How can Generative-AI be used by marketing teams?

24 Jan

2023

Written by

Louise McNutt

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How can Generative-AI be used by marketing teams?
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Generative AI (Gen-AI) has risen to prominence recently, particularly in the light of several brands integrating it into their advertising and marketing campaigns. How to go about marketing with Generative AI?

When Heinz ran an advertising campaign with Canadian creative agency, Rethink, they employed the Gen-AI tool, DALL·E 2, to show that when asking an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool to create a ketchup bottle, it would automatically design a Heinz one. In fact, the Gen-AI platform had been trained on hundreds of bottles of Heinz ketchup in order for it to be able to associate that with a language prompt for “ketchup”.

The advert though was a success and Heinz became one of many brands to dabble with Gen-AI. Marketing with Generative AI has as such started to become more prominent, here we explore why.

Heinz ketchup bottle created with generative AI
Source: Heinz

The rise of marketing with Generative AI

Advances in machine learning have meant that AI systems have become capable of generating high-quality, believable content. Couple that with a growing desire by consumers for personalised content that responds to their unique ways of interacting with brands, and the use of Gen-AI has boomed. Fields such as art, entertainment and marketing have all begun to experiment with the technology, using it to build articles, videos, music and even artwork.

In a report by McKinsey & Company, the firm listed the different ways Gen-AI could be used by different industries and teams:

Marketing

    Writing marketing and sales copy: Gen-AI can be used to help inspire short articles, blog posts or social media content. User guides: for simple user guides, a certain amount of text can be pre-written by a Gen-AI that has been taught about a specific industrySales chatbots: for basic chatbots on websites, Gen-AI can prove to be a useful tool for consumers or clients looking for simple answers to their questionsImage creation for social media posts: generated images for social media campaigns that need minimal editingTemplate creation: the building of templates which can be used in different marketing activities Image ideas: being able to easily generate an image based on an idea is a way to brief creative teams for advertising campaigns or creative projects

IT/Engineering

    Writing code and documentation: the ability to accelerate certain processes by automatically generating codeGenerate synthetic data: a way to improve the accuracy of machine learning models

HR

    Ability to create interview questions: specifically adapted for specific posts, industries or cultures Create automated HR processes: with Gen-AI, certain processes can be automated including onboarding, certain Q&As or information relating to employment laws

Employee optimisation

    Optimising certain tasks: establishing automated email responses or translationsCreating business presentations: based on text promptsAutomated accounting: by being able to sort and extract information from documents

Brands investing in Gen-AI

From being able to write a blog article, to converting a PowerPoint presentation into a video with an avatar capable of talking in any language, Gen-AI has shaken up how content is produced and distributed by marketing teams.

How then are brands tapping into the potential of marketing with Generative AI?

Netflix

Netflix is one significant player than has invested in AI. From using certain AI algorithms, Netflix is able to understand each of its users and create a tailor made experience for them. Gen-AI is used to personalise the content feed for each user and generate individual thumbnails for them.

Nike

Nike is a company that continues to innovate in terms of marketing and customer experience. Launching the Nike By You platform, Nike was able to hand over control to their customers, allowing them to use AI to create their own shoe designs. This handy tool also has an added benefit, allowing Nike to collect useful data about its customers’ tastes, styles and preferences

Nestlé

In 2022, Nestlé remade Johannes Vermeer’s renowned painting “The Milkmaid”, transforming it into an advert for its yoghurt product La Laitière, which for many years has used a milkmaid as part of its advertising. The image itself was created by inputting more than 1,000 text prompts about precise product placement, teaching the DALL-E 2’s Gen-AI system how to create the final image.

Nestle AI version of The Milkmaid
Source: Nestlé

How can a DAM with an integrated Gen-AI help marketing teams?

With Gen-AI shaking up how content is being produced by marketing teams, it seems only logical to integrate this kind of technology into a Digital Asset Management platform.

Indeed, marketing teams have a lot to gain by marketing with Generative AI and integrating this technology into their DAM.

The DAM is a powerful tool for storing, managing and distributing content but when there is a lack of images or marketing teams seek inspiration, Gen-AI can prove to be an effective and time saving tool.

Take for example one of Wedia’s clients, Renault Trucks. Within Renault’s DAM there are images of the T High lorry, which are referenced in order to be recognised by Wedia’s Gen-AI tool, Wedia.ai. Thanks to this ability to recognise the lorry, the marketing team at Renault can insert the T High into a number of imagined assets. This means that the marketing team can generate a variety of scenarios, like placing the T High in the centre of Tokyo or within a forest. Creating such imagined scenarios are a way of speeding up the process of briefing the creative team, creating moodboards and reducing the costs of having to mock up such images.

Renault Trucks on wedia.ai
Source: wedia.ai

Working with a Wedia DAM means being able to understand the specificities of our clients’ products and translating this into a real benefit to the marketing team. With a DAM like Wedia’s that has integrated Gen-AI marketing teams are able to scale content personalisation in new and innovative ways. Through the ability to automatically generate content, the content creation process can be sped up, freeing up time for the team to work on other aspects of the project. Once this content has been created within the DAM, the ability to automatically distribute it across various channels is available at the click of a button. Generating, creating, distributing and tracking a brand’s content is therefore possible all from within the DAM and Wedia’s Gen-AI solution is proof of Wedia’s ongoing commitment to innovation and enhanced content personalisation.

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