Industry experts are unanimous in their view that brands are increasingly recognizing the potential of AI as it offers more agile and cost-effective marketing solutions

Soon after Nvidia’s crowning as the world’s most valuable chipmaker, news broke out that WPP has teamed up with the company to create ads using generative AI. This was followed by Omnicom announcing that it was integrating Google's generative AI models into the agency's tools for providing generative image and text capabilities to brands. 

These moves come at a time when AI is making significant strides into the advertising and marketing world, with more ad agencies looking at ways to collaborate with brands and other companies to use their AI power.

An article by McKinsey said research has found 90% of commercial leaders expect to utilize gen AI solutions “often” over the next two years and players who have invested in AI are seeing a revenue uplift of 3 to 15 per cent, and a sales ROI uplift of 10 to 20 per cent.

With companies wanting to deploy more AI powered marketing, marketing solution providers are stepping up their game.

As per Mitchelle Rozario Jansen, VP Business, Dentsu Creative, “From poetry to paisa, agencies are deploying AI to think up ideas, plan strategies, write beautiful prose or even run their client's media promotions effectively. AI helps ad agencies foster agility in the workplace. Before you say, why do we need humans then? Agility, not in a way where AI replaces humans, but where it brings in more efficiency to the work that needs to be done, thereby allowing agencies to service their clients better & faster.”

With multiple use cases right from personalization to showcasing creativity, agencies are making sure they are coming up as AI positive companies. There are many examples of AI being used for growth amidst brands like Myntra which is leveraging Google’s AI powered ad solutions to allow the brand to pivot to a revenue-focused marketing strategy and ketchup company Heinz using AI for its campaign when they decided to launch what they described as “the first-ever ad campaign with visuals generated entirely by artificial intelligence.” Amazon India also, in their recent campaign videos originally shot in Hindi, used NeuralGarage’s  AI and deeptech powered technology 'VisualDub' to tackle lip sync issues and give personalized content to Indian customers speaking different languages.

Siddharth Dabhade, Managing Director at MiQ India, China & SAARC says, “While programmatic advertising enables agencies to drive performance marketing campaigns for brands, AI will have a transformative impact on the creative process. A case in point is the skill of writing good ad copy, which can influence how we feel about brands and persuade us to buy their product or service. Using AI content creation tools, a media agency can now produce ad copies and creatives faster, saving time for ideation and innovation.”

“We recently helped a global consumer electronics brand develop a chatbot to personalize communication and engage consumers in their purchase journeys in India, which is another domain which brands can tap into AI for improving customer experience and brand communications across channels. The use of NLP and NLG techniques helps in drafting personalized ad copy, social media posts, and blog articles based on consumer preferences and historical data. Digital-first agencies also take advantage of AI for media buying and optimization like bid management, ad placement selection, budget allocation etc. When we use AI to connect various data sets to real-time information like social sentiments, trends, and consumer preferences, it makes digital campaigns more engaging and data-driven,” Dabhade added.

Shradha Agarwal, Co-founder & CEO, Grapes, lists four ways in which agencies are making strides in collaborating with brands for providing AI solutions. “In the continuously evolving landscape of advertising & marketing, agencies are increasingly embracing the potential of Artificial Intelligence to enhance their solutions. There are four primary ways that I can pinpoint. Most prominent being ‘content’. There are several AI tools now which allow us to produce some stunning content pieces, in terms of long-form written content, images, videos and more. This has enabled agencies to reduce manpower while producing a wide range of engaging and impactful materials for their clients.

Another avenue that the agencies are employing AI is through ‘creative’. One such example of an execution riding on the AI buzz was when McDonalds and Burger King, in their typical banter style, asked ChatGPT about their burgers and rivalled the answers with each other’s, to make for an interesting campaign at a time when ChatGPT was at the height of conversation. AI technology has been transformative in apt ‘analysis and reporting’ while drastically reducing time and manual efforts that go into it. The fourth way is ‘data and statistics’, but current AI tools are in a nascent stage to be able to extract any kind of reliable and actionable information.”

When it comes to how collaborating for AI features helps marketing agencies, CEO of NeuralGarage, Mandar Natekar says, “It helps marketing companies become more agile because they can go to market faster using technology and not wait for prolonged shoots, dates and extensive schedules. The second part is it also helps them to obviously cut costs by employing technology in their solutions. Plus, more importantly, it also helps them to give more options, rather than the same old linear narrative. So obviously, when you use generative AI, as a technology, there are many ways in which you can engage with your consumers in a faster, swifter and in a cost-effective way.”

Speaking about the benefits to agencies and talking on similar lines, Dabhade opines that brands are increasingly recognizing the potential of AI. “By collaborating with brands on AI initiatives, agencies can position themselves as innovative and forward-thinking partners for brands. This can help agencies attract new clients, strengthen existing partnerships, and differentiate themselves in a competitive market.

Brands and agencies can witness multiple benefits from AI, such as improving talent productivity and consumer engagement, reducing the time and cost to execute campaigns. In digital advertising, AI algorithms are used for precision targeting by analyzing large volumes of consumer data more efficiently. Agencies gain access to first-party data, customer insights, and purchase behavior data with various AI generative tools. It results in improved ROI and higher conversion rates.”

Jansen describes the benefits on a lighter note and exclaims, “When collaborating with brands for AI, there are quite a few benefits for both the agency and the brand. Firstly, it saves a lot of time when it comes to creating content at scale. When it comes to AB testing for ad content effectiveness, the permutations are endless. On a lighter note, even when it comes to the simple client requests of "How do I visualize this?" Well, you don't have to, the AI will do it for you!”