How To Use AI in Marketing Without Losing the Human Touch

What if AI marketing felt more like a helpful coworker than a sci-fi takeover? We dig into the most striking Super Bowl ad trend: human-first AI, and translate it into practical moves any small business can use to boost efficiency without losing warmth. From relatable moments to clear problem-solution framing, we show how the best campaigns made automation feel friendly, familiar, and useful.

We start by unpacking why major brands avoided cold, futuristic vibes and instead spotlighted everyday tasks: presentations, spreadsheets, scheduling, that drain time but don’t require deep judgment. Then we break down how a nostalgia-driven spot bridged generations while signaling, “AI won’t replace you; it has your back.” 

That framing becomes a toolkit for your brand: craft scenarios your audience lives through, let AI handle the tedious parts, and keep people front and center when money, trust, or emotion enters the chat.

Next, we move from ideas to execution. Using Google and Meta’s AI features, you can tailor creatives for different demographics in minutes, while maintaining a consistent voice. We map out where to automate (triage, FAQs, scheduling) and where to insert a human (sales calls, onboarding, sensitive support), with clear handoffs like a named rep or a short welcome video. 

Throughout, we stress brand fit: a high-touch, hospitality-forward company should automate backstage and keep people onstage; a convenience-first brand can lean further into AI across operations as long as it stays transparent and helpful.

You’ll leave with a crisp framework: lead with relatable problems, promise real help, prove it with clear steps, and design your journey so AI speeds the path while humans build the bond. Subscribe for more practical marketing playbooks, share this with a founder who’s wrestling with automation, and leave a review to help others find the show.

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Meet your hosts and learn more about Kickstart Collective at kickstartcollective.co

Kickstart Collective is a creative marketing agency based in Wilmington, NC. We offer our clients a creative advantage through creative content and marketing strategies. 

Transcript

Welcome And Series Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Kickstart Your Week, brought to you by Kickstart Collective, a marketing agency focused on helping brands grow with purpose. Every Monday we're here to help business owners, creators, and marketers start their week with clarity, momentum, and practical ideas you can actually use. Kickstart Your Week is produced right here at Kickstart Studios and welcome to North Carolina. Let's Kickstart Your Week. Welcome back to Kickstart Your Week. We are continuing our series on themes that we saw in this year's Super Bowl commercials and how small businesses can apply that to their marketing. So today we're going to talk about the AI commercials because there's a lot of them and it's unavoidable. So we're going to kind of kind of hit on two different topics within this theme. So the major theme we saw with AI companies is it wasn't robotic, it's not futuristic, it's not replacing you as a human. Yeah. It's relatable, it's helpful, it's showing you a solution to a problem, not a we don't need humans, AI can do everything. Right. So we're going to talk a little bit about how small businesses can tap into the helpful, relatable human connection piece, and a little bit about AI and using that in your business and the efficiency aspect of it. And then how as your business is growing and implementing some of these AI features, which I think the consumer kind of expects at this point, how to connect that portion of it with that human connection and not becoming robotic. So yeah, in summary, because that may have been a lot. How the AI companies positioned themselves as a marketing theme. And then, you know, while we're at it talking about AI, how you can implement some of these things without losing that human connection.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Well said.

The Human-Helpful AI Messaging Trend

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Thanks. We got this. Um so the I guess we can talk about some of the commercials to give some frame of reference.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

There was, I think there were 20 or 21 AI commercials during the Super Bowl. That's kind of crazy. That is when you think about it.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Absolutely nuts.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

But it kind of shows the landscape that we're at right now with work and business and everything else.

Gen Spark Ad Breakdown And Targeting

SPEAKER_00 2:15

So yeah. Um, so the Gen Spark AI commercial, that one was with Matt Matthew Brodrick. Um, so Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Right. Um hit it hit on a lot of like the nostalgia, the helpfulness, the relatability. Um, their whole campaign theme was you can take Monday off, meaning Monday after the Super Bowl. Right. Um, because I think that's what like the top missed, like call-in-sick day in America. Um, so basically they are saying, hey, you don't have to take the day off. You just need to work smarter with Gen Spark AI. And it can, I think they showed like a PowerPoint presentation getting made or like spreadsheets, things like that. Basically showing how it can make your job more efficient even when you're tired and ate too many nachas the night before. Um so, anyways, it touched on some other themes I think you and Alyssa are gonna talk about next week with the nostalgia piece, but the relatability of it, the it's not taking your job, it's just helping.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

They they place their message really well, I think. Yeah. Uh in the in the marketplace. I hadn't personally heard of them before that.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

I don't think I had either, actually.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

But they did such a good job at that. I'm like, this, these these folks look very professional and they they get it.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Um, they're not trying to buy into the whole fear-mongering thing where we're gonna take everybody's jobs. Yeah, they're there to be a companion and not replace.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Um, and I think they position themselves really well with that. And especially with like, hey, even with the the what Ferris Buellers, they obviously say, Yeah, even with that, it's like they were is that is that I mean, I guess it's a little before my not before I was a lot, but like I wasn't the age of like I'm a little younger, so you're way probably way younger than that.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Have you ever seen the movie?

SPEAKER_01 3:59

I haven't, but I know the cultural relationship.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Everybody knows the cult, yeah, everybody knows the reference.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Which interesting it's a great way to message that, you know? Yeah, and package that in.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

So well, okay. Sorry, we haven't talked, we haven't we're gonna break this down right here right now. Okay, let's do it. Okay, we'll see which direction the sub episode takes from here. Okay. I'm almost 35, is a little bit before my time, definitely before your time because you're a little bit younger than me. So, but we all know the cultural reference. So it's targeting a demographic that's a little bit older than me, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

So, not to like put people in a box because that's rude. Um, but I wonder if it's more of a like sure it's relatable across the board, but is it really targeting a demographic that might be more hesitant towards some of these AI tech?

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Laura, this is good. Okay, I think so. I think it's targeting the people that have been in the corporate world for a while.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

A little bit longer.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

They're like there may be a little bit more seasoned, maybe the manager, maybe the uh one of like the lead salespeople or something like that. And yeah, in that like 40s to 50s range, maybe. Um and the fact that it can still speak to our our age ranges and our like demographic is pretty powerful, right? How they did that. But I I that's a great point. I think it does definitely target uh 40s and 50s.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Maybe people, yeah, somebody who might be a I mean, getting not putting people in a box because I know. Anyways, but if it is some of that like corporate workplace jobs, a slightly older who might be more hesitant to adopting some of these things if it was like real, really tight message for that demographic. Anyways, not where we're going, but welcome to Kickstarter Week. We have notes, and sometimes we don't follow them.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Right, right. No, it no, but I I think the the message landed really well ultimately. I I was impressed, like it had multiple layers that I didn't even realize the first time I saw it until we talked about it. I was like, oh wow, that really makes a lot of sense. It was just a really well thought out message.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Yeah.

Multidemographic Messaging With AI Tools

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Um and kind of like seguing into that, like so using that ad as like a like a placeholder, like how how can we best use um or like maybe even target our messaging with that, you know, with making it so that marketing campaigns can hit multiple demographics, you know what I mean? I come first thing that comes to mind is like knowing your audience, right? Um, and then using AI to kind of uh you can target your audience in a way that uh makes sense for what they're they're looking for.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Yeah, and I think I mean some of that too, and again, this was not on the agenda for this episode, but we're gonna do it. Um, like if we just we'll take Google Ads as an example, they have a lot of new AI features. Um and I know we've talked in previous episodes about like setting different creative for different demographics. Yeah. Um, so if you're uh selling a service and you can customize the messaging to women who are 45, the creative, the visuals, the language can be that, and then you can use Google or Meta, and that can be your target audience. Um at the same time, you might be targeting a guy certain age range, slightly different messaging for your same service, but tailoring that to like what is their problem and needs and solving that. Yeah. Um, but with all these AI tools, um the creative portion of that can happen a lot faster. The targeting of that is insane. Um so there's just yeah, there's a lot more options and there's a lot of ways to make it more efficient.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Yeah.

Efficiency Expectations And Human Touchpoints

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Um which um I guess on the business side of the AI portion of it, I think there is a level now that people expect that efficiency and that tech and that customization because it has gotten so much easier with AI. Yeah. Um, and I think the challenge always is, always will be, will probably even more so be like, how do you keep that human connection piece? Absolutely. Um, and so I think that's where the marketing and like sales portion of it comes in of like, hey, you might have like an AI chat box bot on your website, and like if it's a good one, like boom, great, love it. Um but as you're about to maybe convert that person or they become an actual client, like, where does the human step in? Like, is it just a pre-recorded welcome video with a real person's face that they you know is out of the company and may help them eventually maybe not, but like, hey, here's a real person here. Um, you know, if it's a sales call with an actual person, all that good stuff. Um also again segue. So I had to call the Kia dealership yesterday to schedule an oil change. Uh-huh. And so you call, receptionist answers, and they put you through to like the service department. I am like 99.9% sure that what portion of it then was like the AI phone answering service. Um, but like the voice and like it was like too good. The only way I knew it was because it said my name over and over again and like repeated the details too exact. But like the way the AI like voice was, I was like, man, this is weird.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Right. It's almost it's hard to tell.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

It was so I like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Can I share an embarrassing story?

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Please.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

All right, this is a Kickstarter exclusive. I went to Chick-fil-A one time. Yeah, and this was right after I'd been like conditioned like with Bojangles. They it's a condition, they are using AI like to like completely. Like where when you go to order, you have to use Bojangles to AI system to like order. You like say, hey, I want a bow buy biscuit, and they'll be like, Yeah, you can do it. You know, here's your total number. Would you like to add anything else? And I went to Chick-fil-A. And you know, their whole thing is like my pleasure, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

So I went there and I thought that the voice was so good and so it sounded so professional and perfect that I thought it was an AI bot.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

But it was not.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

That's not Chick-fil-A's brand.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

It's not, and that's why I was so thrown off. And I was like, and I said, I was like, hey, can I get a number two? And I was like, hey, is this AI? And the lady said, no. My name's like Sondra or something. Oh no. I was like, I got beat red, and I went around to the end of the drive drive-thru line. I was like, I'm so sorry. I didn't know any better. I was like, honestly, this is a compliment to you because your voice is so professional.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Yeah. We should get earned, she should be a voice actor. She should be, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Sorry, completely derailed the conversation.

Brand Fit: When AI Helps Or Hurts

SPEAKER_00 10:46

But but it's inter okay. But again, this I like this episode. Again, it's interesting. But you to first off, you tell me Bojangles has an AI thing. Yeah, the like image of my head of Bojangles, I'm like, oh, I didn't realize you were sophisticated enough to do that. Right. But if you would tell me Chick-fil-A had an AI thing, I'd be like, that is not the brand. It's not, it's not the warmth human connection brand. So that would feel, and if they do it, they are the world's most efficient smart company. So sure on that level would make sense. But on the human connection portion, I would be shocked.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

That's why I was so thrown off.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Because I didn't like since when like last week I went and I was talking to a person. Um but I guess that speaks to how AI depends is dependent on who you are as a company. Does it fit your brand? Does it fit your messaging? Does it fit uh who you are and like what you like present to people? Yeah. Does it make sense to use AI in those situations? If it's very people forward and people facing, you need to keep the human connection. Yeah. You cannot replace that as part of who you are.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

And uh yeah, the back end of things may be AI for efficiency purposes, but like that human connection. Yeah, like the Kia, I mean, maybe it is a real person. I'll find out Monday when I go. But um, yeah, I'm not worried about AI scheduling my oil change. Yeah, whatever. But yeah, so, anyways, all that to say, it is it's knowing like your brand and your core values and what matters to your customer where you insert AI. Because it's it's inevitable, honestly, at this point, and people expect it. So it's not like even a year or two ago where like people would be hesitant about it in some capacity. Um, it's just using it wisely, especially when it comes to customer facing things. Um yeah, I don't I don't know. I feel like we're gonna talk about some other things. We have our notes here. Um but this has I feel like been a fun conversation regardless. I think back to like the themes portion and I feel like we've talked about this, but like figuring out how to like create relatable everyday moments that in your marketing that your customers hold on to, yeah, um, was just a big theme from the AI tech ads. Um which is good, you know, for small businesses too. Like you might not have the challenge of people just naturally thinking you were gonna replace them. Um, but how do you create a you know, a solution to a problem somebody has that you as a solution feels relatable and like easy to to grasp. Um yeah, which goes back kind of what you mentioned about like knowing your audience um and knowing what those pain points are, figuring out your messaging and being that solution. Um so yeah. Anything else you want to add?

Relatable Moments And Problem-Solution Framing

SPEAKER_01 13:42

I think that was that's all I wanted to say. I didn't know I was gonna talk about Chick-fil-A today, but um yeah, I think ultimately just yeah, again, I'll hark on it one more time. Just know your audience. That's that's a huge point to marketing in general. Yeah. But just recognize where AI can be useful for you, and like you're saying, in the back end and where maybe it could be useful in the in the people facing parts, or maybe not, and just know who your customers are because that's the most valuable part of a business, anyways.

Subscribe, Review, And Studio Booking

Key Takeaways And Next Week’s Tease

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Yeah, perfect. Um, well, yeah, thank you guys for joining us um on this episode of Kickstart Your Week. We have one more episode in this series diving into the Super Bowl trends that we saw in the ads. Um, so next week will be about nostalgia and some of those callback moments, um which there was a ton, but how you as a business owner can tap into that as well in your marketing. So thanks for joining us and we'll see you next week. Thanks for listening to Kickstart Your Week. If today's episode gave you something to think about or try this week, be sure to subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a review. It helps more people find the show. And if you're looking to create your own podcast or content, Kickstart Studios is available for booking. We'll be back next week with another conversation to help you kickstart your week.