When marketing meets AI, with Julie S Miers
the founder of Pop Goes the Weasel, an AI-first marketing consultancy, previously Sr. Director of Marketing at Kroger
👋 Welcome to the first edition of “From the AI trenches”, a Lay of the land subseries in which I talk to real experts putting AI to use and share distilled takeaways in a quick 5-minute read. In edition #1, Julie S Miers, a CPG/Retail marketing veteran, shares how she has been applying AI to solve marketing problems.
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Meet Julie S Miers! Julie is a marketing leader with 20+ years of experience building some of the most recognized CPG and Retail brands globally, including Kroger, Kellogg, Crayola, DelMonte Foods, Candle-Lite, and Coleman Outdoor - ya, wow! In her latest inning as the founder of boutique marketing and AI agency, Pop Goes the Weasel, she solves marketing and branding problems as a fractional CMO, AI Consultant, and Brand Strategist. And… she’s got a secret weapon up her sleeve. Pop Goes the Weasel’s biggest differentiation and competitive advantage is that they are a purpose-driven, AI-first marketing consultancy, but very much with a “human in the loop” approach.
“We use AI to help companies work smarter and faster, whether it’s creating compelling marketing content, understanding customers better, finding new business opportunities, streamlining repetitive tasks (to save time and money), or staying ahead of market trends”
I caught up with Julie last week and picked her brain on the state of AI in Marketing!
Whisker and Wags 🐾
Of course, I started the chat by asking Julie how she uses AI at work
Julie illustrated with a case study - the socially conscious natural pet treat company Whisker and Wags (name changed) was growing fast, but growth was getting bottlenecked by spreadsheets and limited marketing capacity. Successful outcomes from the Pop Goes the Weasel engagement can be broken down into:
Saving content creation time - Using a customized brand-tuned prompt library, the team automated first drafts for blogs, emails, and social content.
Eliminating repetitive tasks - With Zapier and ChatGPT, they built custom workflows that handled everything from email drafting to internal team updates.
Brand clone - created a GPT-based brand assistant that ramped up new hires and ensured that all new content fit the brand guidelines boundaries.
Julie recalled another project where they used AI to streamline a product launch for an allergy-free B-corp food brand. But, she’s quick to point out - it’s never just about plugging in a tool.
“The projects weren’t just about implementing technology, but helping them understand their overall AI strategy and helping them shift from manual hustle to scalable efficiency. The biggest game-changer wasn’t a single AI tool, but the change in mindset that AI can amplify creativity, free-up time, and make a small team feel like an army.”
The ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ AI-tech stack
Next up, I asked Julie what tools she actually relies on—here’s her AI toolbox, organized by use case.
Content Creation & Copywriting: ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Jasper, Copy.ai
Visual & Video Content: Runway ML, Pictory
Email Marketing & Personalization: Salesforce Einstein
Social Media & Design: Canva
Customer Insights & CRM: Salesforce, HubSpot
Workflow Automation: Zapier + ChatGPT, Eleven Labs
My key takeaway is that the AI marketing stack is still pretty fragmented, especially in content generation tools. This could be a result of 1) business models with low switching costs and 2) the ever-evolving nature of the industry, where a clear winner is not yet crowned for many of these use cases.
Never lose your brand’s soul!
I had to ask - where does AI break down in Marketing?
Her #1 warning: Don’t lose your authentic brand voice.
“Cringey, off-tone, generic content is a real risk if you’re not careful.”
She feels that it’s a while away for AI to capture the nuanced wit of a cheeky tagline or the emotional arc of a story that resonates deeply, and feels that human marketers still have a secret spark to offer when it comes to developing a differentiated brand. AI, however, can be a good / objective judge for whether a new campaign falls within pre-existing guidelines and therefore could be used to ensure that you are building on brand equity.
After all, creativity within AI is still derived from LLM training and RL rewards of what has been successful in the past.
Top AI feature request
If budget and time were no object, what AI or UX capability would you add to your stack tomorrow?
“I’d add a next-level AI-driven “creative optimization engine” that generates and tests endless variations of ads, headlines, emails, social posts, and landing pages all in real time. It wouldn’t just automate content creation, but would continually learn what resonates with different audiences and adapts the creative mix accordingly. Not sure if that exists in full, but it would be cool to have!”
Typeface, Mutiny, and Coframe are startups building out platforms that dynamically modify content (for ads/web fronts) to hit marketing goals. Lifting the burden of creating experiment variants and enabling tests across narrowly defined marketing segments sounds like a GREAT AI use case.
2026 marketing-AI bets
To close things out, I asked Julie what she sees coming next.
"Agentic" Campaign AIs - to autonomously manage marketing campaigns, analyze performance metrics, and adjust strategies in real-time, enhancing
Generative AI for micro-moment marketing, where AI crafts hyper-personalized, context-aware brand interactions at precisely the right moment. Think of it as marketing that’s no longer campaign-based, but conversation-based, weaving the brand seamlessly into daily life. It’s AI that’s not just predictive but proactive.
“It’s not just predictive, it’s proactive. AI will move from broadcasting messages to weaving your brand into everyday life.”
🙏 Thank You, Julie!
That’s a wrap! A huge thank you to Julie for sharing her time, playbook, and perspective. What stuck with me most was her belief that AI shouldn’t erase what makes a brand special - it should help further connect the brand with its core consumer to drive greater loyalty.
If you're a purpose-driven brand, small business owner, founder, or brand leader wondering how to bring AI, Julie is someone you'll want to know.
Where to find Julie:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliemiers/
• Website: https://www.popgoestheweaselai.com/
• Email: juliepopgoestheweasel@gmail.com
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