The Human Advantage in an AI World with Emma Robinson, Head of B2B Marketing at Canva | Ep. 394

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0:52I am here with Emma Robinson or Robbo in Australia. And I think I like the name Dano. I think Dano will be a cool name to have as well. And she is the head of B2B marketing at Canva. And I'm super excited to chat because I'm a huge fan of Canva and super user of Canva. all my memes are made in Canva. So I love Canva. I'm really excited to chat. Yeah. Thanks for having me. It's great. I appreciate all the love for Canva. So thank you for that. But yes, I'm looking forward to the conversation. I'm going to first ask, how did you get into marketing? Yeah. So this goes back a while, but I think I'm in marketing because I am a failed ballerina, is the TLDR.

1:42Spent a lot of time doing dance growing up, but realized it was probably not the career with the most longevity. So IT was becoming a really big thing and lots of different complexity. And I think what it sort of drew me to it was that when you're actually in the world of technology, you actually do start to see how great it can impact people's lives, like in a really positive way, sometimes a negative way, but mostly in a positive way. And so my first ever job was actually doing point of sale systems programming, shockingly enough. And I would, and I did that for way scales for point of sale.

2:24So I did it for British retailer, who's very well known. And after a few years, I realized, you know, that that can kind of get you so far, but technology actually has so many better implications and applications. And, And I think just ultimately just being able to sort of see how the technology impacted use cases, people, how they shop in the world, like how to make things easier and better and safer and all of those things. Like that really attracted me to that world. And then I think naturally I fell into more of a product marketing path and then spent, you know, best part of now, I guess, a couple of decades, shockingly, mostly in B2B marketing.

3:03But it's been a wild ride, let's say, from weighing bananas to where I am now at Canva with design. It's been an interesting arc, that's for sure. I think, I mean, most marketers I know come from such a crazy background. So I think that, but I think yours is one of the most interesting ones I've heard so far. So I want to get into this. I think the conversation of AI is coming all over and AI is making production faster and cheaper. But I want to ask you, why do you believe human validation is becoming exponentially more valuable, not less valuable? Yeah, it's a great question. And it's one I think that as marketers, we're all going to grapple with for probably many years to come.

3:47But, you know, ultimately, it's because humans at the end of the day who we're selling to. And, you know, you really have to make sure that you're appealing to like that human judgment first and foremost. most. And then I think, you know, as you start to sort of unpack the B2B journey in that regard, you know, what you see is just a ton of people who are using AI to, of course, create a ton of content. But then also that sort of doesn't help this like clarity of the B2B buying cycle. So you've got like all of these, you know, buyers that are, you know, responding to different channels, they're responding to different content pieces, like all of those types of things, which means it's very much like less reliant on what we traditionally used to know like you know ads and clicks and so forth and all of that is just exponentially blowing up because of the ease of use and that sort of low entry path to being able to create content because of AI so it sort of becomes like how do you bring in that human element that element of surprise and delight the sort of tension that we all want to feel that maybe AI is not as great at being able to do just yet uh at least in our experience we've seen haven't seen that come through yet so so yeah it is it's incredibly important to have that human connection and and if if anything it just sort of evokes that emotion that you basically need to kind of set a brand memorability on like that's the platform that you go do that on um but yeah i mean it's it's an incredibly important part is the short answer and it's one that I think as marketers we're all beholden to continue to push on and find ways to bring humans in the loop on AI.

5:32Otherwise, you know, we see it in platforms out in the world today that it becomes just this sort of, you know, homogenized kind of see a sameness that everybody can see when the AI is doing its work. And I don't know about you, but I don't really feel like as, as inspired or, um, assured by some of those, um, those interactions. So you can tell me differently, but I, I certainly feel like that. In a weird way, humans are becoming like the new API for AI. Like we are like, like that human touch needs to be part of AI. Otherwise it becomes slop. Um, and we need to have that. I still think AI is not at the point where it could teach taste and can teach years of experience and can teach um gut feeling uh it just teaches what it's learned in the past and and usually that's kind of like the sea of sameness is the what they learned in the past so everyone is using ai like we said to move faster but sometimes speed makes marketing actually more generic in some ways.

6:43How do you get faster with AI, but not get duller? Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question. You definitely don't want that. And actually, you know, it's kind of interesting. We just did this research, which basically describes how humans interact with content, how they perceive it. And we use this technique called neuroscience to be able to understand that people or humans, like visually, when they see visual content, they encode it much faster, like 74 % faster than when they see dull content. So, you know, we see in the data, like actually, these things really matter. And this is, you know, one of the first times I think people have really put like a science and a language around what it means to kind of show dull content and like how people and humans perceive it and internalize it.

7:34And it's not a great outcome. Like I think if we're all in the spirit of trying to find paths to clarity, to have brand cohesion, to be able to have your brand stand out in the sea of, you know, every other brand out there, you know, in the world, then dull is just never really an option. And so I think tools like Canva, fortunately, are able to be able to kind of be that bridge in some ways, like you will be able to use using things like brand kits and brand systems, you can already have a layer of like governance and control and your own creativity that comes with your brand. And so that's sort of the guardrail in some ways, like not the handcuff, but very much a guardrail.

8:14And then from there, you can, you can build your sort of surprise and delight, like really, truly better quality content. But look, I mean, that data is so fascinating. I don't know if you've done much research in that space or see much research in that space but um that the idea that um the brain is actually you know tracking the way that we perceive and internalize and then also like what that means for companies like being able to work in a company like canva where the content is so visually rich like every all hands every interaction every meeting every finance meeting there's like beautiful or visual storytelling that happens.

8:55And so that sort of deep clarity that comes with those things and then that connection to brand is what we hope, I guess, that everybody can actually take some learnings from. And, again, go back to your sort of previous question around the human piece is, like, that's the bit we all get up in the morning about. Like we all want to go to work and experience the way that feels. Sorry, excuse me. the way that feels because um it is it is a great sort of buzz to be able to be in a world where you know this content is just so visually rich and and helps to um to get that clarity yeah i was actually talking to someone who works at mars and he was saying that he works in like the data science part and he like they actually test ads with humans and see how their brain interacts ads versus how like we interact with ads like because our brains act differently than what we usually say or things light up in our brain when we see a certain color or we certain phrase or certain emotion is triggered so it's pretty interesting that space i want to dive in more on that space but i want to know also like what is the internal rule at camber for using ai like What is, how do you guys use AI in your own org?

10:12Yeah, yeah. Well, it's big. I mean, you know, it's an initiative. I think we started well over a year ago, actually, where, you know, part of it is access to the right tooling. And I think companies have maybe been a little bit slow to give employees that just because, you know, there's a lot of governance and control that happens in large companies in particular. But Canva is very focused on being able to open up the aperture for different tools and be able to provide everybody the opportunity to kind of like look at different use cases and understand how the tech can support those things. So we use like the enterprise licenses of, you know, all our friends and OpenAI and Anthropic and so forth.

10:53So the tool choice is important, but then it's what you do with the choice. And I think some teams have been really naturally curious and able to find the time and the learning and the skills development to be able to take it and really run with different use cases. And then some teams have been a little slower to adopt. So I think the company in itself is trying to provide the right platform for those things. Like we run sort of sprints on AI. We run hackathons where we're like looking at different use cases. And I think what I've seen in the last probably, at least the last eight months, is it started very much as how do you get improvements in efficiency and productivity?

11:38And so can you make content a little bit better? Can you use AI as more of a thought partner, you know, being able to like ideate and find, you know, like tension or, you know, just trying to like explore. And then you start to see actually use cases that take it from being just about efficiency and productivity to like how do you actually go find new ways to serve the customer better? For example, we have a platform which is very AI focused called Canva Grow, which takes performance ads and really like users' AI to create them, but also test them really heavily. And it's an example of where now we've been able to create like 20 % more ads because now that that process got easier, but actually the loop that comes back is actually making sure that the customers are engaging or folks are engaging with those ads.

12:32in a much like profound way, like the time on the ad. And then you actually see that kind of like pull through into a conversion tactic, which shows that actually, you know, those ads are performing. And hopefully if you're feeling like you're getting the right ad and you're solving a problem and you're then exploring an opportunity to solve that problem with a product or a service, then that can only help. So I think it's sort of a smaller example, but it is an example where, you know we have to start somewhere we're not going to just immediately go to get like new revenue streams we intend to be there but it's just you know like those things take time to develop and grow um so i think there's sort of like an internal enablement challenge a little with ai like the tooling part is just one of it um and then it's how do you move away from these use cases that um do you feel very kind of productivity led to actually how are they really becoming kind of revenue generating, or at least there's an ROI on them that our CFO and others feel good about.

13:37Because there's a lot of investment in time, energy, effort, resources across many, many companies right now to be able to, you know, like set their employees up for success. And at some point, I feel like we're going to be asked the question, what is this doing for us all? I think the cost counting goes so far. I like that you're thinking that, okay, what are some revenue generating things? And the ad example is a super good example of how can we let AI be more efficient in testing ad creative, actually have results that pull through that shows that these ad creative. That's why creative strategist is a role in itself, like looking at creative, looking what I performed on meta and Google and TikTok and, and analyzing, was it the hook?

14:30Was it the, did it, was it the middle of the, uh, was the CTA good enough and seeing where you can adjust, um, in that creative strategy. The other thing I would just add on that too, is, uh, is this the time savings that you get with being able to kind of have that low entry point to AI and be able to do things faster and more efficient, that time saving, it's really important that you actually protect that. And that goes into other more meaningful things. And it's like a slight nuance, but I think that that is incredibly important. So can you use that time to go and help sales create better like email copy for outbound emails?

15:07Can you do more deeper research on your customer base, on the personas that you're selling to? Is there like a micro audience piece that you could, it's like, you got to find opportunities for leverage in that. And I think sometimes that people miss that. And just being able to really kind of codify, like, actually, this is a productivity efficiency gain, but then this is also what I'm getting from it. And that hopefully will compound over time. I also want to go into enterprise marketers, because they love to think that all their decisions are the most rational decision, and no emotion comes in the decision.

15:44And they're not like every other buying cycle in the world where there's emotion with the buying cycle and then logic is justified. So where does emotion actually show up in enterprise buying? Do you think it's like the fear of being wrong, making the wrong choice? Is it status? Is it career whiz? Is it ambition to ROI? Where is that emotion coming from in enterprise buying? Yeah, that's a great question. and you know I mean we're all emotional beings because we're human and so I think you know the answer is that it shows up in lots of places in the buying cycle in different forms but I think you do open the door with emotion right like you know we're all trying to find the right sort of levity because we want things to be like educational and entertaining at the same time we want things to appeal that tension I talked about earlier is like a really important piece to be able to get people reacting to an idea and being inspired by it.

16:43So like, I think there's a lot of that human element that comes in for that, but you're right. I mean, I, I buy a lot of marketing tech software. And as I look at the way that I interact with vendors, I want to be inspired by their vision, by the fact that there'll be a great partner that there's, you know, like their roadmap feels really exciting and innovative. So there's all the things that I care about. And then there's this practical reality of, well, actually the assurance comes in because I need to know that, you know, I'm not ultimately going to get fired for making this decision on this software.

17:17And that is, you know, something that's easy to implement. It's something that's going to stand up, stand the test of time that the rest of the employees will love it. Like there's a lot of things that come with that, they're more human elements. And so the idea, I guess, is that you still have to appeal like in a lot of your marketing, especially in the upper funnel to that idea of innovation and aspiration. But then the logic and the assurance comes in when you're engaging with IT, when you're in the procurement cycle, you know, those risks, the de-risk part of that is around how do you show up with logic?

17:51Like, can we be trusted? Are we going to have uptime? Like there's, you know, is there guardrails in place for creation of content across the board? And does creativity sort of feel like it has some parameters when you're using something like Canva? So I think the real kind of answer is probably more around the sequencing of these things. Like you, you know, you earn that attention up front, but then you back it up with rational, rational belief and logic. And then, you know, we did this, It was actually, I don't know if you have ever been to Canva Create event, but our community event happens once a year.

18:29And we did it in L.A. a couple of years ago to launch our enterprise product. And we got a wrapper to come and wrap this like incredible, fun, what we thought was like very unapologetically Canva. But it was it was a wrap around why you should use Canva for enterprise. and, you know, in companies and the problems you can solve and how it has all those things like security and so forth in it. So, you know, that got 50 million YouTube views, like it was a lot of discussion in the community. So it was a moment where you have that human inspiration and whether you liked it or didn't, it's another thing, but it was memorable, right?

19:08You had recall, you built brand equity in that, but then that was very intentional. But the piece behind it was that you follow up with customer case studies, you know, the logic around how we control things, what the guardrails are, the, you know, the security elements, like all of those things are really, really important. So I think you can do both, but you have to just sequence it in the right way. Yeah, especially with a big buy. You need to, I mean, the motion side is, like you said, the hook. And then you need to have the social proof, you need to have those badges to prove that you're actually secure.

19:50You need to have someone talking through the security side that's an expert in that to talk to the IT department. You can't just, those are the things that become that trust layer. And then also, I mean, luckily, like one of the biggest trust layers Canva has, it has brand and brand is like, I think something that when you see other enterprise people using it and trusting those logos, it automatically softens the blow a little bit when you go to that next level. well, if you're a challenger brand trying to prove out the next part of trust, you have to go even deeper in those case studies and those certifications and those expert people.

20:41But that's why brand is so important, like Canva has, where it can at least push you closer to the finish line without having – you still need the validation, but the brand is, like, making the decision easier for that end user to not have those emotional risks involved as well. Yeah, no, I totally think you hit the nail on the head. I mean, it's, you know, I mean, we take a lot of pride in the brand and we're lucky to have this very strong B2C or consumer brand that, you know, had roots in PLG and has grown very successfully. So in some ways, like, you know, I'm not going to confess that the job is sometimes easier because you have this like very trusted community of very strong advocates and the product market fit is very strong.

21:28So that does carry a lot of weight into the enterprise decision-making process, but it's not ultimately the full. Then it's about really the deployment, the implementation, and the human elements that come with making a technology choice that are not just about sort of like a checklist. They're really about, does this, you know, feel like the right decision, but also is it backed up, as you say, with all of those credentials and capabilities? And then also is it proven? So are the customers using it? So, yeah, I think, you know, the top end of that is that if, you know, if an idea doesn't spike emotion or like uncomfortability, you know, if it doesn't inspire that, then it probably won't actually change behavior at all.

22:13And you just get like this very sort of no decision or this inertia that you also need to overcome. So I think sometimes brands in particular, how we think about B2B is that you have to find those real kind of surprise and delight moments. And you have to, you know, appeal obviously to the people that you are, you're selling to. But, you know, we do a series of creative dinners, which are, you know, most probably B2B brands would do executive dinners and they would, you know, spend time and effort to think about that experience. But for us, we take it a step further and we build out, you know, venues that can tell the product story, can talk about how you bring ideas to life in a very visual format.

22:56So, you have, you know, you're sitting in a dinner and you're immersed with this incredible kind of creative experience around you, which shows how you're bringing an idea into Canva and actually building out all the assets and the creativity and, you know, what comes out of that process. So you're bringing like a product story, a human element, and then creativity all into the same experience. And so that's how I think you can also stand out a lot more when you're a B2B brand, if you just find like what those unique things are that you can do that help to sell your brand and your product promise.

23:29But in a way that feels differentiated and feels, you know, interesting, exciting for those who want to want to attend. So yeah, they're a lot of fun. I want to ask you a question. So, I mean, the use of AIs is increasing like the volume of content in the market. So what do you think becomes scarce in the market? Is it taste? Is it brand? Is it distribution? Is it trust? What does AI, because when something increases, it's going to be something that becomes scarce in the market. So what do you think that is when you see more and more content? Yeah. No, I think, you know, as a marketing leader, I feel like my job is not produce content anymore, but it's actually to create judgment, to create judgment.

24:11Like it's, and I think taste is, you know, that's a really interesting idea because it's also very intrinsic to people taste. And it's something that when you break it down, can you like teach taste, I think is a really interesting thing. And it's sort of almost like built by contrast, right? So we typically find a way we break it down is to find examples of where we think are really outstanding content examples and creativity examples and then where we have sort of mediocre and then subpar. And we spend a lot of time looking at that creative and everybody gets to contribute to actually what we think is good, bad or indifferent and why.

24:54and certainly when you have creative strategists in the room or you know creative directors they're very very good at being able to teach this idea of you know this feels off like how do we recognize quality like this just doesn't quite hit the nail on the head so you do that comparing side by side and the ritual of doing that the ritual of asking questions like you know does this feel premium is this unclear? Is the tension like the right tension? Is it like, does it actually age well? So, you know, with this, if you took a logo off, could you see that this is Canva in two years? Like there are questions that you fundamentally need to ask about the creative that becomes the ritual, becomes the order process, becomes like a discussion.

25:39And then once you start doing that with a lot of marketers, you start to be able to really all be on the same page with how you think about, you know, what does it look like to have really good taste? And then there's, it's also like this, I guess, like an internal calibration system. And then ultimately, you know, the outcome of that is that you hope that you'll end up with, you know, better quality output, whether that's a landing page or whether that's like a LinkedIn post or whether it is a creative ad or an asset, like it wants to be the sharpest, you know, best possible. And you can still use AI obviously as the underlying to get that, you know, all of those assets delivered, but you want to be able to have that taste human in the loop commentary that sits over the top, that sort of calibration just to make sure that it is the right thing before it goes out into the world.

26:29So, yeah, and then I think that the judgment piece is interesting because you start to look at, I guess, you know, what is this piece for? So, is it for a CMO or is it for like more of a mass marketing approach to a whole marketing team? Does it need to go create pipeline, direct pipeline, or does it need to help with the brand equity? And so some of those things are actually really tough discussions to have. And I think you have to all be really clear about what you're optimizing for on those particular ads. So, or even assets of any description, but, but it's, it's really interesting. I think now that it's kind of a new muscle people are building.

27:06I don't think we were such taste agents in the past, but now you have to be. And I think it's one of the things that marketing teams are going to have to do more and more and build like processes and systems around being able to do. Yeah. I think we were taste agents probably 20 years ago when we, we didn't go into like the tracking era of everything where data, we had to be so data driven and everything. It was just relying on creative to win. And then we kind of got in this muscle that everybody had to be so data driven and we had to like know these models and be great at excel and we like we nobody was like pushing hey you need it like the creative marketers were like hey i'm here i'm i'm still good like i i know how to do my job and we kind of pushed them to the side a little bit and now they're rising back up to the top and it's cool that i have a tool like canva to help them rise up to the top but i think creative marketers are becoming more and more important as um ai is going to take over a lot of the data work that has been going on in the past and the targeting work and all the stuff that we needed to do manually and needed heavy math skills to do.

28:17Totally. No, a hundred percent. And I mean, yesterday I was on a creative review, actually, we, we're doing some work with the, with an agency and, you know, I mean, I just listening to the content strategists and the, um, the brand work, I mean, the ideation that happens when humans get in a room and brainstorm ideas, there's no way that AI can even get close to that right now. Like it's such a special craft and it should be so heavily protected. And so I think it's like, yes, the idea and the sort of creative hook needs to be there. And then I think scale and distribution comes at the platform like Canva.

28:51But yeah, I mean, it's like a phenomenal craft to be able to come up with something that feels really differentiated and, you know, that kind of conceptual ideation process is a really interesting one. And if you were talking to a group of marketing leaders right now, they want to know whether like the use of AI is actually elevating their brand or bringing their brand down, like making them more dull. What do you think the three warning signs you would give to them that they're lowering their brand equity or they're making their brand more Dell by using so much AI. You're sitting on a gold mine of customer data and it's doing nothing for you.

29:36That's not a data problem. That's a tools problem. Customer.io connects your data to every channel you already use. SMS, email, push, in-app. Then it uses AI to build workflows that used to take weeks. Every message feels like it's written for that customer, not blasted at them. 8 ,000 plus brands already made the switch learn more at customer.io slash tmf yeah yeah i think look i mean ultimately one of the biggest measures of that is the is it translating to like clicks but then also into things like for b2b at least pipeline you know closed one revenue is it helping the buyers to actually get to that sort of aha moment quicker.

30:24Like you have to really take the full red line through and understand the impact to the market. And if you're seeing a bunch of like non-response or, you know, a degradation in pipeline or in lead volume or whatever it might be in your metrics, then clearly that's a sign that maybe the creative and the content is not quite working for you in the market. So I definitely say like on the metrics. And then I think there is this element of, does the marketing team stand behind it? So like as a CMO or as a marketing leader, or as even the CEO of the company, could you stand behind this creative and say this is best in class?

31:04Like, this is what my brand equity should be. And I think if the answer is, I'm not sure, or maybe that's not quite right, or people feeling a certain way about it, then clearly again, it's really not quite there. um and and then i think it is also it's a little bit back to that taste you know conversation it's it's really for us as marketers to hold that taste and that protect the brand values that come with that taste whatever that looks like for your company um and if you're not able to answer those like future proof like am i is this the best work i could do am i really proud of this work, then, then I think you really have to kind of take a pause and really understand, um, whether it is around the content or it could be that your buyers have changed or something different.