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Leveraging ChatGPT, Midjourney and HeyGen to empower Digital Marketing students with GenAI insights

Dr Kisito F. Nzembayie Kisito F. Nzembayie is Assistant Professor in Entrepreneurship and Director of the MSc in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Trinity Business School, TCD. He holds a PhD in Digital Entrepreneurship and lectures at the nexus between entrepreneurship, digital technology, marketing and business strategy.

Context

I lecture across our MSc Entrepreneurship and Innovation, MSc Management & Executive Education programmes. In this case, I describe the use of GenAI in a Digital Marketing module aimed at students in our MSc in Management programme. The module was delivered over the Michaelmas term from September to October 2023 to a cohort of over 50 students. As lecturer, this was my second year teaching this course in Trinity. As a digital marketing curriculum must be updated regularly to stay relevant in the context of technological change, this module fully embraced GenAI in marketing. To reflect the evolving AI-driven marketing landscape, I set out to expose students to crucial digital marketing technologies: ChatGPT, Midjourney, and HeyGen in content marketing lessons.

Recognising the potential for AI to facilitate cheating and uncritical thinking, I redesigned assessments to be more authentic, embedding four learning theories into a holistic experiential learning framework. The new design included a 30% critical reflective essay (new this year), a 40% group project, and a 30% individual project. Students worked in groups to analyse digital marketing efforts of four previously unknown Irish companies, producing detailed reports, content and video presentations.

In groups, they developed digital marketing strategies and content marketing campaigns addressing weaknesses identified during research of the companies' digital marketing campaigns. Their reports were accompanied by AI-generated SEO articles, promotional videos, and images, along with the prompts used – in Appendixes.

The final reflective piece highlighted students' experiences and understanding gained from both projects and the course, aiming to foster authentic, collaborative, and reflective learning. The use of lesser-known companies and real-life scenarios promoted genuine learning.

What was your goal in utilising GenAI as part of the teaching process?

I set out to achieve three main things with GenAI as part of this module:

Equip my learners with the most updated awareness of how AI and GenAI tools were transforming marketing;
Develop skills in the use of Gen AI tools and best practices for content marketing;
Steer students toward self-discovery and critical thinking regarding the ethical issues involved.

How did you use GenAI to enhance teaching, learning and/or assessment?

I embedded AI-generated content in my teaching resources to model best practices for GenAI use. For example, I used illustrative images generated with MidJourney in my slides and AI-generated videos featuring my avatar and cloned voice to spark curiosity and discussion (see Fig. 1). These discussions explored ethical issues such as deep fakes and subtle reinforcement of biases as shown in a case where images created by GenAI consistently returned male only candidates for certain roles. Students were asked to reflect on some of the outputs, identifying subtle reinforcement of biases and ethical dilemmas. Videos created using HeyGen, an AI video creation tool, introduced the role of AI in content marketing and prompted classroom discussions regarding the use of these tools for digital marketing purposes. As part of a group project, students were asked to develop content marketing strategies for four Irish companies.

Using GenAI tools as part of this process, students were required to document their prompts, prompt revisions and AI artifacts – all of which were included as appendices in a final group report.

I introduced techniques for skilled prompting in class, such as modeling prompt engineering that produced various content types. For instance, I generated realistic photos with MidJourney for smart street bins to be included in a blog post or promotional campaign (see Fig. 2), which was one of the four cases the students were working on. The students learned to write SEO (Search Engine Optimised) blog posts faster by strategically prompt ChatGPT and subsequently personalising the output with market research.

Students were also asked to keep a reflective journal throughout the course that captured their thinking and learning journey in real-time. A final reflective piece involving critical incidents of learning was intended to distil lessons in their reflective logs as part of a 30% assessment. This also gave me insights into their thinking as most of them engaged with multiple GenAI tools in a marketing context.

Figure 1 AI-generated video using HeyGen. Click on the image to see a larger version of it.

Figure 2 Photo realistic images of a smart bin on the Streets of London to go with blog post - Midjourney. Click on the image to see a larger version of it.

What were the outcomes of using GenAI in this way?

Student engagement and reflection showcased real-time transformation and more impactful learning outcomes than would be possible without GenAI. The use of technology to enhance readability was evident, and authentic student learning was much easier to detect in student reflections – there were no instances of AI-aided plagiarism. The following table is a summary of student reflections on this learning journey.

Cases	After Course	Representative Quote
1	Useful, transformative, a bit daunting	I see now their usefulness, especially in online marketing… it is now possible to produce online content of high quality … very quickly and easily.
2	Exciting, rapidly evolving	Generative AI has been developing at an incredible velocity.
3	Intriguing, anxiety-inducing, ethical implications	… fascinating to learn how to create AI-generated content… frightening to hear how AI can be used as a force of evil … exploiting vulnerable groups…made me think about my own grandparents and how their low digital literacy could make them vulnerable.
4	Ethical concerns, a logical model-based tool	AI is just faster and an intricate logic-based tool.
5	Ethical concerns, needs open-minded approach	… approach the use of AI, particularly generative AI content, with more of an open mind. I think I came in trying to pick at the negative more than approaching it as a useful tool required in … marketing.
6	Concerning, interesting in terms of limitations	These AI videos and images actually really freak me out. The idea that these people I'm looking at don't exist makes me scared about the way our world is heading… but what interested me … are its shortcomings…on common sense, and AI hallucinations.
7	Exciting, privacy concerns	An AI future is inevitable; AI models... have already revolutionised the world.
8	Potentially efficient, limitations evident	Evaluating pros and cons of the use of AI tools... revealed limitations of its use.
9	AI as a collaborative tool with humans	If there is a proper collaboration between AI and humans, they can be the future of marketing.
10	Labor-saving, requires careful prompting	I had no idea the extent to which these tools can be labour-saving for companies.

Table 1. Student Reflection on Learning.

What did you learn as part of this process and is there anything you would do differently?

Not all students have access to cutting-edge GenAI tools or can afford them. Therefore, it is essential to have free versions available. Likewise, I would ask College to sign up for paid versions of these tools for students to use next time. There is a danger of unequal access if some students can afford to subscribe to paid versions of these technologies while others cannot. Next time, we will deepen our exploration of technological advances in GenAI – e.g., have students develop GPTs for various marketing purposes.