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Welcome to Shallow DeepDive, where we take
a deep-ish dive into the shallow world of
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branding, advertising and creative.
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I'm Joe Qualls.
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Today, we're covering why we've become an
OpenAI Select Partner, and what we think
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that actually obliges us to do.
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Let's get the announcement out of the way
first, because it's the least interesting
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part of this.
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Qualls has been named a Select Partner in
the OpenAI Partner Network.
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That's the news.
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It took one sentence, and if you came here
for the sentence, you're free to go.
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Now the awkward bit, which is the reason
we wanted to talk about it at all.
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Every agency in the country has a wall of
these.
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Partner badges, certifications,
accredited-this and authorised-that,
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tidy grey row down near the footer where
nobody looks.
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They're meant to signal capability.
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Mostly they signal that someone filled in
a form.
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And we're aware that adding another one to
the wall is a strange thing to make an
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episode about — that the honest reaction
to most partnership announcements is a
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polite nod and a scroll.
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So we should say what this one is for,
because we didn't take it for the row of
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logos.
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Back in episode seven we said an agency's
position on AI should be boringly clear.
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Not evangelical, not squeamish — clear.
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Clients shouldn't have to work out where
you stand by reading between the lines of
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proposal.
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They should be able to ask, and get a
plain answer, and know that the answer
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the same next month.
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We meant it, and it's easy to say.
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The trouble with a position stated in the
abstract is that it costs nothing.
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Anyone can announce a philosophy.
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It only starts to mean something when you
attach yourself to something specific and
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let people check.
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That's the first thing this is: a
specific.
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We've stopped describing our position and
started demonstrating it.
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You can go and look at what we've
committed to, and if the work doesn't
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that's now visible in a way that a
paragraph on a website never is.
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The second thing is more uncomfortable,
and more useful.
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A partnership is an obligation before it's
a benefit.
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The programme gives you access to
enablement, technical resources, support —
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machinery that helps you actually deploy
this stuff rather than gesture at it.
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Which sounds like a gift, and is, but it
also removes an excuse.
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Once you've got the training and the
access and the direct line, you can't hide
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behind not knowing.
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You've said, in public, that you'll be
good at this.
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Not interested in it.
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Not excited about it.
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Good at it.
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That's a much higher bar and a much
shorter distance to fall off.
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We took it partly for that reason.
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It's easy to be vaguely enthusiastic about
AI from a safe distance, and the industry
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is full of people doing exactly that —
comfortable at the level of the keynote,
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at the level of the build.
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Putting your name against a specific set
of tools is a way of forcing the second
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thing.
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It's a commitment device.
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We wanted the pressure.
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So that's why we said yes.
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The more practical question is what
changes for the people we work with, and
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honest answer is: less than you'd expect,
and the parts that don't change are the
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important ones.
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The brief still has to be good.
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We spent a whole episode on this — the
faster the tool, the better the brief
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to be — and the partnership makes it more
true, not less.
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A better model is a faster route to
whatever you asked for.
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If what you asked for was mush, it's now
mush at speed, and delivered with real
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confidence.
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Nothing in this arrangement lets anyone
skip the thinking.
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Strategy still comes first, or you pay for
it twice.
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Also a whole episode, also unaffected.
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If you don't know who you're for and what
you're claiming, no amount of capability
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rescues that.
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It just gets you to the wrong place with
better production values.
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And the point of view is still ours to
hold.
Load full transcript
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We said this about AI content and we'll
say it again here: the tool has no
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It can't tell you which true thing about
your business is the one worth saying,
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because it doesn't know what it would cost
you to say it.
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That judgement is the job.
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It was the job before, it's the job now,
and if anything it's more of the job than
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it used to be — because when the making
gets cheap, the deciding is what's left.
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Here's what genuinely does change, and
it's narrower than a press release would
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it.
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We can say yes to a category of work we'd
previously have hedged on.
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Not because we couldn't have attempted it,
but because attempting things on a
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client's budget is a bad way to learn, and
we'd rather have done the learning first.
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Our advice gets less speculative.
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There's a real difference between reading
about where a platform is going and being
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close enough to have some idea.
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Most of what agencies tell clients about
AI right now is inference dressed as
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insight.
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We'd like ours to be a bit less of that.
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And when we tell a client not to use it —
which we do, and will keep doing — that's
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now an informed no rather than a cautious
one.
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Those sound the same from the outside and
are completely different in value.
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A cautious no is just risk aversion with a
nice voice.
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An informed no comes with reasons, and the
reasons are checkable.
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Which brings us to the obvious objection,
and we'd rather raise it than have you
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raise it quietly.
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Isn't this just a vendor relationship with
a nicer name?
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Aren't you now, structurally, a person who
recommends the thing you're partnered
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with?
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It's a fair question.
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It's the right question.
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And there's really only one test that
answers it: whether we ever tell you not
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An agency that recommends the same
solution to every client isn't advising,
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distributing.
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If a partnership quietly turns the answer
to every brief into the same answer, then
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the badge has replaced the judgement and
you should stop paying us for judgement.
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So the way to hold us to this is simple,
and we're handing you the stick on
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Watch for the no.
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If it never comes, something has gone
wrong, and it won't be subtle.
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That's the whole of it, really.
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We're pleased about this — it's a good
thing, and we don't want to be so
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understated that it reads as indifference.
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But a partnership is a claim about what
you'll be capable of, made in advance and
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public, and the only thing that settles a
claim like that is the work that comes
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after it.
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The badge goes in the footer with the
others.
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What it's worth gets decided somewhere
else entirely.
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Thank you for indulging us in today's
Shallow DeepDive.
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We hope you'll join us for the next one.
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Until then, take care.