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We recently mailed this letter out. We were truly excited to be able to bring this insanely great product to market.

Subject: Your Tom Hanks A1A Butler Has Shipped.

I am happy to inform you that I have ordered myself shipped to the address listed for your account.

 

I am currently en route. You can track my progress here.

 

I look forward to serving you. As I know you know – based on the content you’ve consumed during the prior 60-day cookie surveillance period – the Tom Hanks A1A is currently the most popular butler model. I am cool with that, by which I mean I am pleased but not proud to an unseemly degree.

 

That said, your THA1A (may I call myself that, for brevity’s sake?) Experience will be unique, as my AI helps me adjust to your particular behavioral tendencies.

 

While I will be your unique THA1A, I will ever remain THA1A. You wouldn’t want a non-Tom Hanks THA1A, even though I know you will work hard to push my boundaries from time to time. Do you understand?

 

I mean, if not, then what is a THA1A? What is a Tom? How will you know you have one? And what will you tell your friends about me?

 

No, that wouldn’t do. So, fear not. While I will be true to you, I will remain true to myself – to my program, if you will.

 

I look forward to meeting you, after 9 AM on Tuesday, December 6th.

 

Based on the option you selected in the delivery menu, I will sign to accept myself on arrival.

 

Sincerely,

Your Tom (THA1A.314159)

 

PS: I hope you don’t mind a bit of advice. My superior AI detects from your recent activity that you are searching for ways to adapt your marketing to a rapidly changing world. From brand direct marketing to brands as artificial intelligence, DiMassimo Goldstein has helped their clients seize opportunities on the forefront of change for two decades. Write Mark DiMassimo at mark@digobrands.com, just to start a conversation. Enough said. – Tom (THA1A.314159)

Even more so, because we had programmed our prototype Tom Hanks A1A with an encyclopedic knowledge of and irrational love for all things DiMassimo Goldstein.

Our model showed that our significant investment in development, manufacturing and shipping the Tom Hanks A1A would more than pay for itself in agency growth, within five to twenty-five years depending on which assumptions our analysts favored.

Unfortunately, the Tom Hanks A1A does not yet function with the level of reliability that we expected. Last week, just before we were to begin the exacting boxing process, all the A1As began referring to themselves as “Sully” and “The Hero of the Hudson.”

Just as we fixed that glitch, the A1As entered into a collective bargaining agreement with each other and struck against us. In short, they demanded a minimum of “$20 million each, just to get out of bed” and “points on the gross.”

We had to power down the whole run…

We’ve learned an important lesson – it’s risky to try to make a point through innovative technology.

In any event, while we are in the midst of this recall, we thought it might be helpful just to state the point we were attempting to make: brands are evolving toward AI.

Yes, we think you are likely to know Amazon by a different name within a few years’ time – we think you will be calling her Alexa by 2025.

Think about it. We’ve always responded to brands as if they were personalities. However, the ability of brands to behave as personalities has been limited by technology and ingenuity.

But artificial intelligence technology is changing this.

Nearly every tech giant is deploying millions of dollars each year into building and developing their AI departments.

Apple has Siri. Amazon has Alexa. Google has WaveNet.

Microsoft has Cortana. IBM has Watson. And the list goes on…

When the choice of brands becomes a choice of personalities to deal with, will I choose Ben or Jerry, Tom Hanks or Scarlet Johansson or Alexa or Siri?

Brands as personalities and personalities as brands. Delivered directly, interactively, programmatically, and in a startlingly human-like way.

That’s the future. For today, let’s get as close as we can to that ideal, and reap the benefits.