This month we launched the 'Just Booked Feeling' Peaks campaign for Advantage Travel Partnership, featuring a series of AI-generated imagery. A first of its kind for the travel sector, this is also the first time we've led with an AI solution for a campaign.
So why AI?
The use of AI for the campaign is about much more than just jumping on a bandwagon; it’s about embracing new opportunities and exploring the possibility of what we can offer our clients, striving to be at the forefront of technology and harness it to add value wherever we can. It’s also an amazing tool for executing an abstract idea! And that’s exactly what we had for the new year campaign with Advantage – a visually impactful set of imagery that would depict people in mundane, day-to-day scenarios, but in a holiday mindset. This visual juxtaposition had an element of surrealism to it and felt like the perfect opportunity to embrace the power of AI to produce the desired effect. It also meant that we didn’t have the logistical headache of staging multiple locations and had total control over the final outcome, allowing ourselves and the client to take considered decisions around the look and style of the subject matter. It also allowed us to capture the sentiment of the campaign message without having to rely on stock imagery.
The ‘Just Booked Feeling’
We all know that feeling of wanting to escape the winter chill and swapping the dark mornings for warm, sunny days. A feeling that’s often at it’s strongest at the turn of the year, when the excitement of Christmas feels like a distant memory and people are looking for something to look forward to. Booking a holiday is the perfect antidote and we wanted to harness the feeling that comes with securing that ideal getaway, visualising the holiday mindset that helps to get us through the most mundane of days. The ‘Just Booked Feeling’ is the sense of excitement and anticipation that often makes us oblivious to our surroundings, safe in the knowledge that we’ll soon be relaxing on a sunny beach or exploring new cultures in exotic locations.
The campaign
Advantage members have been provided with a range of campaign assets, to help them connect with their customers, drive bookings, and achieve long-term growth. Among these assets are branded social posts, POS and the latest edition of the Journeys publication, which features one of the AI images on the cover. To date the campaign has been well received by members and the wider travel industry, being featured by Travel Gossip and Travel Bulletin among others.
Working with AI
The team have learned so much about the advantages and limitations of AI whilst creating the suite of imagery. Whilst it’s an incredible tool for realising ideas, it does come with practical challenges that demand flexibility. The complexity of the images that we’ve created have pushed the technology to the limit. When you consider that Coca-Cola would have put enormous resource into the AI recreation of their famous Xmas advert, and there are still inconsistencies that you can spot. Creating a series of images that capture the sentiment and humour of the campaign, whilst being believable and inclusive, is a difficult balance to achieve. You have to be culturally aware and ensure that you’re producing characters that accurately reflect a commitment to inclusivity. Building diversity into the creation of the characters required constant evaluation of the output against cultural considerations and sensitivities.
The current limitations of the technology mean that you have to make compromises in real-time. Progress on output requires patience as only so many prompts can be modified at any one time, meaning that progress towards the intended output can be more steady than immediate. Of course the technology is still very much in its infancy and is developing all the time. One thing is for sure, using a new medium ultimately sparks new ideas and possibilities, as well as teaching you lessons along the way.
We’re delighted with the final outcomes and it’s always rewarding to see how well received the campaign has been. Working with a client like Advantage, that wants to push boundaries and innovate with their marketing, makes this kind of campaign really exciting to work on. We‘ll be sharing more on this project in the weeks to come but it’s been a great learning curve and has opened the door to some really exciting opportunities for us as an agency.
We’re the first consortium to do anything like this. I think we have definitely broken new ground. It has enabled us to have very targeted images that link to the campaign. We are pushing the envelope.” — David Forder, Head of Marketing, Advantage Travel Partnership
If you’re looking to harness the power of AI for your brand and marketing then get in touch
