For eight years, Amanda Penton of QuickFuse Studios has handled marketing for prominent clients such as Only Organic, Takapoto Estate, Morris & James Pottery, and Natural Things.
She has seen the before-and-after of doing business with AI tools like ChatGPT. So in a world of generative AI, in which swathes of text are only a mouse click away, SARAH KELLEHER asks her why is she calling for today’s creatives to take up copywriting.
Q. Who are you and what does QuickFuse Studios do?
A. I hold a Bachelor of Marketing from Massey University and a Graphic Design Diploma from the Media Design School, and I’m the owner and Director of QuickFuse Studios. We provide a full suite of marketing services to businesses for the cost of one employee. Our services include website design, content creation, social media, email marketing, graphic design, PR, and strategy.
Q. You told me you once got an anxious phone call from one of your copywriters, convinced AI was going to take her job. Why do you think she was so upset?
A. AI has been very sensationalised and there’s been a lot of scaremongering in the media. I think yes, people are using ChatGPT more and more, but that fear-based perception of everyone losing their jobs isn’t really founded. ChatGPT should be seen as a tool.
You’d be surprised how long AI has been around in various forms. In a way, it’s an extension of digital automation and apps we already use to streamline our lives.
Q. How does QuickFuse Studios use generative AI?
A. We use it mainly for commercial copywriting – that’s different to creative copywriting. It’s the administrative-based writing jobs that are very repetitive and tedious but have to be done.
It also cuts down on time for more creative work. For example, creating a blog post would normally take three to five hours, including research, and now it takes one hour for editing and fact-checking.
It’s also great for generating ideas. ChatGPT is like a brain that searches ideas and serves them up to you on a platter, instead of you having to manually search for inspiration.
Q. Do you think generative AI will replace writers?
A. The kind of writing that has always sold is a genuine story, a human who has had an experience people can connect with. Humans have an innate instinct to seek that. ChatGPT can only regurgitate stuff we’ve already done, but it can’t create a connection or convey the intricacies of our ‘humanness’.
People argue the output is going to become more and more sophisticated, and it’s true there are some tasks that are simple enough that I only have to edit ChatGPT’s output and you’d never know the difference. But even then, I’m the one driving it. I’m the one coming up with the message I want to convey.
But there’s so much more to copywriting than the text output, anyway. You can’t get ChatGPT to go out and interview people like this, can you?
Q. How should copywriters use generative AI?
A. Well, don’t forget, the dream copywriter job doesn’t include the tedious work. No copywriter wants to write social media posts for a living. It’s inane! Boring! And no one pays them enough to do it, anyway.
People become writers because it’s a passion and they love it. There are so many different types of copywriting, and no, you don’t have to use AI. One of the lovely ladies I work with is old school and won’t touch ChatGPT, and that’s fine.
But if you’re a copywriter going from freelance job to freelance job, doing the repetitive stuff manually, why not speed things up and take on more clients?
Q. Amen to that – as a former copywriter, I recall I loathed social media posts! But what are the weaknesses of generative AI?
A. The obvious nature of its output is the big one. You can tell if someone’s copied and pasted from ChatGPT.
Unfortunately, there seem to be people thinking, ‘I’ll get ChatGPT to write a book and I’ll sell it on Amazon,’ and I’m sure someone will try to sell a course or something, but that’s really misleading.
Q. What about laymen who might want to make money off ‘the tedious work,’ as you put it? Can they use ChatGPT for that?
A. I can use ChatGPT as a tool, but that’s only because of my experience and creativity. Unless you have the trained eye, you won’t understand what you’re producing.
That’s the danger of ChatGPT. For the average person, they may well be impressed by some output, while skilled writers will spot a mile away that it’s rubbish. There’s way more to business and commerce than just knowing how to click buttons.
Q. Has ChatGPT ever failed to give you what you asked for?
All the time. It’s a pain, actually! It’s repetitive and lacks depth. That’ll probably change, but many times I’ve turned to ChatGPT and wound up thinking, ‘This is not the right tool for the job.’
You experiment with it and sometimes it helps things along. That’s it.
Q. If you had a worried copywriter on the phone right now, what would you say?
A. We tend to get scared of a new thing, but we’ve been through industry revolutions before. They always seem to come with this belief that everyone will lose their jobs.
I’ve been watching Mad Men and it’s so funny to see them drawing all the ads manually. Today’s graphic design programs make drawing so much faster. None of them have replaced those ‘creative geniuses’, and by using such programs, we can do so much more. ChatGPT is just a tool for knowledgeable people to streamline and speed things up.
This post was 100% human-generated. The writer tried very hard to get ChatGPT to write a clever title, but she decided to spare you its lukewarm puns. Launch your copywriting career today with the New Zealand Writers College.
About the Author
Sarah Kelleher is a writer from Cambridge, New Zealand, with a love for copywriting, magazine journalism, and creative fiction. Her passion is writing character-driven women’s fiction novels. She also stretches herself by writing the occasional short story with the enthusiasm of a child on the first day of school. When she’s not writing, Sarah enjoys spending time with her family or flying as an airline pilot.
