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How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Advertising Industry

Advertising Industry

Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and perhaps some of the other major names too, are now pushing for artificial intelligence (AI) as one of the mainstays of the technology world for the future. Now it seems, AI is changing the service landscape for the advertising industry, by allowing the customers of the industry, to avail many more immersive, more engaging, and more pragmatic buying of services for even the customers, which works cohesively for the benefit of the business.

Even other innovations like smarter information search is becoming a reality with AI. To break down what AI really does, one needs to pay attention to Dave Meeker, the Vice-President of Isobar’s U.S operations, who explained that, you can have a one-on-one conversation with another person, but AI can talk to 500 people at the same time and make decisions based on real-time data to learn what’s going on in each conversation.

Cognitive computing in campaigns

As per details with Digiday, MEC from Group M, and IBM worked together on a campaign based on cognitive computing, for the client Campbell’s Soup. In this activity, they created personalized recipes for the target audience, to be displayed as per their personal preference of ingredients and the weather they witness in their local environment.

Another agency, CP+B helped Facebook create a ordering bot for the Facebook Messenger. Using this tool, users could order pizza and even track their orders, a feature which was also replicated on the Amazon Alexa. As per Jow Corr, Executive Director of Technology at the agency mentioned, “The most applicable things in AI right now are chatbot and natural-language processing. Utility chatbot is an easy first step. We are looking to experiment with chatbot that can reflect a brand’s voice and offer entertaining experience.” To put in other words, advertising is moving on from being just information distribution to becoming a 2-way communication platform between the company and the end consumer.

Making best use of capabilities

Earlier the older school of advertising depended on what kind of visuals and aesthetics would comprise of a relatively effective, advertising campaign and AI in marketing. Now it is about customer experiences and the characters involved. In fact, ads are now being written more like movie or short video scripts, rather than the traditional copy for the industry. Creative character development is now focusing on aspects like diction, syntax, vocabulary, that reflect a particular brand, and is capable of interacting with numerous customers with a similar style giving individualized responses. Obviously, this is possible with artificial intelligence capabilities. 

Mike Nicholas of MDC Media Partners, which debuted a new agency called Born on Wednesday, feels that the AI capable enterprises and advertising are indeed a winning combination, as they have perfect potential of being productive for the customers. In fact, Born on Wednesday stands out as being a bridge between them, and connect them whereby advertisers can get well-versed with AI capabilities, and the smaller AI expert firms, can find a commercial application of their capability. To crunch numbers, the world AI market is supposed to cross $5.1 billion in value by 2020, which is a 54 percent rise from 2015. Markets and Markets conclude that a majority of this market will comprise of advertisers who could use AI services.

The way forward

Team One is another unique agency, which works on  lab model to develop AI, and apply to the real industry. What started with 2 people, grew into a 6-member team, and worked with companies like Google and IBM Watson, and bought out the utility of AI at major industrial conferences. Managing Director Joe DeMiero says, that this model actually helps them, because the agency gets to build on prototypes in-house, then look at partners who can contribute to specific areas, and ultimately benefit the customers whom they wish to get on board. As per latest developments, DeMiero said, “Our VR lab started by two people in the closet, and now it’s a 500-person team,” which clearly shows facets of AI are indeed up for the taking.

However, not every agency can be expected to create an in-house team or create a separate entity for AI capabilities. They believe, like GroupM, that AI is something that everyone needs to understand, and use it as a part of their work or final product. Cary Tilds, the Chief Innovation Officer clarified by explaining, “We fundamentally believe the tactics that AI brings to the table are already integrated into the work we do. All of our teams must understand AI. We don’t need to form a separate group to show that we are invested in it.”

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