Recently, the profusion of news around generative AI has renewed the critical importance of the human in the driver’s seat, especially when it comes to building ad creative. It’s clear that commercial creativity wouldn’t exist without the talent behind it.
Additionally, just as marketers have been using AI-powered tools , creatives female database have been experimenting with AI in everything from ads that respond to messages to conceptual presentations that sing.
With Responsive Search Ads (RSA) and Responsive Display Ads (RDA), we saw AI’s ability to optimize carefully crafted assets into the best-performing creative combinations.
We know that AI can scale asset production to serve the most relevant version of an ad across channels across Performance Max , App and Video action campaigns . To get a sense of how cross-functional creative teams are exploring AI, we looked at how agency heads across 3 regions are using it.
Novel use cases for AI tools
Use cases for AI tools: Interactive ads from voice activation to audiovisual journeys. Envisioning results and selling that vision to clients. Guiding concept iteration, strategy, and production.
During the 2019 holiday season, a team tasked with selling Google Nest to Australian shoppers had the unique opportunity to let people try out the product from the comfort of their homes.
“We wanted to bring the Nest experience to the ad itself, so that was the launch at that time, essentially, long before generative AI was a thing,” said Tingyan Han, senior director of data strategy, APAC at EssenceMediacom. “We needed to demonstrate the many ways Nest enhances moments at home.”
To do that, the team turned to a speech-to-text API built by Google with help from the Google Nest and Google Media Lab teams.
“There were a lot of things to consider when working with a speech-to-text API, from user experience to ad inventory and measurement, to checking whether local accents were recognizable,” Han explains. The ad paused in the first few frames to give the user time to engage with the experience. When users said, “Hey Google, show me gingerbread house recipes,” the ad complied.
The activation led to an increase in purchase consideration. Vincent Tay, creative director for Asia Pacific at EssenceMediacom, says this is because interactivity helped demonstrate the product’s benefits.
“While the idea of integrating shiny new technology into every facet of our campaign may be appealing, we must always put human truth at the center,” said Tay, who collaborated with a UX/UR designer alongside Han on the campaign.
Recently, Publicis-owned Leo Burnett Australia used AI to build a talking car . Meanwhile, Leo Burnett Taiwan used another type of AI to celebrate the Lunar New Year with fortune-telling potato chips .
“We have been using Google Colab regularly for early AI algorithm prototypes,” says Laurent Thevenet, Publicis’ Head of Creative Technology for APAC and MEA. “We are also starting to use Bard , as we like the fact that it is connected to the internet and can retrieve information in real time.”
As well as sending regular updates on emerging technology to its 4,000 creatives across the region, Publicis also mentors talent internally, sending interns back to their respective agencies and teams with new knowledge.
“Machines need operators, and for the creative industry, this means creatives will partner with machines, steering them towards the desired outcome,” says Thevenet. “These creatives need to be hybrid talents who are able to think critically while also having the ability to operate and connect these emerging AI systems to each other.”
