so much for your time.
Mihir Haryal 23:13
Thanks, Tom. Happy to be here.
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