Can you tell which people are real and which are fake in the photo above? Probably not.
Our client didn’t have the budget to shoot real people. They also wanted a multi-cultural range to represent their industry accurately. And they had a fairly tight timeline. Just a few years ago we would have needed to narrow their expectations. Now we combined a couple AI software tools to create a dozen humans from scratch with the appropriate heroic, campy body language.
No photographer. No heavy retouching charges. No overtime for a designer searching stock photos for hours on end. A campaign that could have easily cost more than $30,000 to shoot, retouch and produce could be created for a fraction of the cost.
As I look back on this past year, our team has been organically adding efficiencies to deliver value. We built our own studio to control costs making it easier to create a volume of work. Layering in AI is a natural evolution. We are utilizing AI voiceovers. AI generated music. AI to create life-like dinosaurs wearing tight suits in turn-of-the century offices. It pains me knowing that tech is replacing people sometimes, but we have to embrace and adapt to change when applicable.
A recent EY study found that 75% of employees are concerned that AI will make their jobs obsolete. And rightfully so. AI is tech that enables machines to perform tasks done by humans. We all appreciate the rapid data funnel that produces accurate answers in a nanosecond. But there’s a difference between AI and GAI. Generated Artificial Intelligence is a type of AI that can create new content based on data it has been trained on, like an original song. It’s designed to simulate human reasoning and problem-solving approaches. This is the part that really scares people.
Eighty percent of multinational brand owners say they have concerns about how creative and media agency partners are using Generative AI (GAI) on their behalf, according to new research from the World Federation Of Advertisers conducted a study with almost 50 global marketers with a 48 multinational marketers with cumulative annual marketing spend of $102 billion.
Most brands are still at the early stages of implementing GAI, according to the research -- 26% of the respondents said their companies use GAI sporadically and 58% claim to be at a “developing“ stage with a strategic plan in place. Just 2% say GAI is embedded in how they drive innovation, and that the technology is changing their business models. A higher percentage, close to 70%, are trying to leverage GAI for content ideation and creation.
While I’m proud of the investments we’ve made to make the marketing process more efficient, it will never replace the importance of marketing effectiveness. But there will be clients that just won’t care. Their goal will be to slash costs at all costs. Even if it means a slow erosion to their brand impact. Or they’ll funnel the margins from their down-sized intellectual capital costs to increase their media spend and presence, even if their strategy and messaging is painfully off-putting.
AI is a great tool for better-cheaper-faster. For the brands that understand the value of differentiation and relevance, it won’t replace the real creative thinkers anytime soon. We’ve been testing headlines and are pretty advanced at our prompts, but we can’t get anything beyond abysmally cliché’. While the spec AI generated Volvo spot produced this past summer by colorist Laszlo Gaal showcases how far AI has come in terms of incredible video visual capabilities in record time, the idea itself of the world turning green thanks to an electric car is incredibly antiquated.
AI is a great tool to enhance our ideas, but when it comes to generating brilliant concepts, it’s not even close yet. GAI hasn’t fallen in love. It hasn’t been betrayed by a trusted friend. It hasn’t personally seen four teenagers balancing themselves on a bicycle in an ingenious, comical, but highly dangerous way. Technology can input what’s been done in the past to try to create something original, but so far, it feels familiar, or worse, completely rote.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very excited about how this amazing tool can enhance how we communicate. I’m not some curmudgeon gripping tightly to my buggy whip refusing to accept the invention of the automobile. It’s common sense that life experience is fairly unpredictable. And these cumulative moments helps shape more original thoughts and insights that bond humanity in a very real way. Even if it includes chocolate cookies, a luxury car, or insurance. It’s what lead us to conceive stories that includes Santa Claus pumping iron, or a wife smashing a $350,000 Mercedes with a hammer or even a dozen real drones dropping real product on real people to launch a new product.
The future will always favor the thinkers. The people that get their knees scraped by life. And as far as which people are real from our campaign this past year? Maybe you can get ChatGPT to solve the mystery…
