We’re coders. Why are we suggesting you become an AI Power User in Marketing? (You may not even be a marketeer!)
We get it. Once upon a time, “marketing” was something that happened in corner offices on Madison Avenue. Three-martini lunches, pithy slogans scrawled across on napkins. Don Draper staring out a window, empty glass in hand. Marketing was the same thing as advertising (we both thought this – wrongly!).
In the dark ages, unless you worked at an ad agency or sold soap, marketing just wasn’t your job.
Fast-forward to 2025. Hold up. Suddenly Marketing is everyone’s job. Yours too.
Whether you’re a product person, musician, founder, or a dev, you’re doing marketing.
If you’ve ever sent a newsletter, posted on Instagram, or wrote about your work on LinkedIn — it’s you. You’re the problem. It’s you.
The game has changed, Taylor. We have AI now. You can be an AI Power User for Marketing too.
But how? You ask.
We’ll give you some examples from real life. Here are some ways we’re using AI to build out our men’s clothing line, Towards Arcadia (towardsarcadia.com).
For Towards Arcadia, we both already wear a few hats: creative director, finance person, supply chain fixer, IT folks, customer service rep. But we want to go bigger, this year. Find the right customers, craft messaging, and scale out – while continuing with err, all our other things.
We’ll use AI to help us think through:
- Who our customer segments might be
- A methodology for choosing a target customer
- Understanding competition
- Positioning ideas
- Messaging examples
- Brand story, partnerships, and creative activations
We’ll start with what our friend Americus calls it “STPM” – segmentation, targeting, positioning, & messaging. With a few more marketing frameworks along the way. And a healthy sprinkling of Real Life Things we’ve learned The Hard Way.
This is where you figure out who you’re speaking to, and how to get their attention.
Our STPM for Towards Arcadia:
Segmentation:
– Demographics: Men, 25–50
– Psychographics: Creative, values individuality, buys from brands with a story
– Behaviors: Shops limited drops, follows niche fashion/music/art scenes. Only drinks lattes made from a Bialetti.
Targeting:
🎯 The Creative Coder (primary): SF founder who actually cares about the world AND is highly technical AND writes poetry, you know, ironically.
🎯 The Indie Director (secondary): Think Silver Lake filmmaker. Style is storytelling and art.
Positioning:
> Menswear for those who move through time differently. Future-forward cuts. Organic materials. Story-driven drops.
1. Segmentation: Define customers we might go after
Sample AI Prompt:
> Act like a fashion brand strategist. Suggest 5 potential customer personas for Towards Arcadia, our menswear line featuring shirts and hoodies inspired by retro-futurism and organic minimalism. Our customers care about quality, individuality, and storytelling in fashion. Provide each persona with demographics, psychographics, and typical fashion influences.
>Example Output (Condensed):
- The Creative Coder
– Age 29, lives in SF, early employee at a crypto startup.
– Loves utility and uniform dressing but wants something with soul.
– Buys ACRONYM, Nike ACG, and would consider Towards Arcadia for its intentionality.
2. The Indie Director
– Age 34, lives in Silver Lake, works in film.
– Shops at SSENSE, wears Our Legacy and vintage Helmut Lang.
– Buys clothes to tell a story about who he is, not who he follows.
2. Targeting: Pick one of them
Once we have oour personas, how do we choose where to focus? AI-powered scoring!
Sample AI Prompt:
> Evaluate these 5 personas for market potential. Rank them based on likelihood to purchase, brand fit, and potential for word-of-mouth influence. Provide reasoning.
> Example Output
– The Indie Director gets top marks.
– Likely to spend $150+ on a hoodie if it has story and depth.
– Influences stylists, musicians, and fellow directors = word-of-mouth machine.
3. Positioning: Where do we fit?
AI Prompt Example:
> Act as a positioning expert. Refine Towards Arcadia’s positioning statement to appeal directly to “The Indie Director” persona. Keep the tone poetic but grounded. Max 30 words.
> Example Output
Towards Arcadia is menswear for men who move through time differently. Our shirts and hoodies blend natural materials with future-minded cuts. We’re not chasing trends—we’re building myths.
4. Messaging: Writing the words
For our target audience (The Indie Director), we need to speak their language.
Brand Voice:
– Poetic, but not flowery
– Future-minded, but grounded
– Introspective, but clear
Sample AI Prompt:
> Write Instagram captions for a new hoodie drop called “Liminal Space”. Each caption should feel like a fragment of a larger story. Max 20 words. Invoke themes of transition, timelessness, and quiet rebellion.
> Example Output:
– “For those moving through the in-between.”
– “Threads of the future, sewn in silence.”
– “Arcadia isn’t a place. It’s a direction.”
5. Brand Story, Partnerships, and Activations
Sample AI Prompt:
Act as a brand strategist. Suggest a brand story arc, 3 potential partnership ideas, and 2 creative activations for Towards Arcadia, a menswear line blending retro-futurism and organic minimalism. Focus on storytelling that appeals to creative professionals and musicians.
> Example Output:
Brand Story (AI-Enhanced Outline):
– Chapter One: Leaving the familiar
– Chapter Two: Finding the in-between
– Chapter Three: Building Arcadia
Partnerships:
– Collaborate with ambient musicians on exclusive playlists or live scoring for launch events
– Limited runs with visual artists (textile design, digital art)
– Pop-ups inside concept bookstores (ex: Arcana: Books on the Arts in LA)
Creative Activations:
– AI-Assisted Immersive Experiences: Interactive AI poetry installations at pop-ups
– Augmented Reality Lookbooks
– NFT Certificates for authenticity (optional, but for some circles, cool)
6. 5Cs Breakdown for Towards Arcadia:
Sample AI Prompt:
Act as a fashion brand strategist. Create a detailed 5Cs analysis for Towards Arcadia, a menswear line inspired by retro-futurism and organic minimalism. Focus on identifying key customer segments, collaborators, and competitors in the premium streetwear space.
> Example Output:
Company: Towards Arcadia. A men’s clothing line that feels like a walk through a forgotten future. High-quality materials. Beautiful clothing with a fascinating story.
Customer: Style-forward men with a point of view, a backbone, and a strong work ethic. 25–55. Creatives, coders, musicians. They value individuality and intentional fashion. They won’t wear fast fashion.
Collaborators: Select concept stores, visual artists, stylists, musicians. We value partnerships that share our vibe: indie, forward-thinking, imaginative.
Competitors:
- Robert Graham: Bold, art-driven menswear featuring intricate prints, embroidery, and signature contrasting details for confident dressers who want to stand out. Known for craftsmanship, storytelling, and wearable art pieces. robertgraham.us
- Etro (Menswear): Italian luxury brand blending tailored silhouettes with rich, eclectic prints and bohemian flair, appealing to worldly, creative professionals. Signature paisleys, vibrant color palettes, and storytelling designs inspired by travel and heritage. etro.com
- Desigual (Men’s Collection): Spanish brand known for playful, collage-inspired designs with bold prints, patchwork, and vibrant colors, bringing an artistic edge to casual and statement pieces. Appeals to fearless dressers who love pattern and pop-art influences. desigual.com
- Eton Shirts: Swedish shirtmaker offering refined, high-performance dress shirts with sharp tailoring and occasional bold prints for men seeking understated luxury with a twist. Renowned for wrinkle-free fabrics, technical craftsmanship, and modern elegance. etonshirts.com
7. The 4Ps for Towards Arcadia
Using “The 4Ps” is basically “Marketing 101.” But it’s a shorthand to pressure test and refine our thinking.
Sample AI Prompt:
> Act as a marketing strategist. Review the 4Ps for Towards Arcadia (a menswear line blending organic minimalism and retro-futurism). Suggest ways to differentiate our Promotion strategy from competitors like John Elliott or Fear of God Essentials. Include at least three fresh ideas.
> Example Output:
Product: Men’s shirts and hoodies that blend organic textures with futuristic silhouettes and a pop of color. Limited runs.
Price: Premium. $120–$350 per piece. Limited drops create scarcity and desire.
Place: Online store (towardsarcadia.com). Select concept shops in LA, NYC, Seattle, Paris, London, Tokyo, Seoul. Pop-up installations tied to releases
Promotion: Influencer seeding, editorial features, collaborations with musicians and visual artists.
8. Go forth!
From here, there are lots of ways to take this!
Here are some of the prompts we used to do this (today, actually):
- How do you duplicate a product page in Shopify?
- Take this marketing copy and update it for this new
- What sort of photos should we take of our men’s shirts to best show them off?
- Recommend 10 photographers in the Seattle area who specialize in men’s fashion. Make a table with their address, phone number, their insta handle, and a working link to their website.
- Based on this brand description [insert ours], create 5 customer personas including demographics, psychographics, and typical style influences
- Refine our positioning statement for [insert target persona]. Make it feel aspirational but grounded.
- Write 5 Instagram captions for our next drop. Focus on themes of [street art], keep them under 20 words.
<3 Dona & Jeremiah
Leave a Reply