AI tools threaten to upend the advertising industry, marketing and advertising news, ET brand equity

Data-driven algorithms have greatly inspired the advertising industry by enabling precisely targeted campaigns, but new AI tools may be poised to shake the advertising industry up again.

Some brands have even ventured into the realm of AI, like Coca-Cola, which uses “iconic creative assets from Coca-Cola’s digital archives” to create AI creations. Invite people to create.

Some companies are using it to create social media buzz. Fashion company Stradivarius recently released an AI image based on one of its collections.

But the power of the AI ​​revolution may be felt most strongly in the advertising industry’s engine room, the agencies that plan and design campaigns.

“We’re just getting started,” said Fernando Pascual, vice president of design at Spanish company Seedtag.

His company specializes in “contextual” advertising, which he claims allows digital advertising to blend into the website on which it appears.

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So while a car ad might show a car driving through a city of glass and steel on a business-oriented website, a family-oriented website might show the same car in a quiet suburban neighborhood. You may be seen passing through the gardens.

“The key elements of advertising are still grounded in reality,” he told AFP.

“We are just helping our clients become more relevant.”

Seedtag isn’t the only agency promoting AI technology.

But photographers and models are among those questioning their future livelihoods.

– “Flaming” – French lingerie company Undiz has recently found itself at the center of the debate.

Bright blue billboards depicting eerily beautiful models gliding underwater in the company’s bathing suits have popped up across France in recent weeks.

However, no real person appeared in these posters.

The model was created by the advertising agency using the image generator Midjourney, and the real-life image of the swimsuit was added later.

“We wanted to achieve an interesting result that was a bit dreamy,” Andy’s director Isolde Andouard told AFP.

Andouard admitted that the campaign had caused a “turmoil” among models and photographers.

Popular French content creator and photographer Thomas Sellar wrote on Twitter that although he is a fan of AI, in this case there is “no value in using AI” besides the cost savings for the company. rice field.

Andouard was quick to deny that the approach was simply to cut costs, saying the AI ​​campaign ran alongside traditional photography.

– “Not an event” – Reactions to the Undiz campaign suggest that the road to AI dominance is far from smooth.

And it’s not just the company that’s been criticized.

Jeans brand Levi’s touted a partnership with Dutch studio Lalaland.ia in March, promising to use AI models to increase the diversity of its online shop.

Following the outcry, the company released a new statement saying the announcement “did not adequately represent certain aspects of the program” and promised to continue working with models and photographers.

Many doubt that such pre-use will actually spread across the industry.

Olivier Bommel, an economist who specializes in intellectual property and advertising, said the arrival of AI-manipulated images was “not an event”, just a new kind of digital editing.

And as AI tools become more prevalent, image consumers who provide training data will eventually be able to charge “as much as they use the model,” he said. rice field.

And with AI giants Meta and Google coming into the space, it’s a headache.

In May, the companies announced a set of simplified AI tools that would allow anyone to design advertising campaigns using simple phrases as prompts.

It remains to be seen if this will give ad agencies a shiny new toy or completely ruin their business model.

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