Top 5 AI marketing activations brands need to know right now

It’s been another wild month for AI in the marketing world and beyond, too. OpenAI’s future was jeopardized in a boardroom dispute that briefly led to the ousting of CEO Sam Altman. The turmoil could have affected brands and tech platforms that work with OpenAI. At the same time, there have been advances in AI video creation from Meta and Stable Diffusion. If AI starts getting better at video that could be the next frontier. Ad Age is here with its Creativity Top 5 in AI to explore the best marketing efforts and new tools.Read more of our latest Creativity Top 5 installments here. 5. AI fashion line This month, AI Fashion Week returned for a second installment. To coincide with the show, retailer Revolve dropped a new line of AI-inspired clothing that came out of the first AI Fashion Week in April. Maison Meta, the AI studio, and Revolve held a design contest and produced a new fashion line with the winners. The collections—Paatif by José Sobral, Opé by Opé Stylestar, and Molnm by Matilde Mariano—can be found here. AI fashion week uses AI-generated models to walk a virtual runway, and it's become an example of how this new technology could inspire new forms of retail. 4. AI brand consultants This month, ad agency Pereira O’Dell launched what it called AI personas to help brands do market research. Instead of forming a real-life panel of people, marketers could just ask AI replicas of consumers. It sounds far-fetched, because how much could an AI-generated character reflect the mood and wants of a real person, but this is an important area of exploration for brands. Pereira O’Dell’s “Insights Machine” is based on ChatGPT 4, and its clients can talk to four “synthetic consumers” at a time, Ad Age’s Asa Hiken reported. “A marketer can prompt a single question, and it will be answered in rapid succession by the queried bots,” Hiken wrote. “Moreover, the marketer does not have to worry about upsetting the respondents by prying too deeply (they don’t have feelings) nor exhausting them by asking too many questions (they don’t get tired).” Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs 3. Video killed the image generator The next step in generative AI will be in video, and it’s coming faster than many expected. Over the course of the year, AI video tools have become more realistic and less unnerving. Now, Stability AI has launched an image-to-video tool called Stable Video Diffusion to complement image-maker Stable Diffusion. People have started using the video generator to animate popular memes, including the “distracted boyfriend” stock photo. The meme was widely shared online, especially across LinkedIn and X, formerly Twitter. There is potential for this animation to bring new dimensions to more than just memes. Stability AI posted a video on YouTube of some of the ways it could be used. 2. Meta’s Emu movement Not to be outdone by Stability AI, Meta released a new text-to-video feature within the image-generation platform called Emu. Meta demonstrated how Emu Video and Emu Edit work in a blog post earlier this month, which showed how a person could type a prompt, say, for a “white fluffy bunny,” then Emu delivers the image. The image can then be updated with more prompts, including making the character move. Meta’s Emu work is part of a wider AI strategy that is putting generative AI into its products, including Instagram and WhatsApp. Generative AI also is a growing part of Meta’s ad platform. 1. Coca-Cola’s AI pops Coca-Cola's AI strategy has completely shifted the way commercials get made—consumers create the ads. The beverage brand extended its generative AI campaign for the holidays. In March, Coca-Cola launched the Create Real Magic site, allowing fans to use OpenAI’s image and text generators to make artwork infused with the brands’ iconography. The AI-powered site got an upgrade in time for Diwali, Christmas and other holidays, after OpenAI released a new version of DALL-E, the AI image-maker. For the holiday season, consumers can use the service to make greeting cards based on Coca-Cola’s brand assets. “We have worked with some of the best agencies, we have worked with some of the best artists, like Andy Warhol,” Pratik Thakar, Coca-Cola’s head of global creative strategy and content, told Ad Age recently. “Coca-Cola has worked with Hollywood filmmakers and music creators, and everyone, but now it’s a time to democratize, use technology, put power in the consumer’s hand.” Coca-Cola’s holiday campaign includes promoting the Create Real Magic website, where the tools have evolved. People can spin up holiday-themed images and tell ChatGPT to help write a holiday message. As it did with its first foray into generative AI earlier this year, some of the artwork from creators could become real-world billboards. “I would say millions will try it out in the next weeks and months,” Thakar said. Generative AI is leading to “deep engagement” between the brand and consumers, who spend on average more than 7 minutes creating Coca-Cola art when they visit, Thakar said. “They spend minutes, not seconds, minutes on our platform, with our brand assets,” Thakar said. So far, Coca-Cola has not turned on video-creation capabilities, but the brand is clearly thinking about it. “We are very much on it,” Thakar said. “We are super interested in creating videos and we are working on it.” AI marketing blog How brands are using ChatGPT, DALL-E 2 and other tools Read more here

Top 5 AI marketing activations brands need to know right now

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