AI in Marketing: When do we need the human touch?
London, 2nd October :
The latest episode of the Autotrader podcast Women in the driving seat, hosted by Editorial Director, award-winning motoring journalist Erin Baker is released today. The series aims to rip up the rule book on the female-empowerment narrative by sharing personal as well as professional experiences, examining the space where both collide, and the challenges, fears and successes happen.
This episode explores AI’s role in marketing, reminding us that at its core, marketing is human: emotional, empathetic, shaped by tone and language. We also discuss how AI has contributed to helping retailers and OEMs optimise the customer car-buying experience.
All episodes in the series feature a Podcast Pit Stop – a quick fire round covering the professional and personal including; generative or embodied AI? California or Kent? PCP or leasing? Plug-in hybrid or pure electric?
Join Erin as she puts two marketing pros in the driving seat.
Podcast preview
Elena Vasciminno
“With Leapmotor and the launch of the new brand, it’s like you have a white piece of paper in front of you that you can fill with whatever you want to. And that’s the beauty about working for this brand.”
“I’m Head of Marketing, but I hate job titles and I work with my heart mainly, so maybe I’m the Heart of Marketing.”
“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”
“AI is basically the industrial Revolution 4.0 in a way.”
“We need to use AI as a tool and a facilitator to make some processes easier and that’s fantastic.
“I think what will make a difference is how we pitch brands to people, and how those people perceive the brands and the story that we create behind them.”
“The beauty about working for Leapmotor is because you get to have a certain level of freedom and you can shape the strategy of the brand even from a broader perspective.”
“All the activities we do in the UK are made for the UK, done in the UK.”
“You’ve got the production and the tech that the Chinese side of things can offer, but you have Stellantis, which brings expertise, and the people. The people are the foundation of every brand.”
“We are a digital first brand, we do most of our advertising on digital, and that works because I am talking to another generation. I’m probably talking to the younger generation who maybe aren’t driving today, but they will be driving in five years.”
“I want [the younger generation] to remember Leapmotor because it was the brand who was able to talk to them.”
Kim Costello
“A bunch of stuff has added up over time and the things you never think about that you just do, and the things that nobody else will do, and the things that nobody sees you doing that just add up, and eventually gets you to where you want to be.”
“Just because you have one or two women at the table doesn’t mean you’ve checked the box.”
“[Pinewood AI] works with customer intelligence, service intelligence, sales intelligence – to help our retailers make the most out of every single pound or penny that they can.”
“We look at how we can help retailers and OEM’s see the customer journey, understand the customer life cycle and really make automotive retail equal to what a lot of other retail experiences are, for the customer.”
“Our platform is underpinned by our AI. So as opposed to just being fused in, we are actually AI integrated into our platform. So it creates a very different experience that really there’s nobody on the market, anywhere globally that is set up the same way as we are.”
“Pinewood were the first ones to get a fully transactional website live in the UK.”
"Buying a car is emotive. Nobody needs a Porsche, but you want one, and you want that whole experience, because it should be a different experience than buying an entry-level car.”
“It annoys me that we have to talk about women in automotive, but we do have to talk about it because we are under-represented, and not just in automotive.”
“The focus is how we get more women to want to join and to feel comfortable to join the automotive sector and then stay and rise up.”
Notes to editors
ABOUT ERIN BAKER
Erin Baker is an award-winning motoring journalist and Editorial Director of Auto Trader. She writes a monthly driving column for Vogue, is a World Car of the Year judge, consults for Goodwood and hosts She's Electric, a national roadshow bringing women and electric cars together. Erin is passionate about narrowing the gender gap, both in the automotive industry itself and between car brands and female consumers, through more targeted language, marketing and experiences. She is a single mother of two boys.
ABOUT AUTOTRADER
Autotrader Group plc is the UK’s largest automotive platform. It listed on the London Stock Exchange in March 2015 and is a member of the FTSE 100 Index.
Autotrader’s purpose is Driving Change Together. Responsibly. Autotrader is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive culture, it aims to build stronger partnerships with its customers and use its voice and influence to drive more environmentally friendly vehicle choices.
With the largest number of car buyers and the largest choice of trusted stock, Autotrader’s marketplace sits at the heart of the UK car buying process. That marketplace is built on an industry-leading technology and data platform, which is increasingly used across the automotive industry. Autotrader is continuing to bring more of the car buying journey online, creating an improved buying experience, whilst enabling all its retailer partners to sell vehicles online.
Autotrader publishes a monthly used car Retail Price Index which is based on pricing analysis of circa 800,000 unique vehicles. The same data that powers the Index is used by the Office for National Statistics to make the UK’s official measures of inflation more robust, as well as the Bank of England to feed the broader UK economic indicators.
For more information, please visit: plc.autotrader.co.uk
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