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In May, Conair Corporation’s e-commerce team conducted an A/B test of Amazon’s Creative Agent, a new AI tool that generates end-to-end advertising campaigns. As a result, a 15-second video promoting subsidiary Cuisinart’s food processors increased e-commerce shopper engagement, resulting in 18% more detail page views and a 14% lower cost per detail page view compared to videos produced by traditional brands, said Justin Swenson, senior vice president of e-commerce at Conair.
Human labor was still required to complete the test videos to Cuisinart brand standards, Swenson said. However, the AI tool still produced the video in about four weeks. This is significantly faster than the 3-6 months it typically takes to complete a video like this without AI tools, a potentially significant benefit as video engagement increases.
“We’re moving faster than some of our peers on this,” Swenson said. “I think this test probably puts us in a better position in this category.”
Why scale up?
Conair is one of a growing number of companies using AI tools to create digital advertising videos. While this trend reduces production time, it also comes with criticism, backlash, and even ridicule from companies like Blue Diamond’s Almond Breeze.
Swenson said Cuisinart’s test was conducted with an agency called Global Overview over a 30-day period in April and May to reduce the backlog of ad videos the company was trying to produce.
The results showed that “there’s definitely something pretty compelling here,” Swenson said. “Now it’s our responsibility to figure out how to scale this.”
The ad itself is fairly simple. “Last minute dinner party?” the ad’s voiceover asks, as the video shows a smiling AI-generated family working together in the kitchen, chopping carrots to feed the appliances.
The 14-cup food processor is described in a voiceover as being able to “process everything from pesto to puff pastry,” and viewers can watch ingredients blend within the device while upbeat music plays in the background.
The words “Easy, Peasy, Lemon, Squeezy” appear on the screen, followed by a screen showing a food processor, informing viewers that the product is made by Cuisinart and can be purchased on Amazon.
Testing AI tools for your brand’s needs
Swenson said Conair’s e-commerce team decided to test the AI tool after seeing it on display at Amazon Ad’s unBoxed conference in Nashville, Tennessee, last November.
Swenson said the team wanted to “bring our brand and products to life on Amazon” in a way that a private label wouldn’t necessarily be able to do on its own.
Swenson said the company also faced bottlenecks when producing advanced digital production assets, as queued videos can take months to complete.
Conair chose the Cuisinart food processor to test because it is a core product and lacked video to demonstrate its functionality and communicate its key benefits to consumers, he said.
During testing, Conair’s e-commerce team provided a detailed creative overview to Global Overview, an early adopter of Creative Agent. The agency used the brief to create multiple prompts for Amazon’s AI creative agent, which handled video asset development throughout the test.
In the end, Swenson said, the creative agency produced 80 percent of the food processor video concepts much faster than the marketers could have completed them themselves. The remaining 20% of the work was completed through a global overview that manually modified the AI-generated video. Fixed areas that weren’t executed properly, such as adding a logo and adjusting colors to meet brand guidelines.
Next steps to expand usage
Kelsey Smithsen, Conair’s director of Amazon advertising, said Conair has significantly increased its focus on video content overall in recent years, with more competitors entering the video space and the importance of AI tools to support production.
Amazon’s AI technology has created content that is not just faster, but more connected to e-commerce shoppers. The video emphasized the ease of use of the Cuisinart food processor and how it’s not just for chefs and real cooks, Smithen said.
Swenson said the effectiveness of the creative agency showing how Cuisinart products work likely contributed to the video’s performance.
Following the success of the test, Cuisinart plans to accelerate its use of Creative Agent AI technology, Swenson added. All you need to do is understand the workflow and priority details of how to use it.
Swenson said Cuisinart has worked closely with its teams to ensure the content they create maintains the brand’s tone, voice and visual DNA, and there was no pushback from the company’s internal marketing organization during testing.
And given the current state of technology, Smithsen points out that for now, humans still need to guide video creation, as brand logos, numbers and letters can change.
