Industry leaders Cam Luby, Vinetha Manthena and Patrick Guerrera share insights on how they use Gen AI in advertising and marketing, and offer advice on how to get Gen AI projects off the ground. The trio were part of a panel at the latest InnovAItor event in Sydney this week.
Industry leaders have urged businesses to embrace the power of Gen AI technology in advertising. Although it cannot replace the creativity of human thinking, Gen AI powered advertising allows resource-strapped companies to personalise creative at scale, iterate content quickly and efficiently, and optimise media plans and targeting in real time.
Cam Luby, the head of consumer marketing at Optus, said the telco uses Gen AI tech for two reasons: to create better experiences for customers and make work better and easier for Optus employees.
“AI technology gives us the opportunity to do things that we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do,” Luby said.
“We also want to make sure that people within our team, including our agency partners, have access to new tools, capability and processes.”
An example is content production. Optus works with M&C Saatchi and its in-house agency Yes Agency to produce digital and social media content, and using Gen AI tools allows it to create digital and social content without the need for a photo shoot.
“Now we are able to do those things really quickly and test and learn from them and do these activities more frequently,” Luby said.
“It’s overcoming a barrier of resources that otherwise we would put on a list of things that we’d love to do but don’t get around to.”
Patrick Guerrera is the APAC lead at M&C Saatchi Consulting. He said that Gen AI allows marketers to “do more, do better, be hyper-personalise and using data to better connect with customers”
He added: “the more exciting stuff is when our clients and. Agencies are coming together to use the tool to truly drive and optimise creativity.”
An example Guerrera cites is a campaign M&C Saatchi Group worked on with the Australian Retirement Trust that starts a large animated blue monster (see ad above).
“Often when you create characters in advertising, you would use a 3D modelling studio for weeks and it’s an outrageous cost. But we used AI tools (Midjourney) and developed 150 to 200 different versions of the blue monster for ART superannuation,” he said.
“The beauty about that is it was highly strategic. We looked at different attributions, how the monster moves, how it talks. It gave us the ability to do something that was really extraordinary that we couldn’t have done as an agency before, which gave the opportunity for the client to build that as that distinctive asset.
“People are starting to understand that AI is not just a flash in the pan. This is where extraordinary ideas can come to life that can actually push brands forward.”
Vinetha Manthena, a marketing and AI workflow expert who has previously worked for media agencies and large corporations, said that Gen AI has the ability to “really power” advertising and targeting for start ups and smaller marketing teams that do not have extensive resources.
“Where Gen AI really plays a significant role is being able to produce a number of creative assets at scale,” she said. “So not just the creative production of it, but also the post copy and all of that. You’re able to really become super personalised to particular cohorts of audiences.
“It is also being used to produce content that is contextually relevant and personalised. A study that was done by Accenture says that 80 per cent of consumers who experience a personalised brand exposure are a lot more likely to purchase.”
This BMW iX2 ad that uses a digital influencer and Gen AI technology was called out by the InnovAItor panel.
AI roadblocks and challenges
Manthena specialises in helping companies integrate AI tools into their workflows and she said there are two common challenges in adopting AI tools.
The first is a lack of resources, particularly in smaller businesses, and the second is finding the best AI tools to use.
“There are so many tech, tools and automation solution stuff out there as well,” she said. “So I think there’s a lot of a lot of noise and so that’s really challenging to kind of understand, well, what solution or technology is really going to help your business sort of move the dial.
“I do think at some point there is going to be a bit of a consolidation, I suppose, in terms of sort of, you know, the major AI and tech tools.”
Manthena said that marketers that are considering introducing new AI tools should make a business case about how the toll will create value for the business before diving in and have a razor sharp focus on one or two AI tools rather than trying to adopt too many at the same time.
It’s a point that Optus’ Cam Luby agrees with, adding: “Where we run into challenges or roadblocks is when we haven’t given ourselves the time to talk in advance to discuss why we’re using AI, what we’re trying to achieve, what our principles and values are.”
He also recommends having a policy about parts of the business where you shouldn’t use AI.
For Guerrera, AI literacy is important and should stem from the top down. “The other major roadblock is just the fact that there is still a massive legal kind of grey area between platforms. For example, when we are dealing with imagery and we have to transfer those images and use them with other platforms then there are legal implications in the transfer between platforms,” he said.
Watch the full video below to find out which AI Gen ads the panel rate and the AI tools that they use as well as demonstrations from M&C Saatchi Group (from 1:25:52) on how it created the blue monster and Aussie AI startup Springboards (from 1:41:30).
