Artificial Intelligence is the topic that keeps popping up everywhere we go, from conference stages to client conversations. Usually, the story is about what it can generate and the work it can take off your plate. But I’d like to argue that the reality of how this technology will impact marketing and creative work is a bit more nuanced.
We’re surrounded by examples of how replacing human creativity with AI undermines consumer trust. According to a survey from eMarketer, 91% of consumers expect brands to disclose AI in their marketing–and only 35% of US consumers trust AI-generated content.1
Instead, what if we used it to reshape the creative process behind the scenes to benefit the consumer as much as the brand?
That’s the question fueling DCG ONE’s internal AI practice, and our vision of the industry’s future. Today, I’m sharing a peek into how AI inspires our approach to collaboration and creativity.
The First Audience vs The Ultimate Audience
The power of any creative idea is its ability to connect with and influence people. Ultimately, the people we want to influence are your customers. But our first audience for any concept is you, our client.
One of the greatest challenges in the collaboration between brands and agencies is transmitting the fullness of a creative idea from our team to yours while that idea is still in its infancy. Many great ideas lose their way because they’re hard to imagine, and likewise, many ideas struggle to cross the finish line because expectations and reality don’t meet.
So how do we improve the concepting phase? It’s all about amplifying the impact of talented creatives with AI.
Embracing the Potential of AI Prototyping
Great work–-the kind that wins over customers–takes human context, judgment, and accuracy. We take a lot of pride in hiring people who bring all three to their role. So when we put AI tools in their capable hands, the most notable change is how fast concepts evolve into prototypes.
When the vast raw material in a model’s training data meets the curation and skill of an experienced creative, it results in a higher fidelity expression of the idea. Concepts become exponentially easier to relate in renderings, images, and other rough examples that would have been a tremendous amount of work to accomplish before generative AI hit the scene.
AI prototyping has been so successful for us that we’ve started sharing our capabilities through Bravica, a fictional brand that anonymizes work we’ve done for leading brands and tailors it to your industry. If you’d like to see what that looks like, we’d love to show you, just contact us.
A New Angle on a Long-Held Conviction
This new capability shakes hands with a very important belief we have at DCG ONE: Creativity isn’t magic. It’s not something that happens behind a curtain or surprises you with sleight of hand. It’s a practice that is grounded in open communication.
We believe that when creative ideas are strengthened through ongoing client collaboration, strong data, and iterative prototyping, they can adapt with you. That’s the thinking behind the term “adaptive ideas.”
We see two main areas of potential emerging from the adaptive ideas approach: first, you can select a concept from a more complete understanding of the idea. Second, you can include stakeholders earlier in the process. When both are true, you can bring the best ideas to market with fewer bumps along the way.
Creativity succeeds when it creates alignment–between agencies and clients, between marketers and stakeholders, and between brands and customers. We create that alignment by being clear about what we promise, then delivering on it consistently.
If you need a creative partner that knows how to collaborate through your toughest marketing challenges, contact us. We’d love to show you how we’re using technology and intelligence to make our partnerships stronger than ever.
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