In the latest edition of our series “How AI Will Change…” we spoke with martech entrepreneur Kevin Wassong about how artificial intelligence is already showing how it’s reshaping advertisers’ holiday retail strategy.
Wassong is the founder of mktg.ai, which is billed as the “Bloomberg Terminal for Marketing.” The platform aims to give CMOs a unified view of their creative and performance data. Brands like Corcoran and Newman's Own are already using it to simplify decision-making and move faster.
As Wassong tells it, this holiday season marks a critical inflection point where AI is forcing marketers to abandon fragmented, channel-specific tactics in favor of integrated brand storytelling.
Adobe predicting a 520% leap in retail traffic from AI chatbots compared to last year, the question is no longer whether AI will change how consumers discover products. Rather, it’s whether brands have unified their creative ecosystems enough for AI engines to surface them accurately — and whether marketers are prepared to compete in a world where coherent brand narratives matter more than performance hacks.
Marketers are realizing they can’t rely on holiday “set-it-and-forget-it” tactics. AI is forcing constant brand alignment across every channel. Brands are beginning to update messaging faster, yet siloed, and watching how creative performs in near real time, not just how ads get distributed.
No! Most brands don’t have a unified brand story across channels, so AI engines get mixed signals. This shift rewards brands with consistent, well-structured creative, not teams chasing short-term performance tricks.
Creatives must spell out “use cases and audiences” clearly. AI responds to explicit value, not clever lines or images designed to work the algorithm of the specific platform. Creative needs to be integrated and consistent everywhere so an AI doesn’t “guess wrong” about what the product does or who it’s for.
More! But good, integrated and consistent creative. AI recommendations collapse the divide between brand and performance. If your creative doesn’t communicate meaning, your product won’t surface. The age of “tricks for clicks” is fading; substance now beats hacks.
Clear, descriptive, consistent across all placements. It connects the brand narrative with practical detail. AI engines reward integrated creative systems, not random one-off assets created for specific channels.
Right now, it’s purely directional: you look for shifts in branded search, engagement with specific creative, and product-level lift. We see brands with tightly integrated brand across channels get much cleaner signals because their message is consistent everywhere.
More blind at first. It’s one more opaque surface area. But AI is also allowing brands to clean up their creative ecosystem and connect the dots across channels. It accelerates the end of siloed performance tactics.
It’s not “the mention.” Success is whether the consumer chooses you afterward. In a world where AI compares products side-by-side, brands with coherent, emotionally resonant creative outperform those relying on click-optimization tricks. Over time, this may change, but for now, this is the need.
Right after fixing creative fragmentation. You can’t optimize for AI with a mismatched brand voice across channels. Different creative and tactics across media. Personalization is bullshit! AI surfaces clarity and consistency, not hacks.
We’re seeing early testing, but no massive shifts yet. It's hard to optimize what most don't understand and can't track. What’s clear is that integrated creative is becoming more important than keyword-gaming. AI rewards brand coherence.
Most don’t because they don’t have visibility into their creative ecosystem overall. Until brands unify their assets and narratives across channels with technology like our mktg.ai, they won’t know what AI is pulling from.
Yes. It will be the season where the experimentation unearths what does and doesn't work. It’s also the moment AI forced marketers to unify brand and performance. The era of fragmented creative and channel-specific hacks is ending, and integrated, brand-driven storytelling is finally back in the driver’s seat.
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