Meghan Keaney Anderson & Mary Sheehan Cut Through the AI Clutter While Contextualizing the Latest From Google’s Gemini

Meghan Keaney Anderson & Mary Sheehan Cut Through the AI Clutter While Contextualizing the Latest From Google’s Gemini

Google's Gemini AI: A New Chapter in the AI Narrative or A Tree Falling in the Forrest? 🚀

Google's recent announcement of their new Gemini AI model has the tech world buzzing, but did they make a splash outside of the valley? With an extremely crowded market, how are these companies positioning themselves in this rapidly evolving space? 🤔

📚 Every Launch Tells a Story 📚

In the current climate of rapid-fire AI releases, each launch is no longer a standalone event. Instead, they're chapters in a broader narrative that defines a company's unique approach and what they stand for. Google's Gemini AI is just another piece of their ongoing narrative.

🚀 The Pioneer vs The Steward 🚀

In the AI race, OpenAI has positioned itself as the pioneer, pushing boundaries and taking risks. Google, on the other hand, has taken on the role of the steward, emphasizing thoughtfulness and responsibility. This isn't a case of one-upmanship, but rather a strategic move to fill a unique space in the AI narrative.

🎯 Centering In On the Key Differentiator 🎯

Google's Gemini AI has a cool feature that we think the tech folks will definitely latch onto. It could give them a serious edge in the competition. But, it's still a big question if the broader market will appreciate this competitive advantage. Gemini is multimodal, understanding across different formats like text, images, code, and data. It can even dynamically generate different styles of UI custom fit to the request. It's a thoughtful response to the needs of the market.

🌐 Beyond the Valley: AI for Everyone 🌐

As AI continues to evolve, it's crucial for companies to understand customer perception and how AI can be helpful, not scary. Google's narrative of democratizing AI while being authentic and trustworthy is a solid approach. It's not just about being an "AI company" anymore; it's about solving problems and delivering value. 💡

🕰️ The Future of AI 🕰️

As we look to 2024, will AI still be a differentiator or will it become as standard as being a digital company? The consensus? It's going to vary by industry. But one thing's for sure, the market is only going to become more crowded and companies need to start thinking about how to evolve their messaging as AI becomes table-stakes.

The 4 Strategic Emphasis Archetypes in Product Marketing and their impact on AI: A Deep Dive 🚀

In Reforge's Product Marketing Course, Meghan and Mary outline four key strategic emphases that determine your approach to positioning.

🎯 Market Leader, Challenger, Audience Specific, or Category Creator? 🎯

Every company falls into one of these archetypes. Each comes with its own set of benefits and challenges.

• Market leaders solve a problem better than anyone else for a broad market, like Salesforce in the CRM space.

• Challenger companies enter the space, claiming to solve the problem better than the incumbent and throw punches at the market leader.

• Audience-specific companies tell a specific subset of the market that they understand them deeply, and will solve the nuances of their problem best, like Jasper does for Marketers.

• Category creators, well that’s the toughest job of all, creating a brand new category. When it works, it’s magic, defensible, and sticky, but most companies try to be this and fail.

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🥊 Market Leader vs Challenger Brand 🥊

Being the market leader might seem like the dream, but it's not all sunshine and rainbows. You're constantly on the defense, trying not to fall off the treadmill of innovation. On the flip side, being the challenger brand can be fun as you get to throw the bones and define yourself in contrast to the leader. But remember, your whole positioning is built on what you're not so you have to keep very close tabs on the leader.

🎯 Audience Specific vs Category Creator 🎯

Being audience-specific allows you to own a corner of the market and make your marketing all about the customer. But it's inherently smaller and can make expanding to the next audience tougher. As for being a category creator, it's a tough road with a lot of failures along the way. But if you succeed, it's incredibly defensible and sticky.

🥇 The First Mover Myth 🥇

Being first to market isn't always the best strategy. Sometimes, learning from the market and coming up with a slightly different angle or a different customer segment can be more successful in the long run.

🤝 Embrace the Crowd 🤝

Crowded markets can help you define what makes you remarkable. It's easier to define yourself in the context of everything else around you than in the absence of it. Constraints can be helpful, and a crowded market provides plenty of those. But when you do decide to go for it, make sure you're ready to execute.

Want to learn more about these archetypes and how to use them in your GTM strategy, please check out Reforge’s Product Marketing course, written by Meghan and Mary!

What Does Great Marketing Look Like heading into 2024? 🎯

We wrap the chat by riffing on what separates good marketing from great marketing.

🎯 Mary’s 3-Step Process: Solving a Core Customer Problem 🎯

Great marketing:

• Speaks directly to a specific customer segment, showing them how their problems are solved.

• It illustrates this through every aspect of the brand, from marketing videos to website copy.

• The promise is realized in the actual product experience. It's not just about marketing one thing and delivering another.

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🚀 Meghan Highlights Building Momentum and Channeling It 🚀

Great marketing is about building your own momentum and knowing how to channel it. This could be through frequent product launches, a strong personality, or thought leadership. It's about creating a buzz that makes people think, "Something's happening over there, and I need to pay attention." Whether it's through frequent product launches, a charismatic personality, or thought leadership, the key is to build momentum. Once you've built that momentum, the challenge is to channel it into actual business.

📣 Echo Chamber Effect 📣

Great marketing creates an echo chamber effect, where a specific group of people feels like everyone's talking about your product. This means you've identified your initial audience well, figured out the value prop and language that resonates with them, and found where they live online. 🌐

📩 People Follow People, Not Companies 📩

In the age of AI, people are becoming more important. There's a trustworthiness and expertise that comes from individuals that can't be replicated by machines. Great marketing leverages this, identifying key influencers and leveraging them to spread the word about your company.

🤔The Big Question 🤔

So, if you had two candidates for a marketing role - one with great marketing acumen but no following, and another with a massive reputation and following online but just good skills - who would you choose? Is the marketer's following a sign of their marketing prowess or just a result of their personal brand?

In any other function, we're picking the candidate with the skills and not the following, but could marketing be the one exception to the rule? 🤔