Is AI the End of Travel Marketing as We Know It?

[00:00:00] Welcome to Travel Buddy, presented by Switchfly. In this podcast, we talk about all things travel, rewards, and loyalty. Let's get to it. 

Brandon Giella: We've got lots to talk about today on the question of, is AI actually ending travel marketing as we know it, or is it just reshaping it? we're talking about this today because there was a PhocusWire article that came out to talk about, they had a summit about how AI is disrupting or not, travel marketing.

And they had a lot of big influencers there, and influencers by way of either leaders at major travel brands. And everybody was pontificating about their thoughts, some of which we disagree with, and we have lots of thoughts ourselves. And so we have Rachel Satow, as always, and we have special guest back again, Jessica Steinberg. so we are gonna talk about AI and travel marketing. Rachel, to me about this. what are your thoughts on this article? 'Cause I know we were talking about this before the show. [00:01:00] We got lots of thoughts. Give it to 

Rachel Satow: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, before, before we hopped on, we were talking about how there really were two very distinct opinions that came out of the Phocuswright Travel Marketing, AI Summit. 

Brandon Giella: summit And 

Rachel Satow: one hand, you had leaders in the industry saying that all traditional marketing channels are gone.

Fundamentally, we need to accept that all of our traditional... Everything we know as marketers is just out the door because of AI. 

Brandon Giella: the 

Rachel Satow: And then on the other side, you have people 

Brandon Giella: people 

Rachel Satow: leaders who were saying this hasn't changed what we're doing fundamentally. Like, we're incorporating new aspects into our systems, but we are not, 

Brandon Giella: not 

Rachel Satow: steering away from some of the core marketing channels. 

Brandon Giella: efforts." 

Rachel Satow: and I think, 

Brandon Giella: think, you 

Rachel Satow: we, we were talking about this before the... we started recording. 

Brandon Giella: important. 

Rachel Satow: lean a little bit more towards the individuals who are saying it is starting to be [00:02:00] incorporated, but the traditional marketing channels as we know it are not fully going away. In my opinion, they are just going to evolve, as we've seen 

Brandon Giella: evolve as we 

Rachel Satow: million other things evolve as technology advances. So 

Brandon Giella: So 

Rachel Satow: I, I... From that article, we got talking about how is this really going to affect travel marketing, and that's why we wanted Jess to jo- to join. She has been, 

Brandon Giella: been, 

Rachel Satow: fundamental from Switchfly's side in helping our partners market travel rewards. 

Brandon Giella: rewards. And she and I left talking, 

Rachel Satow: were like, "We have to get-- We have to talk about this," because 

Brandon Giella: because 

Rachel Satow: both have some very interesting thoughts on, on, you know, that there will always be an audience for, those who are not wanting The latest and greatest in tech. And as marketers, we tend to live and breathe what the most cutting edge implementation might be, what the, what the latest tool is that we can use. How can we make our jobs [00:03:00] easier with AI? How can we I had a former boss who once said, "If I can do it in fewer clicks, I'm going to." 

Brandon Giella: click." 

Rachel Satow: that has always stuck with me because I think as marketers we inherently lean that way, 

Brandon Giella: way. 

Rachel Satow: we need to be reminded that there is always going to be an audience who one, doesn't want to click at all, they don't they wanna pick up the phone, or two, 

Brandon Giella: two,

are 

just

Rachel Satow: in learning what is the latest and greatest that they need those existing channels to exist to continue to get the information that they are wanting.

Brandon Giella: there.

Rachel Satow: so that's, that's my two cents overall on this topic. Jess,

Brandon Giella: That's

Rachel Satow: think?

Jessica Steinberg: Yeah, I think I agree. I, I think if you were to stop all other traditional marketing and just focus on the world of AI, you'd probably be missing

Brandon Giella: saying

Jessica Steinberg: a whole bunch of your customers. I think there's an older generation that will just not pick up AI the way the younger generation has and probably will continue to.

So

Brandon Giella: to.

So I

Jessica Steinberg: depending on who your core customer is, that really matters, and make, making sure you're juggling [00:04:00] all the balls and adding the AI ball rather than dropping all of the rest of them

Brandon Giella: of

Jessica Steinberg: is really important. I do think it's gonna shift how a few generations search for travel and think about what they-- how they wanna travel and where they wanna travel.

Brandon Giella: what they want forever.

Jessica Steinberg: So I think taking into account that change is gonna be super important. but I think it's just changing how we market and when and where, versus, you know, dropping all of the other marketing channels entirely, for sure.

Brandon Giella: Yeah, I totally agree with you. I, I would say the other angle I would, I would get to and that sums up my thoughts is, and I should preface to say I love AI tools.

I have all the MCPs connected to all the things with the GitHub files, and like I would say I'm, I'm fairly advanced at it, you know, above average at least. But marketing and people buying things has always been about trust and relationships. And so of course, AI is gonna be phenomenal at doing certain things, but it always comes back down to trust, which means you have to have great brand, brand [00:05:00] awareness. You have to have great social media. You have to have great influencer marketing, if you will, because it's still built on relationships. That's why word-of-mark-- word-of-mouth marketing is still the most powerful form of marketing that has ever existed because we've been doing it for thousands of years.

Happened to me just this morning. I almost bought this spray to get rid of my congestion that I put in the shower because somebody recommended it to me because they told me a great story about how it works. And we love stories, and we love trusting other people that recommend things to us. I'll get off my soapbox. But, I wanna jump on, Jess, what you were talking about earlier about like the way people are gonna be, searching and finding things. So let's talk about the funnel. Tell us, what you're experiencing on the way that the funnel is maybe changing or what we could be adding to the typical marketing mix that would get the best of both worlds so that we don't drop any of the balls like you're saying.

Awesome.

Jessica Steinberg: Yeah, I think a lot of customers, and I know I can speak for myself when I say this, 'cause I do this all the time. [00:06:00] I think a lot of that kind of discovery phase, the where should I go, when should I go, how should I go, just figuring out what the trip is gonna look like at the highest level, I think is now starting at least for, I think, the younger generation with Claude, with ChatGPT.

You know, "I wanna go to a warm place this month. I have this much time off. Give me suggestions." and then I've gone as far as to have it build an itinerary for me. "These are the things I like to do."

Brandon Giella: two.

Jessica Steinberg: then by the time I'm done with, you know, ChatGPT or whatever AI tool I'm talking to,

to,

I'm now ready, pretty much ready to book or pretty much ready to find the best deal.

So it's gonna matter more and more, that middle to lower funnel engagement from a brand perspective. and it's gonna matter even more, especially from a Switchfly perspective,

that booking flow experience. If the customer's coming to you already primed versus, you know,

know,

at the higher level of the funnel, then you need to be ready.

The booking flow needs to be a good experience, the messaging needs to be there, and the product needs to be what they're looking [00:07:00] for. so I think it's almost like compressing the funnel for a lot of brands because by the time the customer gets to you,

you

they're already past the consideration stage, and they're looking for the best deal, the best value.

and so making sure that you're there when that happens I think is gonna be extra important moving forward.

Brandon Giella: That's great. Yeah, and that, that brings in, you know, people have been talking about AEO or GEO, which is the, the basically, you know, the SEO equivalent, in the AI space. And that there can be some things there that's really helpful, like the way that you're creating content or the way that you're building your marketing infrastructure.

You can get surfaced in these results, which can be great. And I know there's, platforms considering adding ads into that space, which will further, you know, clarify or, or the, the kind of traffic that we wanna see in the middle bottom 

funnel 

Jessica Steinberg: content needs to be written on,

Brandon Giella: Hmm 

Jessica Steinberg: you know, trusted brand sites. It's less about including, you know, one specific vacation package keyword over and over, and more about including the longer form actual question and answer. So FAQs I think are gonna [00:08:00] become huge.

Making sure that you're showing up when AI does crawl, your site. And so I actually did a little exercise before and went on,

Brandon Giella: our front end on the-

Jessica Steinberg: asked it, you know, "What are the benefits of, of bundling with this package brand versus booking the flights and hotels separately?" And it pulled up that brand's FAQs from their website.

obviously then you can click through and read, but if a customer is doing their research and that's what comes up first, I think you're winning. and so again, 

Brandon Giella: so again, 

Jessica Steinberg: focusing on those longer form actual questions that people are typing into AI versus just vacation packages. I think that's gonna become a huge focus

Brandon Giella: Or voice too, you know, the way peop- the natural language processing is, you know, what, what we're talking about. So in, in natural language, how people are with their voice talking into Claude or ChatGPT or typing things out is, is the way to, to be thinking about it. That's great.

Rachel Satow: S-

Brandon Giella: what are your thoughts?

Rachel Satow: this brings up something. I was at Loyalty Expo by Loyalty360 last week, and I attended one of the sessions by Salesforce on conversational marketing, and especially [00:09:00] in how AI is being applied for conversational marketing and how this is probably going to be what we see the most from

Brandon Giella: from

Rachel Satow: marketing perspective and application of, like real world application. And Salesforce actually demoed

Brandon Giella: put

Rachel Satow: a,

Brandon Giella: a chatbot

Rachel Satow: implemented or they are testing

Brandon Giella: day.

Rachel Satow: back and forth with you regarding how you can redeem loyalty points for specific things. And one of the examples they used was just type in that you want to redeem loyalty points for a specific type of, of vacation. so Jess, like to, to your example, you had mentioned that you're using it for travel planning and, you have this amount of time off and you want to go to a warm location that has a beach, etc.

Brandon Giella: which 

Rachel Satow: What 

Salesforce demoed was a tool that essentially allowed to, users to turn that conver- that interaction with AI [00:10:00] into a full conversation rather than

answer output like most ChatGPT, Claude, etc.,

currently are functioning as.

has,

they are, the, the way they are implementing AI is allowing that to turn into a conversation and I think it goes back to, we Brandon, your point

we point

trust each other

other

more than we trust the internet and the robots that exist there. And that shift into conversational marketing, I think, really showcases that

that

at our core, humans will always want an interaction that parallels talking to a close friend while accessing the knowledge base of AI.

Yes.

And there was a great article by the Von Mack Agency that goes into this a little bit more and how, it's, it says, "It's cu- community that's rewiring traveling, travel marketing in 2026." And the first headline in that article says, "We don't trust the internet anymore, [00:11:00] but we still trust each other."

this to

And I think all of the tools and applications from a travel marketing standpoint are going to shift to how closely we can parallel conversations between each other and how AI can power that, in order to make sure, you 

for 

people are accessing things in, one, the easiest way possible, but also

in

a more humanized version of AI, which is kind of a weird concept to think about.

Brandon Giella: think about. Yes, I, I love that. I think that's exactly right. Now, I think people will, not trust AI in that sense, but they will have the experience that mimics it. And so let's say you get 90% of the way there, that's still-- If you're 90% as effective on, as word-of-mouth marketing, that's hugely powerful. I would be all for that. `Cause imagine you call up your, you know, your, your major airline, you're like, "Hey, I wanna book a flight." have this thing that is talking to you like a person, and you don't have to wait on any kind [00:12:00] of phone tree or wait for a representative. You get it done immediately, and it's done right the right time. sounds great. it doesn't have exactly what makes up a human relationship, but I think that's great, you know. obviously there's, lots of technology and rules and all that kind of stuff involved in that kind of thing. But, but yeah, I, I agree. I think that's really exciting. I wanna talk real quick about personalization. I was thinking about this w-- you know, 10 years ago, it was the big topic was personalization using big data, you know, data lakes and data warehouses to go through 10 zillion rows of contact information, yada yada. but how do you guys see personalization now with AI in a marketing context in the travel industry? Automatically.

Jessica Steinberg: experience just by what you put into AI. but I do think there's, you know, kind of this level, I think, of expectation for a lot of the bigger [00:13:00] brands that things just be personalized. I think at this point, if brands are not speaking to customers in a way that makes sense to them about products that they think they'll be interested in, they're behind the curve.

I think it's commonplace now, and again, I- when I interact with a brand, if they don't already know something about me, I'm honestly... I, I end up a little bit disappointed. so I kind of expect it going in these days.

Brandon Giella: High bar. Yeah, it's, it's, it's hard to do 'cause you gotta match all the technology with all the content and make sure that that experience is, is really buttoned up. But yeah, sadly, I even have that expectation. I was served an ad recently. I was like, "I have two kids. You think I'm gonna go rock climbing right now?

Like, absolutely..." Anyway. so okay. So I wanna talk about opportunities. What do you guys see as opportunities that marketers in the travel industry should or should not be doing? You know, things that are actually really exciting. Okay, this is a huge moment for lots of different industries, but [00:14:00] particularly in marketing, because as this technology is in its infancy, it's actually impacting marketing probably as much as software development.

Those two go hand in hand in a lot of different ways. so what do, what do you think are some real opportunities, maybe some threats, things to look out for or some advice you might have?

Jessica Steinberg: I think especially for me, you know, working in the travel marketing space, I think it just allows at the forefront for me to move faster,

Brandon Giella: going

Jessica Steinberg: try new things, propose new things 

Brandon Giella: to 

Jessica Steinberg: customers that we're working with,

Brandon Giella: with,

Jessica Steinberg: and making sure that we're still being genuine and authentic, you know, depending on the brand that we're working with.

Brandon Giella: with.

Jessica Steinberg: I think even though you can move really quickly, and AI can help you write copy or create an email marketing campaign or give you insights to some of the data that you have, that you need to still be feeding it. It's-- I think, you know, what you put in is what you get out.

Brandon Giella: out.

Jessica Steinberg: And so if you're feeding it kind of an unauthentic brand story and things like that, you're gonna get the same back out.

But I think

Brandon Giella: think

Jessica Steinberg: it's really important to use, again, that authentic brand storytelling lens, to give it what it [00:15:00] needs to give you something good back. So it can help you move faster, but,

Brandon Giella: but,

Jessica Steinberg: I think it's really important to make sure that the quality doesn't get diminished there. again, what you put in is what you put out-- is what you get out.

Brandon Giella: that's the

Rachel Satow: sure that you do not put in an inauthentic brand

Brandon Giella: why making sure

Rachel Satow: is... The other side of that is making sure that it's also realistic. Because what the brand thinks

Brandon Giella: the core

Rachel Satow: are or the way it's presented, it might be vastly different than the word-of-mouth aspects that Brandon was talking about or customer feedback.

So I think

Brandon Giella: So I think

Rachel Satow: one of the biggest opportunities is making sure that you're putting in a holistic view

Brandon Giella: view of the

Rachel Satow: and one, what you want to achieve, how you want to be presented, and that authentic voice from a brand perspective, but also two,

Brandon Giella: two

Rachel Satow: making sure that your customers are represented in how they feel currently [00:16:00] about your brand is going to be really imperative.

Because

Brandon Giella: be, would be in their name.

Rachel Satow: the suggestions that marketers will receive from AI need to be able to close that gap,

Brandon Giella: gap. And

Rachel Satow: you're only giving it one side of this is what I want to achieve, this is how I want to go about it, you're missing that connection to your customers.

Jessica Steinberg: Totally. And I think

Brandon Giella: think

Jessica Steinberg: than ever, in my opinion, reviews are all the more important. I know, again, you know, I'm planning a trip, I'm talking to ChatGPT what I wanna do, and it suggests, you know, all these great things. The very first thing I'm doing once I know, 

Brandon Giella: I 

Jessica Steinberg: wow, that activity sounds really fun, I'm going straight to TripAdvisor or Viator and I'm reading reviews and looking at real customer photos, to make sure that what it's telling me is accurate and that it is something I'd actually like to do, to check the price,

Brandon Giella: come to life,

Jessica Steinberg: and to read about those actual real-world experiences.

Because again, you know, ChatGPT can tell you one thing, but

Brandon Giella: thing,

Jessica Steinberg: else, I don't know that I'm gonna book it.

Rachel Satow: Yeah, I mean, it all goes, it,[00:17:00] 

Jessica Steinberg: Yeah, totally.

Rachel Satow: flip, flip the

Jessica Steinberg: Yeah, it's like, "Oh, yeah, I didn't think of

Rachel Satow: you're

Jessica Steinberg: that."

Brandon Giella: Yes, I get that all

Rachel Satow: I think, you know, at its core, I think we're, we keep coming back to this idea of, travel marketing is definitely going to lean more into the community is represented and how you can bring the voices of your evangelists from a brand perspective into play, because...

Brandon Giella: because 

Rachel Satow: all familiar with the dead internet theory?

Brandon Giella: Yes. Yeah,

Rachel Satow: Yes. Yeah, so, so f- for those that may not be, the dead internet theory is essentially a cultural critique that everything on the internet has ceased to be human-dominated and especially as AI has become more, prevalent in our day-to-day, 

Brandon Giella: day-to-day 

Rachel Satow: through Instagram, you're seeing reels that are completely made from AI, you're seeing AI voiceovers, etc. And it's, it essentially claims that the web is now,

Brandon Giella: now,

Rachel Satow: m-

Brandon Giella: mostly AI-slummed.

Rachel Satow: [00:18:00] and y- this is honestly very, very prevalent in some of the feedback that you... If you scroll through the comments on one of those reels, you will see

Brandon Giella: see

Rachel Satow: mixed commentary, but most of the time, my feed at least, is showcasing,

Brandon Giella: think,

Rachel Satow: "I can't believe you're using AI for this," blah, blah, blah.

"You should've used a real, a real human." And from a brand integrity standpoint, that's something to be very careful with, because from a marketing perspective, yes, we can use AI to move faster, to scale our output. From a creative perspective, we can use it to create assets,

Brandon Giella: assets.

Rachel Satow: the same time, you need to be cognizant of

Brandon Giella: of

Rachel Satow: the backlash that you may,

Brandon Giella: may,

Rachel Satow: you may encounter.

Brandon Giella: encounter

Rachel Satow: back to what Jess was saying about, you know, making sure that

Brandon Giella: that

Rachel Satow: you are representative of your authentic brand voice,

Brandon Giella: in an authentic and brand voice.

Rachel Satow: if

Brandon Giella: If your customers

Rachel Satow: are not ready to use it, not willing to, [00:19:00] to accept

Brandon Giella: accept

Rachel Satow: different,

Brandon Giella: AI-generated assets, etc.,

cetera,

Rachel Satow: something you need to be very careful with, because you don't wanna be marketing to them in a way that you think is cutting edge, and in reality, your whole audience is people who just don't

Brandon Giella: don't

Rachel Satow: to see anything generated that way. So, I think being smart about its application is, is, is paramount.

Brandon Giella: I think it's easy as marketers because we're in this stuff all day and playing with these tools and experimenting, like Jess, what you said, like experimentation is so key right now, and I totally agree. it's easy to think like, "Wow, that was cool that I made that thing." the users, you know, your end audience, people that actually really

Rachel Satow: Yeah,

Brandon Giella: hate that thing. You know, even though it's cool for you, they don't want that. so I think it i-- But I, but I also think that people do understand how AI can be really helpful, and I think they would be very open to it.

But yeah, it's a very, very thin line. what are some, This is kind of a random question, but I'm [00:20:00] curious for, for both of you. what are some interesting- experiments or kinds of content or things that you've seen either internally or with another brand that you thought were actually, "That was pretty cool.

That was a cool use of AI or a cool experiment that they ran that, that I, I kinda like that." because I, I do think there is some backlash. There is some negativity and critique that I think is very warranted, and I feel that dead internet theory all the time when I'm scrolling through my feed.

Sometimes I'm like: What the heck? Where are, like, human beings these days? Like, I see that same... Anyway, so I get it. sometimes there's some cool stuff that, that actually is coming out. Does anything come to mind?

Jessica Steinberg: I mean, I think, and this isn't necessarily experimentation per se, but I, I use it a lot, specifically to help with data reading. Obviously, there's a ton of data to be had when we have a whole booking flow for multiple brands to be looking at. and I think it's

really, really helpful in finding the story, and, you know, feeding it a ton of data that otherwise would've taken hours for me to probably [00:21:00] read through, you know, making pivot tables and things like that to try and find, you know, where is the user falling off?

Where are they not, you know, where are we not generating revenue? Things like that. I think being able to feed it a ton of raw data and get back a few different answers, in a matter of minutes as to where there might be a sticking point or something isn't clear or something to look into, and being able to iterate off of that again in a matter of minutes where something would've taken me hours, I think

50 hours.

is, has been huge.

really key.

and it's helped find a lot of friction points that I think should help brands moving forward, removing them in the booking flow or on their website or anything like that

Brandon Giella: else. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally agree.

Totally agree.

Rachel Satow: I would probably say, I, I would probably say the best, use of it is not necessarily from a marketing perspective outside of, you 

Brandon Giella: of messages

Rachel Satow: extrapolation, etc. from like an in the wild, we see this in our own platform, but I'm seeing a real shift in, 

Brandon Giella: Just natural [00:22:00] voice or natural text implementation.

Rachel Satow: So

Brandon Giella: You know,

Rachel Satow: we have this. You can put into our destination recommendations, essentially what I, what Jess had mentioned. 

Brandon Giella: said 

Rachel Satow: would like to go to the beach. I want it to be in this country, etc. Give me recommendations. so we have tools like that already, but I think that's across the board. This is

We're not the 

Brandon Giella: squared off the whole

Rachel Satow: the only platform that's doing it. I know, like, Booking.com has something similar, and what

Brandon Giella: what

Rachel Satow: I think we're seeing the most is just how well systems can make better use of their first party data,

Brandon Giella: all

Rachel Satow: and all of the information that they are gathering from booking flows, as Jess me-mentioned. It's lesser so... And not that it can't be used from a marketing perspective. It absolutely can.

Brandon Giella: can

Rachel Satow: I, I definitely see it more from a product standpoint being,

Brandon Giella: being,

Rachel Satow: and I think that is probably the coolest part [00:23:00] as

Brandon Giella: as

Rachel Satow: marketer like we are. so,

Brandon Giella: so

Rachel Satow: definitely that use of first party data from, from a booking perspective, and I think what marketers can take from that is not just your product, product teams can use that information.

Brandon Giella: of your

Rachel Satow: you can then use that information, you know, we, we have data across multiple partners, etc., that we, I take a look at

Brandon Giella: a look

Rachel Satow: for developing our own

Brandon Giella: own

Rachel Satow: assets, right? So from a marketing perspective for individual brands, take a look at your first party data and see are there any trends in where people are going or the types of,

Brandon Giella: of

Rachel Satow: you know, the types of accommodations that are being booked, etc., because that can in- better inform what you might want to put out into the world and what you might want to advertise, and AI really comes into play to

Brandon Giella: play

Rachel Satow: make you be able to do that faster.

Brandon Giella: faster,

Rachel Satow: and, and

Brandon Giella: kind of

Rachel Satow: potentially without as many,

Brandon Giella: many,

Rachel Satow: what's the word I'm looking for?

Brandon Giella: for,

Rachel Satow: without as many

Brandon Giella: [00:24:00] assumptions.

Rachel Satow: as we marketers, you know, sometimes we do have to assume, like, I don't have the answer for this, and I think AI helps to be able to kind of fill that, that assumption gap.

Brandon Giella: Yeah. I like that. Yeah, both of you, I think, hinted at it's, less time is spent on data and analysis, and more time is actually spent on, "Oh, here's the story. Now, how do I craft, you know, my marketing around that story to, again, build trust and, and communicate an authentic, you know, narrative that shapes people's purchasing decisions?" I'll, I'll say my, my example would be, I think generative

Rachel Satow: not going out there training crabs to

Brandon Giella: any data on whether it works or not, but I see some videos that I think are hilarious. I saw this one this week on Twitter that was a crab, somebody put a GoPro camera on a crab, and it went down its little [00:25:00] hole.

And it looked like it was just like a nature video, you know, it went down like a crab hole, and you saw these little crabs around. And then it turned this corner, and it opens up into this, like, nightclub DJ lasers going everywhere, and all the crabs are, like, dancing in this. And that could have been a great ad for some kinda club or something.

And I just thought it was so funny you couldn't do that on your own, you know? Anyway, I think it's

Rachel Satow: go to a

Brandon Giella: I was, I was actually thinking of, like, hiring, like, a 3D video person that can make this super complicated minute-long video, when actually you could just prompt it and get it in, like, 30 seconds, and you have this hilarious video Anyway. yeah, no, I, I, I have, I've been thinking too, do you think it's easier for upstart brands to get into the market versus the incumbent, you know, larger, enterprise players?

Like, what's the, maybe the, the opportunities or threats for, you know, kind of new competition, if you [00:26:00] will? What do you think about that?

Rachel Satow: Yeah, I mean, I definitely think that it levels the playing field. we all have the same version of LLMs at our fingertips. We all have, you know, the same access, and I think that definitely lowers the, the barrier to more sophisticated marketing efforts. and those smaller brands might be able to capitalize on that, for sure.

Jessica Steinberg: Yeah, I totally agree. And I think... I actually read an article, I forget who it was written by, but it was talking about kind of the relation to job loss to AI and things like that. and someone said that, you know, people won't lose their jobs due to AI, they'll lose their jobs because they won't know how to use AI.

And I think that's very true. I think that people who know how to use AI will be better off for it. again, it's all about what you put in. And so if you spend the time to learn it, to understand what it can do to help you,

Brandon Giella: do

Jessica Steinberg: and kind of be iterative with it, don't expect it to get it right on the first try, you know, especially if you're working on something new.

I think being able to use it and use it [00:27:00] well, I think is gonna be huge for regardless of your... if you're a huge brand or, you know, a new startup

Brandon Giella: brand . I totally agree, and I, and I also think there's another play as well. I heard this from a, an agency that I know of that, they do not let any of their team members use AI at all. And they all-- they make all of their, teammates be in the office nine to five, Monday through Friday, and no AI. their point is, their brand position is that we want these things to be highly crafted.

Like, we are a, like, a studio. Like, we are gonna be pixel pushing manually, and we're gonna be very relational. And so I think that's an interesting brand strategy as well, or a marketing strategy, that if you push in the exact opposite direction, 100% high quality craftsmanship and no AI, there's actually something there too.

Now, I mean less content, or it might mean very different kinds of marketing, but that's a-- that'd be an interesting play for, for upstarts as well, 'cause it might increase trust, which I think is the en- the name of the game.

Rachel Satow: Yeah, [00:28:00] I mean, at the end of the day w- that circles back to

Brandon Giella: There

Rachel Satow: people who, one, are behind the curve, or two, do not want

Brandon Giella: or who

Rachel Satow: to,

Brandon Giella: Yeah.

Rachel Satow: be involved or, you know, do not appreciate the, the, the, the assistance that AI can, can provide, and that's fine. That's totally fine. There will always be, you know, an antagonist to innovation, and I think, you know, we see big brands...

I-

Brandon Giella: like, like

Rachel Satow: Apple is a really great example. When they redid their new intro, they did that full intro manually. They could have put that into AI or, you know, had a creative agency that, utilizes the tools and probably done it a lot faster, but they essentially took a brand stance in saying,

Brandon Giella: said,

Rachel Satow: going to do this with real effects." And that's,

Brandon Giella: differently."

And

Rachel Satow: know,

Brandon Giella: you

Rachel Satow: it, it garnered a lot of attention from the marketing industry, because it was like, wow, you had these tools at your fingertips and probably could have done this [00:29:00] in a much faster way, and you still took the time and invested in the craft. That was a brand play,

Brandon Giella: brand

Rachel Satow: sure. And I think, going back to my previous statement, it's being intentional with the usage and the implementation, both from a marketing side, a product side,

Brandon Giella: side,

Rachel Satow: a, a, a, a community building side,

Brandon Giella: side,

Rachel Satow: you know, marketers could deploy AI bots to respond to every comment that they re- they, they receive on

Brandon Giella: on whatever

Rachel Satow: social posts that they put out.

Brandon Giella: they put

Rachel Satow: They absolutely could, but

Brandon Giella: but having

Rachel Satow: on the other side of that screen to make sure that

Brandon Giella: that

Rachel Satow: implemented is still ensuring a level of brand integrity and authentic, as Jess was saying, like, an authentic brand voice is still ... Like, you can't

Brandon Giella: can't

Rachel Satow: ever replace that. There will still n- you still need a human in the loop.

Brandon Giella: needed.

Rachel Satow: and I think

Brandon Giella: I think

Rachel Satow: that will probably always be the case, or [00:30:00] at least in my opinion, it should always be the case

Brandon Giella: requires

Rachel Satow: and we, we may need a part two here, but

Brandon Giella: that-

Rachel Satow: because at the end of the day, like AI, no matter if you're using Claude or if you're using Chat or if you're using Gemini, they're working off of

Brandon Giella: on the

Rachel Satow: relatively the same information.

The same user-generated content was put in to train these models,

Brandon Giella: models.

Rachel Satow: you need somebody who more intimately knows your brand and the way things should be handled to navigate some of those harder conversations or the more sticky points or the friction points.

Brandon Giella: one-

Rachel Satow: The last thing that you want is, you know, from an airline perspective, let's say

Brandon Giella: say

Rachel Satow: something happens where all the flights got canceled and you have a lot of negative, negative feedback online.

You have a lot of comments coming in, etc., and then you ... all you have is an AI bot [00:31:00] responding to all of those people,

Brandon Giella: people, and

Rachel Satow: the model that you've used is not

Brandon Giella: not

Rachel Satow: showing any empathy, to the scenario that they're in. Whereas if you have a human who, on the other side of that, who's at least monitoring, at least keeping track of things, making sure that the, the systems that you've deployed are

Brandon Giella: it. It's great to know

Rachel Satow: doing the job

Brandon Giella: are doing

Rachel Satow: while reflecting the integrity of the brand, like if you get rid of that, th- you're Good luck.

Brandon Giella: other side

Rachel Satow: Unfortunately, good luck.

Brandon Giella: Totally agree. Totally agree. There's an advertiser from,it's just got out- outside my mind now, but yeah. His name's Rory Sutherland. He wrote a book called "Alchemy" that was a fantastic book. And he talks about how, two things actually that are really great.

One is he thinks that everybody should invest more in call centers to

Rachel Satow: Yeah, AI, AI is the

Brandon Giella: budget line item there is," which I, I find fascinating. and the other thing he says is, is what he calls a doorman fallacy, which is, consultants can come to a [00:32:00] hotel and say, "Oh, to save costs, you should get rid of your doorman because you can get an automatic door." his point is like, yeah, but doormen do a lot more than just open the door. You know, they are there to greet people. They bring an umbrella. They get the car for you. They tell you where things are at. You know, they-- there, there's a lot more that goes into your brand perception than just that function. so he says, "Be very careful," and I apply this to AI, "Be very careful about w- how you define certain things that AI can or can't do, because you might define it one way, remove that thing, and it actually destroys the value of why somebody would interact with your brand," which I think is a really

Jessica Steinberg: Yeah, I think the need for human connection is not gonna go away. I think, like, humans are wired that way, and that's not gonna change. So I think specifically as it relates to AI, I think it's important for it to be used in a lot of cases, like, you know, call center is a great example. It's... I think it should be used as a tool to help people learn,

Brandon Giella: know- Yeah.

Jessica Steinberg: rather than to replace them.

And so, you know, being iterative and communicative with it and going back and forth, and even there have been [00:33:00] times where I'm working with AI and I ask it to tell me how it did something so that, hey, okay, now I've at least learned something. If one day it goes away, hopefully then I know how to do it.

have to do it. but I think again, that, that need for human connection, I think is here to stay.

Brandon Giella: have everything. Yeah, I love that.

Jessica Steinberg: Yeah.

Brandon Giella: Oof, nice.

Jessica Steinberg: Mic

Brandon Giella: that. I to-

Jessica Steinberg: drop.

Brandon Giella: perfect. And there's always gonna be the, the Wendell Berries among us that are like, "You know what? I actually..." I was just reading his article or his essay, last week, it's called "Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer." And I think he wrote it in like the '70s. And I just, I love it.

I think he's so right about so many different things, and yet AI is amazing. It's changing everything. Pay attention to it. But yeah, it's, I don't-- I have so many thoughts. We could talk about this forever.

Rachel Satow: We're gonna do a part two. We've gotta do a part two.

Brandon Giella: I feel like I have so much more to say. yes. Okay, so last question for both of you.

What is your final takeaway? Is it a total reinvention, you know, clean slate, get rid of everything? Or is it like, you know what? It's another tool and it's very [00:34:00] useful, but in a limited case. What's your thought?

Rachel Satow: I... So going back to one of my original points, there's always going to be an audience that is behind the curve. There is always going to be an audience that does not want to or cannot, for whatever reason, adapt to the new tools, and your service is still going to need Treat those people the same way that you treat anybody who has adopted, adapted

Brandon Giella: doing

Rachel Satow: to,

Brandon Giella: Because as you

Rachel Satow: to, to the latest and greatest. Because as you were saying, Brandon, like we, the three of us on this call are marketers. We live and breathe this every day. Our in-laws, our, you know, my, I love my mom dearly. She ha- she had to call me to ask me, like, "How do I even start using this?" And I was like, "Here are five things that I think you could use it for, and, like, just try it.

It's fine."

Brandon Giella: before-

Rachel Satow: There is always going to be an audience that [00:35:00] you're, you are still going to need to, to, to service. And will that curve in the next five, 10, 15 years? Absolutely. As things get more mature,

Brandon Giella: And

Rachel Satow: you know, adoption of certain tools becomes greater, absolutely that curve is going to change, but there's still somebody who's going to be h- behind that curve.

Brandon Giella: the

Rachel Satow: And,

Brandon Giella: And,

Rachel Satow: in my opinion, from a marketing standpoint, to go back to the, to the PhocusWire article, I completely agree with the thought that

Brandon Giella: that it

Rachel Satow: I don't think we can throw out traditional channels and legacy channels. I, 

Brandon Giella: I, 

Rachel Satow: I truly don't. I think what we will see over the next couple of years is more of a consolidation of those channels.

So for example, if you're using Google Ads to promote,

Brandon Giella: oh,

Rachel Satow: you may no longer be paying for placements on Google Search. Maybe you're paying for placements on Gemini,

Brandon Giella: else,[00:36:00] 

Rachel Satow: you know? And I think that's something that marketers need to be cogni- cognizant of, is like your tools and the fundamentals that you know today, I don't think are going away.

You're still going to need to use them to reach an audience who does not want to or cannot

Brandon Giella: cannot

Rachel Satow: adopt the latest and greatest, but also you're still going to need to know the fundamentals in order to judge whatever AI is trying to tell you to, to do or how to market. Like, you're still going to need those fundamentals, and those legacy channels. So I think as my takeaway is like, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Like don't do that. just because there's something ... Like, just because there is a shiny object, and yes, it is great,

Brandon Giella: should. But

Rachel Satow: it is the assistant to the experience, not the experience it- itself. And,

Brandon Giella: I

Rachel Satow: don't

Brandon Giella: don't

Rachel Satow: negate everything that has worked up until this point

Brandon Giella: a

Rachel Satow: just because there's something new that could work.[00:37:00] 

Brandon Giella: I love that line. I'm gonna steal it

Jessica Steinberg: Yeah, I totally agree. I think, I don't think, you know, marketers should throw out everything that they already know. I do think that there needs to be a shift. I think, you know, keep what you know, but shift the way that you're focusing on specifically top of funnel marketing. The way that customers are discovering your brand, specifically in travel, is likely changing or going to change.

And so I think making that shift, making sure you're aware of how you're showing up in AI tools. Go into an AI tool, ask it about your brand. Is it saying what you would expect? and if not, maybe you need to make a change. So I think that's really important, and I also think given 

Brandon Giella: given 

Jessica Steinberg: way customers are gonna find you is changing, you need to take another look at what does your booking flow look like?

What does the experience look like when the customer gets there? Because they're now probably in a different head space than they used to be

Brandon Giella: head

Jessica Steinberg: in your booking flow. and then the product you're offering, is it up to par? Again, is it being, you know, perceived in AI the way that you would expect?

and I think then just moving forward, keep your eyes and ears wide [00:38:00] open because the way that your customers are finding you is changing or going to change very soon, and being able to change with that is going to be huge.

Brandon Giella: be key.

Jessica Steinberg: there might be a time where they don't need your booking flow anymore, and they're booking, you know, in Claude.

Brandon Giella: agent again.

Jessica Steinberg: and so again, keeping your eyes and ears wide open as that change happens. It didn't take very long for us to get to this place where everybody has ChatGPT on their phone. So who knows what's next?

Brandon Giella: is next?

but I think being able to shift and be nimble and paying attention is gonna be huge for especially traveler marketers.

Could not agree more. Perfectly said. Brilliant. Thank you both. has, been a fascinating conversation. I know you, you, all three of us could sit here and talk for hours about this concept, as most people can.

AI is just the talk of the town. But, maybe we'll have a part two sometime. I think this conversation's fantastic, and especially in travel marketing as this industry is... It, it is being disrupted. Things are shifting. but what does that look like? we will, we will find out. It's, it's anybody's game. thank you both. These [00:39:00] are wonderful thoughts, and we will see you on the next episode.

Jessica Steinberg: Sounds good.