Chase is getting more creative with its marketing language—by tapping machines to write it. The bank announced Tuesday it has signed a five-year deal with Persado, a New York-based company that applies artificial intelligence to marketing creative. Chase began testing a pilot relationship with Persado three years ago, by using the tool for its card and mortgage businesses. That relationship has now expanded across the financial giant’s platforms.
Chase says that ads created by Persado’s machine learning performed better than ads written by humans, with a higher percent of consumers clicking on them—more than twice as many in some cases. The difference can be as simple as what word choice resonates with consumers. One digital ad written by humans read, “Access cash from the equity in your home.” However, Persado’s version, “It’s true—You can unlock cash from the equity in your home,” performed better with customers.
Kristin Lemkau, chief marketing officer of JPMorgan Chase, noted that machine learning can actually help achieve more humanity in marketing. “Persado’s technology is incredibly promising,” she said in a statement. “It rewrote copy and headlines that a marketer, using subjective judgment and their experience, likely wouldn’t have.”
Chase plans to use Persado for the ideation stage of creating marketing copy on display ads, Facebook ads and in direct mail, according to Yuval Efrati, chief customer officer at seven-year-old Persado. He says that the AI company works alongside Chase’s marketing team and its agencies.
When asked if the new relationship will impact staffing at Chase in terms of downsizing or changes, a spokesman for the bank said, “Our relationship with Persado hasn’t had an impact on our structure.”
Persado executives say that while Chase is the first brand to employ its AI across platforms, other brands are planning to expand their use of the technology. The company already works with 250 marketers across categories including retail, finance and hospitality, and with brands such as Dell, Williams Sonoma and Expedia.
Alex Vratskides, CEO and co-founder of Persado, says the service is just a natural evolution of technology improving work for humans, similar to what calculators did for researchers doing long-division in the 1950s. “To the creative community, the marketing community, this brings accountability and data-driven insight,” he says. “If you go to any marketing creative out there and you ask, ‘How did you come up with that, why did you use that word and not that word,’ they cannot actually answer. With Persado, there is a mathematical answer.”
