Inside the AI-generated rebrand of an IPG-owned production company

When Studio Rx decided to rebrand using Adobe’s generative AI platform, Firefly, its executives understood the ensuing process was going to be as much about putting AI to a new test as designing a new look. The production company, which is a subsidiary of IPG Health, had been encouraging its clients to use AI tools in mostly small ways. Then, as a show of faith in the creative value of the technology, Studio Rx placed the future of its own identity in the hands of Adobe’s model. “We’re using ourselves as a proof case for our clients,” said Matt Hall, executive creative director of Studio Rx. Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards Enter today as we honor the best in healthcare marketing Learn more here The company’s rebranding effort signals the growth in trust that advertising organizations are showing toward AI tools. Ad tech startups are beginning to envision a future in which AI will supplant many of the duties of marketing teams, while agencies continue to pour investment into their AI functionality. Brands, too, are recording concrete outcomes as a direct result of generative applications. More: Generative AI for brands—what advertisers need to know Studio Rx is not the first company to lean on Adobe’s Firefly platform for its own marketing materials. Deloitte Digital rebranded its “green dot” icon with Firefly in March, and IBM launched a campaign using Adobe’s commercially safe assets that same month. Yet, despite the confidence in AI content creation, production companies remain fearful that advancement could lead to replacement. This context lends extra weight to Studio Rx’s decision to produce its own creative work with generative AI at the helm. Inside the rebrand Before using Firefly 3, the latest version of Adobe’s AI image platform, Studio Rx designed rough sketches of its new visual identity. This was not just about planning ahead, but also leveraging Firefly 3’s ability to process structural and style references. These references can provide a closer approximation of desired outcomes than text only. Once Studio Rx uploaded its images—a bipedal heart named “Rxie” running on a treadmill as a structural reference, a “Minions”-like 3D-animation as a style reference—Firefly began developing corresponding visual assets. These needed some retouching, but in just 10 days the company had 20 pieces of content ready to be used for its website. Hall estimated that without the AI, this work would have taken roughly five times as long to produce. Though this first batch of assets was critical per se, its primary function was to serve as training data for further generations. This is Adobe Firefly 3’s bread and butter: creating custom image models for clients. Studio Rx is now able to develop not only better assets, Hall said, but also assets with far more flexibility. The company will lean on this capacity to suit its content needs going forward. For example, Studio Rx can produce Rxie images tied to certain themes. One such theme is the Olympics, for which Rxie is depicted as a cube carrying the opening ceremony torch. Studio Rx posted this image on social media. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Studio Rx | An IPG Health Company (@studiorxww) Because custom models are trained on a small amount of data, Hall learned that these systems can typically output relevant work at a faster clip than the all-powerful large language models (LLMs), which can scrape huge swaths of information. The difference, Hall said, amounted to “two people [working] for two weeks versus three people for two months. In this same spirit, Hall realized that when training AI models, the quality of data is arguably more important than the quantity. Marketers may feel tempted to shove as much information into AI models for the sake of generating the best outputs. Yet Adobe recommends using between 15 and 30 well-referenced pieces of content to begin training a custom model. “Sometimes more is not more—less is more,” said Hall. Ad Age’s AI marketing glossary For Studio Rx—and many other enterprise companies—another main appeal of Firefly is Adobe’s safety guarantee. The software giant claims that Firefly is trained only on licensed content, such as Adobe stock images, and public domain content in which the underlying copyright has expired. This protection provides a significant relief given the degree to which copyright has become a point of friction for the AI space. Brands have gone so far as to demand restrictions on the use of AI in their contracts with agencies, partly out of fear that IP infringement would be just around the corner. See all of the 2024 Small Agency award winners here Troubling optics? But even choosing a commercially safe platform does not protect Studio Rx from the potentially troubling optics of using AI to conduct its own creative work. The production industry has been particularly vocal about how AI is threatening their work, a concern that is only mounting as AI platforms continue to advance in their creative capabilities. That one of their own is automating its rebrand may feel like a further encroachment. When asked about this issue, Hall echoed a sentiment commonly held by members of the ad industry who subscribe to AI optimism. “[AI] may change how we’re working, but you need individuals behind these tools to get the outputs you want,” he said. Indeed, throughout its rebranding process, Studio Rx regularly leaned on human personnel to touch up Firefly’s images. And, once the outputs were created, it was people who decided what to actually do with them, such as post them to the company’s website or social media handles. Worries about AI are not going away; in fact, they may be spreading to other corners of the advertising world. This week, a startup called Forum3 launched Spok, an AI platform with a focus on strategy and a vision to eventually replace entire marketing teams. While humans may currently play a large role in its processes, it’s their future responsibilities that are in question.

Inside the AI-generated rebrand of an IPG-owned production company

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