Hundreds of Australians and several creative agencies have been busy creating AI ads for ExpressVPN following its new PR campaign ‘The Big Ad Contest’ in what has been described by its CMO as a “purely organic marketing” tactic.
Off the back of its FIFA World Cup partnership, the company launched the contest. To enter, consumers around the world must create a short AI-generated ad for the brand. In return, there’s the chance of a pair of tickets to the World Cup final next month.
The winning entry will also run during a Times Square Digital Takeover in partnership with Clear Channel Outdoor, in the week of the finals, running across seven LED OOH billboards in Times Square.
It has proven a hit, raking in some 12,000 submissions already. The competition is being judged by a panel including viral AI-driven content creator Nas Daily, Liran Friedman (VP of brand marketing at Artlist), Adva Navon (industry manager at Google), and Erez Strauss.
Why a FIFA World Cup sponsorship?
When deciding what sort of sponsorship Express VPN required, CMO Ori Shivat told B&T it all came down to the audiences.
“We found that with our FIFA sponsorship it can give us not just the right exposure as a brand, but also it’s the same target audience that are watching the games, that look for privacy products.”
He said recent research conducted internally, detailed just how exposed football fans really are in Australia.
“We looked at 6000 people from around the world, including 1000 from Australia.”
The research found that 66 per cent of Australians surveyed admitted when they share a password so someone else can watch sports, they use that same password on another account including email, online shopping or banking.
Shivat said that research “backs up the idea that football fans are feeling exposed online, and needing privacy products” – ultimately making them “a natural audience for Express VPN”.
‘Thinking outside the box’
Express VPN has been creating several of its own social media ads recently, completely generated with AI.
Shivat said the brand’s internal use of AI for creative processes started with the team “wanting to create really amazing ads and do some really cool stuff”.
“At Express VPN we have a very creative team, and they are always thinking outside the box with these very non-intuitive ideas that sometimes can be very hard for us to implement.”
“So we thought, ‘How can we implement these ideas?’ as the production would cost us millions of dollars, so we built this in-house squad that started producing really, really cool stuff with AI.”
They were able to take these random ideas and turn them into really awesome ads – so we started seeing these really interesting results, and were receiving lots of feedback.”
One of Express VPN’s most recent social media ads has already reached over 4 million views on YouTube alone.
Shivat said he’s been noticing “crazy stuff” from the contest submissions, too.
“People who have entered are really thinking outside of the box, so the quality of the ads is very impressive, and we’re seen a lot of very cool ideas.”
He said the entries have made him realise what creative teams can do with the use of AI.
“Personally, as a CMO and a marketer, I am doing things now that I couldn’t have ever dreamed of,” he said.
“We’ve always had budget constraints, and production restraints that are guard you, but being able to utilise AI means you can do a whole lot do more without those boundaries.”
Should brands be cautious about the use of AI in ads?
“Our audience is smart, and they know when it’s AI, and know when it’s not AI,” he said.
“As long as you’re producing something and not lying, and communicate your messaging in the right way, and don’t try to manipulate anybody, then users are willing to accept it.”
Shivat said while the AI revolution is moving “extremely fast” it means the naked AI can easily determine when something is AI.
The winning work will be revealed later this week, and announced by Express VPN.
