And to promote the Europe-based gambling platform Tipico in Ohio, Code and Theory sought to speak the local language. So the agency used AI to create synthetic Ohioan personas infused with local traditions and rivalries, such as Jay “The VIP Bettor,” Alex “The Ambitious Amateur” and Josh “The Social Bettor.” The campaign, dubbed “Bet Like You’re From Ohio,” connected digital, social and traditional media with key moments for local sports fans, including the opening of the MLB season and the Super Bowl. Within a month, Tipico reached 57% of its annual registrations target.
The Ohioan personas are an early manifestation of what Gardner calls “fourth-party data,” which is a dataset made synthetically by AI from pre-existing first- and third-party data. The new information is intended to be predictive of what consumers will want in the future, as opposed to reflecting what they have already wanted, which is the case with first- and third-party data.
Gardner is as big an AI enthusiast as you will find in the ad industry. At Code and Theory, this interest is now shared by most employees, half of whom are creatives, and the other half technologists. Together, they are pushing the boundaries for how AI is to be used in the advertising industry, with services from developers such as OpenAI, Midjourney and ElevenLabs at their disposal.
“Business transformation is AI transformation,” Gardner said, though, of course, he’d prefer to use a different word.