How Wunderman Thompson is using AI to program its future

Wunderman Thompson had a colorful 2022—literally. The five-year-old WPP-owned agency made a splash with “Speaking in Color,” in which AI is used to turn words into color matches, thereby creating that perfect hue of “just before sunset blue” or “lemony lime green.” See all of Ad Age's 2023 Agency A-List winners here Done for client Sherwin-Williams and employing optical recognition technology adjustable by users, the campaign won the inaugural Creative B2B Grand Prix at Cannes. It’s an example of how Wunderman is operating with an eye to the future. Along with its work for Sherwin-Williams, the eight-office agency—which maintains a New York headquarters—also used AI for Remembrance Week to honor veterans and build awareness for their sacrifices. “Remastered Memories” used AI to generate images around battlefield scenes from more than a century of wars. Buy your ticket for the Ad Age A-List & Creativity Awards Gala here. Wunderman is also exploring the metaverse; it debuted its own virtual world for CES in early 2022 for virtual attendees. And WT Metaverse now helps the agency onboard new employees and functions as a focus group for generating research and data. Some of Wunderman’s more high-profile work also saw high-profile results. For example, a 2022 Super Bowl spot for Hellmann’s with Jerod Mayo, a New England Patriots football coach, quite literally tackled food waste, resulting in 2.15% share growth for the condiment brand in the four weeks following the Big Game, Wunderman reported. The campaign, which included a “very hittable” Pete Davidson, generated 6.78 billion earned media impressions. By diversifying its revenue mix across a balance of disciplines—revenue is divided equally among communications, digital marketing and a combination of production, strategic consulting and e-commerce—Wunderman is serving a wide range of clients with a variety of needs. Last year’s new client wins included social agency of record duties for Audible, influencer marketing for Stitch Fix and data marketing for Coca-Cola. In total, Wunderman said it gained 300 new business opportunities in 2022. See all the winners of Ad Age's 2023 A-List Awards here.

How Wunderman Thompson is using AI to program its future

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