From madmen to machines? Big advertisers are switching to artificial intelligence
LONDON (Reuters) - Some of the world's biggest advertisers, from food giant Nestlé to consumer goods multinational Unilever, are experimenting with using generative artificial intelligence software such as and DALL-E to cut costs and boost productivity, executives say.
But many companies are concerned about security and copyright risks, as well as the danger of unintended biases baked into the raw information that delivers software, meaning people will remain part of the process for the foreseeable future.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI), which can be used to produce content based on past data, has become a buzzword over the past year, capturing the public's imagination and sparking interest in many industries. Marketing teams hope this will lead to cheaper, faster and virtually unlimited ways to promote products.
Investments are already ramping up on expectations that artificial intelligence could forever change the way advertisers market products, executives at two leading consumer goods companies and the world's largest advertising agency told Reuters. The technology can be used to create seemingly original text, images, and even computer code based on training, instead of simply categorizing or identifying data like other artificial intelligence.
WPP, the world's largest advertising agency, is working with consumer goods companies including Nestlé and Oreo maker Mondelez to use generative artificial intelligence in advertising campaigns, its chief executive Mark Read said. "The savings can be 10- or 20-fold," Read said in an interview. "Rather than flying a film crew down to Africa to shoot the ad, we created it virtually."
In India, WPP worked with Mondelez on an AI-driven Cadbury campaign featuring Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, which produced ads that "featured" the actor asking passers-by to shop at 2,000 local stores during Diwali.
Small businesses used the microsite to create their own storefront versions of ads that could be posted on social media and other platforms. According to WPP, about 130,000 ads were created in 2,000 stores, garnering 94 million views on YouTube and Facebook.
WPP has "20 young people in their twenties who are AI apprentices" in London, Read said, and is working with Oxford University on courses on the future of marketing. The "AI for Business" diploma offers data and artificial intelligence training for WPP's leading clients, practitioners and executives, according to the WPP website. The team is led by artificial intelligence expert Daniel Hulme, who was appointed chief artificial intelligence officer at WPP two years ago.
It's a lot easier to think about all the jobs that will be cut than all the jobs that will be created,” Read said. Nestlé is also working on ways to use 4.0 and Dall-E 2 to help sell its products, Aude Gandon, its global marketing director and former Google executive, said in an emailed statement.
"The system responds to campaign briefings with great ideas and inspiration that are fully on brand and strategy," Gandon said. "The creative team develops these ideas further to eventually become content that will be produced for things like our website."
While lawmakers and philosophers alike are still debating whether content produced by generative AI models constitutes anything like human creativity, advertisers have already begun using the technology in their advertising campaigns.
In one case, a research team at the Dutch Rijksmuseum gallery went viral online on September 8, 2022, after using X-rays to reveal new objects hidden in Baroque artist Johannes Vermeer's oil painting "The Milkmaid."
Less than 24 hours later, WPP used the OpenAI DALL-E 2 generator system to "reveal" its own imaginary scenes beyond the image frame in a public YouTube ad for Nestle's La Laitière - or Milkmaid - yogurt and dairy bran
Through nearly 1,000 iterations, Nestlé's video version of The Milkmaid generated 700,000 euros ($766,010) of "media value" for the Swiss food giant. Media value is the cost of advertising required to generate the same public exposure. WPP said it costs nothing to create the content. A spokesman for the Rijksmuseum said it has an open data policy for non-copyrighted images, meaning anyone can use its images.
Nestlé is not alone in its experiments.
Unilever, which owns more than 400 brands including Dove soap and Ben & Jerry's ice cream, has its own generative artificial intelligence technology that can write product descriptions for retailer websites and digital commerce sites.
The company's TRESemmé haircare brand used its AI content generator for written content and its automation tool for visual content on Amazon.co.uk. But Unilever is concerned about copyright, intellectual property, privacy and data, Aaron Rajan, its global vice president of Go To Market Technology, told Reuters.
The company wants to prevent its technology from reproducing human biases, such as racial or gender stereotypes, that may be contained in the data it processes. "Making sure that these models, when you type in certain expressions, come back with a non-stereotypical view of the world is really important," he said.
Nestlé's Gandon told Reuters the company "keeps security and privacy top of mind."
Consumer companies are using data from retailers like Walmart, Carrefour and Kroger to power their AI tools, said Martin Sorrell, executive chairman of advertising group S4 Capital and founder of WPP. "You have two buckets of clients: one that jumps in and one that says 'let's experiment,'" he said.Some consumer goods firms remain wary of security risks or copyright infringement, industry officials say.
"If you want a rule of thumb: treat everything you say to an AI service as a really juicy piece of gossip. Would you want that to get out there?" said Ben King, vice president of customer trust at Okta, an online authentication service provider. "Would you want someone else to know the same about you?" he added. “If not, don't call it AI. From madmen to machines? Big advertisers are switching to artificial intelligence
Nestlé is not alone in its experiments.
Unilever, which owns more than 400 brands including Dove soap and Ben & Jerry's ice cream, has its own generative artificial intelligence technology that can write product descriptions for retailer websites and digital commerce sites.
The company's TRESemmé haircare brand used its AI content generator for written content and its automation tool for visual content on Amazon.co.uk. But Unilever is concerned about copyright, intellectual property, privacy and data, Aaron Rajan, its global vice president of Go To Market Technology, told Reuters.
The company wants to prevent its technology from reproducing human biases, such as racial or gender stereotypes, that may be contained in the data it processes. "Making sure that these models, when you input certain expressions, come back with a non-stereotypical view of the world is really important," he said.
Nestlé's told Reuters that the company "puts security and privacy first".
companies use data from retailers such as Walmart, Carrefour and Kroger to power their AI tools, said Martin Sorrell, executive chairman of advertising group S4 Capital and founder of WPP. "You have two groups of clients: one that jumps in and one that says 'let's experiment,'" he said. Some consumer goods firms remain wary of security risks or copyright infringement, industry officials say.
"If you want a rule of thumb: treat anything you say to an AI service as a really juicy piece of gossip. Do you want it to get there?" said Ben King, vice president of customer trust at Okta, a provider of online authentication services. "Would you like someone else to know about you?" he added. “If not, don't call it AI.
.jpg)
0 Comments