Sustainable advertising—using AI to reduce the carbon footprint

Such technology pulls data from a marketer’s various ad platform dashboards to evaluate the relative performance of the ads, ranking the best and worst-performing ad variables (images, videos, texts). Based on this analysis, the technology will create new ad units that should optimize ad performance according to the marketer’s KPIs. 

Marketers seeking sophisticated image creation and video ad campaigns can utilize technologies, including DALL·E 2, Mid Journey and Runway. Companies such as HourOne.ai and HeyGen specialize in the creation of presenter-led videos with virtual presenters in minutes. With video production a major contributor to increasing the carbon footprint of advertising campaigns, these technologies can significantly reduce a marketer’s carbon footprint while saving time, budget and other resources spent going on location for the shoot.

Recently, vegan food company NotCo used AI technology to show images of farm animals—including cows, pigs and chickens—at their natural life expectancy. By showing how these farm animals would look if they were allowed to age, NotCo is hoping to raise awareness for the company and a vegan diet.

Last year, Nestlé reframed Johannes Vermeer’s “The Milkmaid” painting, utilizing DALL-E2’s “outpainting” function to add new characters and details to the 360-year-old image in a campaign by Ogilvy Paris for the company’s La Laitière yogurt. Nestlé has long used milkmaid imagery to promote La Laitière, but the advancement in AI technology enabled re-envisioning the painting by including new, imagined background characters and settings.

Last summer, AQKA created an eight-minute video for Nike using AI technology to produce a match between 1999 Serena Williams, the year she won her first Grand Slam title, and 2017 Serena Williams, the year she won her record-breaking 23 Grand Slam title. The AQKA team used machine learning to model Serena’s playing style from 1999 and 2017 including decision-making, shot selection, reaction times, recovery and agility based on archived footage. The models were then re-rendered into the embedded video, playing and responding to each other’s shots.

Such implementations of AI technology serve as a reminder that these technologies can enhance creativity in advertising. While many creative and account people will lament going on fewer location shoots to exotic locales, AI technology will take ad creativity to places that the original Mad Men never dreamed of going. And if we can do it while making our industry more sustainable, then it’s a real win-win.