HD, AI and Farming. Wait! What?

We are all deep into final projects at the moment. My team is doing Harley-Davidson so naturally the 4 of us are well-versed on just about anything HOG.

An article caught my eye today. It was about the 4th Industrial Revolution and advanced tech. The word “robotics” in my mind typically relates to manufacturing; machines doing repetitive or dangerous work to maximize efficiency. I did not understand robotics could also be used in marketing. Until now!

The article says 84% of marketing organizations this year are already using or are expanding Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine earning. Of the places that use this technology, 75% saw an increase in consumer satisfaction, another 75% saw a 10% increase in sales (Columbus, 2018), and a better customer experience is a big benefit to any company.

AI can also help businesses decide on the most efficient marketing mix. AI will independently decide which customers get which ad in which colors on which platform for optimum results (Marr, 2018).

Amazing, right?

So if everyone is using machine learning, then who is using machine learning?

Harley-Davidson.

One dealership in New York increased leads for possible sales over 2900% (Marr, 2018) which lead to near-double number of bikes sold at a yearly promotion. The program is named “Albert”  and Albert can use performance indicators to find new audiences Harley didn’t know were available (Marr, 2018). Albert also surfaced which platforms worked the best and over a six-month period 40% of sales were attributed to the program (Marr, 2018).

In keeping with trying to understand the concepts we are learning about by making them personal, I wondered if it could be used in agriculture. Can Albert keep up the pace? Will this work B2B? Is it expensive? How long will it take to pay for itself? Those are still unanswered.

Farming has been a little unchanged until recently (with the massive California increase in minimum wage and severe reductions in allocated water). It’s about people, tractors, and dirt. You get the picture. AI has been used to guide tractors when furrowing for maximum efficiency (there’s that word again!) but a whole new world just opened up for different ways of marketing our crops.

And I got the info because of an assignment about Harley-Davidson.

Columbus, L. (2018, February 25). 10 ways machine learning is revolutionizing marketing. Forbes. Retrieved from: https:forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2018/02/25/10-ways-machine-learning-is-revolutionizing-marketing/#596249a65bbc

Marr, B. (2018, July 3). How Harley Davidson is using AI and robots to prepare for 4th industrial revolution. Forbes. Retrieved fromhttps://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/07/03/how-harley-davidson-is-using-ai-and-robots-to-prepare-for-the-4th-industrial-revolution/#2d5ad46e5271