Hot or Hype
Welcome to Hot or Hype, the podcast where hosts Olivia Storelli and Andrew Stevens break down the latest trends in cloud computing, data engineering, AI, and cybersecurity - and decide whether they're game-changing innovations or just industry buzz.
In each episode, we dive into topics like AI-driven predictive analytics, cloud-native architectures, zero trust security, data mesh, and more, giving you real-world insights from practitioners who know what works and what doesn't.
No fluff. No hype. Just honest, technical discussions to help you navigate the fast-evolving landscape of tech.
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Hot or Hype
Hot or Hype Ep 6: AI, Marketing, and the Evolution of Customer Experience with David Ovens
What happens when artificial intelligence meets the deeply human experience of dining out? That's the fascinating territory explored in our conversation with David Ovens, Head of Marketing for Seagrass Boutique Hospitality Group, who brings his extensive experience from packaged goods giants like Unilever to global restaurant brands like Taco Bell.
David reveals how AI is transforming restaurant marketing in two game-changing ways. First, content generation has evolved dramatically, with AI now creating restaurant imagery so realistic "it is difficult for the layperson to see the difference between real life and AI-generated life." This technological leap allows marketing teams to produce compelling visuals without disrupting restaurant operations or scheduling complex photoshoots.
Even more fascinating is how Seagrass leverages first-party customer data to create emotionally resonant dining experiences. By analyzing booking information and purchase history, restaurants can now recognize returning guests, acknowledge their preferences, and deliver personalized service that makes customers feel genuinely valued. As David explains, "What makes the restaurant sticky is the fact that you as an individual human being feel a sense of connection and appreciation and respect."
The conversation delves into thought-provoking questions about the future of AI in hospitality. How far is too far when personalizing the guest experience? Where's the line between helpful recognition and uncomfortable surveillance? Could restaurants eventually analyze different contexts – distinguishing between your business dinners and family outings – to further refine their approach?
Join us for this illuminating discussion on the present and future of AI in marketing, where we separate what's genuinely transformative from what remains aspirational. Whether you're a marketing professional, restaurant owner, or simply curious about how technology is reshaping everyday experiences, this episode offers valuable insights into the delicate balance of data, personalization, and human connection.
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Welcome back to another episode of Hot or Hype. Today we've got our special guest, david Ovens, who has a vast experience in many, many things, and I'll let him introduce himself, as well as our co-host, andrew, who has joined me today to talk about all things marketing and AI. Over to you, david. Please let us know who you are, hi, olivia.
Speaker 2:Hi Andrew David Ovens here, head of Marketing for Seagrass Boutique Hospitality Group. This company is a multi-brand, multi-unit full-service restaurant business with locations across different cities in Australia, as well as Dubai and Abu Dhabi. My experience personally my first career phase was all packaged goods or FMCG Unilever, kimberly Clark and Johnson Johnson. Then I switched to retail or hospo or hospitality with Yum Brands, originally a CMO for the Australian New Zealand business, then to the US a CMO for the Taco Bell USA business, and then back to Australia and then I joined Seagrass. I've been here since and helping them evolve how they go to market.
Speaker 1:Amazing. So you've seen quite the evolution of different needs across the industries, especially in marketing. So tell me what's currently hot right now and what are you hearing happening specifically in AI and marketing.
Speaker 2:Two main areas. One is content creation content generation, both visual and copy, images and copy where we're able to produce content quicker, faster, cheaper than the traditional sense. For example, if I'm trying to create imagery associated with people dining in a restaurant, historically it would take several weeks to organise and select talent and organise for the operations, people and so on.
Speaker 2:And from an AI point of view, now the technology has improved to the stage where that can be generated without the need to interact with operations at all, and the AI is at a point where it is difficult for the layperson to see the difference between real life and AI-generated life.
Speaker 1:Not so many toes and fingers extra.
Speaker 2:Yeah and the relationship between the foreground and the background and between the human and the setting is more integrated, so it looks more legit. And the second part of this is all of the first-party customer data that we have, in the sense that, from a booking platform point of view through to point-of-sale systems, we can scrape it all now and identify individual customers and their purchasing behavior, their purchase frequency, their spend and intricacies associated with their individual behavior, so that we can do two things, and intricacies associated with their individual behavior, so that we can do two things. One, send personalized comms to them acknowledging their own individual behavior. Would you like to have this experience again? Or we see that you like this particular thing Through to? When a person or a group show up at a restaurant, then we can acknowledge them with insights in relation to the last time they dined or their preferences, ensuring that they feel more appreciated, they feel more respected, they feel more connected to the venue, because the hostess, the front of house staff, somehow knows something about them and greet them with that understanding.
Speaker 3:Fascinating. What I love about the Seagrass story is the ability to tie digital world together with real world, with human emotions. You know a lot of companies will have digital online sales and be applying marketing right. You'll have Nike and their Nike Fit app that's coming out in July, which is all AR ML around shoe fit. They acquired a company out of Tel Aviv. You can photograph your feet, basically, and it'll tell you what shoe size you are just by a photograph and helps you be more accurate with your ordering, which is kind of cool. It's digital to physical, but Seagrass is digital to physical, to emotions and feelings.
Speaker 3:The scope of AI applications throughout that has got quite a breadth, and what is hype or hype in that is, in my opinion, absolutely hot for the delivery of marketing optimizations in the digital space. We know we can achieve a lot, but how can it impact the physical world and the emotional world? And I think for me, that's how I kind of look at the experiences possible in the AI space and I think the sensorial AIs that people are talking about, such as, you know, trying to define a human experience through LLMs, are all hype right now. But I think some of the hot stuff is definitely what we could be doing. As you talked about knowing our customer better when they appear, and from my perspective as well. There's a question when does it become too creepy, like if this is the first time I come to your restaurant, but you know I like oysters, you know. Is that something too creepy? Because you've been able to discover that?
Speaker 1:Well, they probably wouldn't know because you haven't dined there before.
Speaker 3:Well, if you've booked in through some sort of reservation system, they've got your phone number.
Speaker 1:They've got your email address. They start collating that information.
Speaker 3:I'm not suggesting Seagrass do that, but I'm suggesting is that where we see the industry going, and where does it begin and end?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the customer. You know that's a good question, andrew. You know how much is too much right?
Speaker 2:um, at this point in time, our focus is on being able to recognize repeat customers and in the sense that whether you're repeating for literally the second time or whether you're repeating for the 22nd time and and evolving the way we interact with you, to recognize that degree of loyalty. So if you are a very high-frequency customer, we will want to give you a much higher touch experience, mm-hmm. From the point of view of in advance, of showing up, when you show up, when you see to, during the dining experience and make recommendations and suggestions based on a deeper, deeper understanding of your previous purchase behavior. So, because that makes restaurants sticky, let's assume, for the sake of the conversation, that the food's good and the service is good and the restaurant's nice, that the food's good and the service is good and the restaurant's nice. What makes the restaurant sticky is the fact that you as an individual human being, feel a sense of connection and appreciation and respect.
Speaker 2:That's our concentration in terms of mining all of the data associated with your purchasing behavior and your booking frequency and so on, your party size, inevitably. This is a bit tricky. Of course, we also have CCTV in the restaurants, so at some point in time the CCTV layer will come in so we can get a better feel for, again, personal information and privacy, you know, in the context of respecting those rules. But if I can observe you at the table and your typical party, for example, one of the things we often talk about is Andrew comes in today and he's a party of four and he has a certain experience.
Speaker 2:He comes in a month later with six other people at a different group, like it's a social group? Let's say so. How do we know what Andrew himself is eating and dining and drinking, as opposed to him in a business context or him in a social group? Let's say so. How do we know what Andrew himself is eating and dining and drinking, as opposed to him in a business context or him in a social family context? So we have inevitably the CCTV layer, or the visual element will come in, so that we and again the sole purpose is so that we can make sure that we provide Andrew with a better, more enhanced, more personal, more memorable experience.
Speaker 3:I think so. Where do you see it going in five to ten years? I think we're talking about what's hot right now in terms of enhancing the guest experience. Where do you see it going?
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you see, and maybe sooner that I turn up and my martini's waiting for me at the table, I don't need to talk to anyone because I flagged myself as a non-talker. That wants to go through? Sit down, have the martini and wait for my favourite steak.
Speaker 3:Co-host of a podcast being a non-talker.
Speaker 2:You've heard of it first. I think there's again. It's the good versus creepy conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We will have to judge over time how far we go before people you know come back and say, hang on, that's a little too invasive.
Speaker 2:That's a little too personal. I don't think you need to know that information about me and, like everything else, people will become more accustomed to that level of personalisation and it will become, it will feel more normal and less invasive over time, and so I think it's a continuing. You know right now, if we could recognise Andrew each time he comes and provide an enhanced experience based on a clarity around his purchasing behaviour and, as time goes on, we'll know how to treat him when he comes in with Olivia as opposed to when he comes in with a group of business colleagues.
Speaker 3:From my perspective, I'm going to go out on a limb and say what I think is hot is the productivity gains of good data to help you understand your audience, and I think that will stand across many industries and even down to the in-store experience or in-restaurant experience. I think the hype is certainly around trying to understand humans' feelings. You know it's difficult enough to understand my own, let alone somebody else's truth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think also what's hot is the evolution towards AI-generated content as opposed to traditional mechanisms. That will all move very quickly because in the industry of marketing, 50% of your effort is all about the content and the other 50% is where do I place it right? So if the content can move quicker and we can do a better job of curating content that feels real and portrays the human condition in a restaurant context, I think that'll happen very quickly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a really good insight. I'd be really predictable in what I'm going to say is hot and that would be, given the understanding of the current data to be able to synthesize behavior and target that in a way that we can leverage generative AI to make life easier for the creatives to orchestrate it. I think that's definitely hot and I think that's achievable. Now I think there's a lot in the hype bucket that operates in a vacuum of data, with a fantastic idea of being able to use generative AI, but without the ability to have the fuel, which is the data to feed it. So I think you've heard it here on this episode of Hot vs Hype. Thank you very much, david, for joining us and I look forward to the next channel.
Speaker 3:Always a pleasure, awesome. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 3:Cheers, bye-bye.