
The journey downwards (A lesson for business)
Business vs Brand
April, 2024. AMP has a podcast studio we built for our clients, because we realised that podcasts are a fantastic outreach platform, combined with the ability to use the clips from there too!
At AMP we call this a “tool” for your brand. I will talk more on this, but for now I’m going to talked about the race to the bottom.
This all started with a realisation. We had hired editors to edit our podcast content, which was filmed “live-to-tape” in-house. It’s more about “read the transcript, pull interesting pieces”.
This process over a 1 hour podcast becomes very tedious. You then add captions, B-roll, and the editors interest waned more, and more… This wasn’t the intention of that work, we want to make an agency that has excited, and motivated staff, not button pushers.
The clips were doing what they needed to. Consistently bringing hundreds and thousands of views to our clients content daily, but the process was labour intensive and the editors frankly hated it.
So we took a new tack on this. After all this is a simple system, surely we can “automate” this, since it’s boring?
Enter AI.
The first one was OK… Somewhat clunky, as tedious as manually editing, simply a non-starter. The second only did captions & B-roll, which was ok, again the tedium was looming and the editors didn’t really enjoy this process, although more palatable. This AI lasted the longest, costing us around $700/year, and was the staple of the studio for months. This was on top of our SMM platform that was $300/month.
Then another came along.
It cut the long form content to clips, it added subtitles, it added B roll, and it even posted content for us. This was a product made for us, and it’s now the main product (for now).
Our problem solved (as well as our SMM), for only $120/year.
Thats a massive change in cost and output. We transitioned our editors to more interesting projects, and now have reduced cost allowing us to market the podcast content marketing to more people.
Now here’s the real conversation with AI, LLM, AGI and any variant of automated services you provide. Due to it’s lack of actual cost, it’s a race to the bottom. This is one of the WORST business models, as if you’re competing on price, you’ll always have a competitor willing to undercut you at every moment.
The product doesn’t lose value, it just doesn’t HOLD a lot of value as another AI will pop up and do the same but better, at a lower price point.
It’s a race to the bottom.
I say it again, because I see brands doing it all the time… They brag about being cheaper, more cost effective, or “budget friendly”. These are all the tell-tale signs of business models that are unsustainable.
To properly care for your team, staff, crew, you MUST ensure your brand can withstand this mindset. You can build any kind of business these days, it’s a great wide world. I can work with the UK this morning and Thailand in the afternoon, geography is no longer limiting for many brands. Pricing isn’t the only value you need to push.
How can you avoid the race to the bottom?
It all starts with WHO you serve. Your client is the key. I’ll use AMP as a reference point here, but feel free to replace my brand with yours, it’ll still make sense. AMP serves clients who deeply care about their teams & clients. The “WHAT” they do is almost secondary to making that client or team happy. AMP understands deeply that a happy team, will make happy clients.
We create deep, impactful creative concepts that are delivered through the umbrella of BRANDING to make a difference. The team works hard to make sure our clients get the absolute best solution. This is done through the lens of the BRAND. AMP believes in quality, a H2H* connection and authenticity. Those brand values are demonstrated in the way we converse with the world, how we approach clients and ultimately how we conduct business. It’s echoed back through how people perceive your brand, and how they interact with your brand.
Work on making something that can’t simply be defined by a simple dollar amount. Don’t scratch the surface, Go deeper than your competition does.
That’s the answer to how to avoid the race to the bottom. Go deeper.
If you need help with your brand, maybe you need some brand strategy or a brand audit, get in touch, and one of our team will help you get your brand on the right track.
*H2H – Human to Human. Yeah we love AI but we also understand people, buy from people 🙂