Last week I attended the event the Commercial Break organised by the Marketing Association EUR. During this event, four speakers shared their knowledge regarding their own marketing campaigns. As a BIM student, one speaker appealed to me the most and I want to share his story with you.
Daan de Raaf, Executive Strategy Director of J. Walter Thompson, a renowned advertising agency, told us about a campaign they developed for ING. With this campaign, they won several awards at the Cannes Lions Festival 2016.
They worked together with different professionals throughout the field for 18 months on what they called; “The next Rembrandt. Using big data, they wanted to create the next painting that Rembrandt would have painted next. Microsoft, Delft University of Technology, the Mauritshuis and the Museum Het Rembrandthuis also collaborated with JWT on the initiative.
The first step of the process was analyzing all the paintings of Rembrandt. Each painting was scanned using 3D scans and digital files based on an in-depth learning algorithm to determine the painting style of the old master. Secondly, facial recognition software was designed to determine new facial features like the nose, mouth, eyes and ears. These features were based on the geometric proportions that Rembrandt used in his paintings. Next, a height map was designed to determine the thickness of the layers of paint that Rembrandt applied with his brush 347 years earlier Finally,the painting was brought to life using a 3D printer that printed 13 layers of paint based ink. A new Rembrandt, the portrait of a bearded, 17th-century man in a white collar and black hat was created “out of zero’s and ones“.
The opinions upon this campaign varied from “amazing and impressive” to “It still is a fake painting and Rembrandt would never have painted this”. Personally, I think this use of data is incredibly innovative and beautiful and I am curious to see where these types of innovations will take artwork in the future.
What do you think of the next Rembrandt?
https://www.jwt.com/en/amsterdam/work/thenextrembrandt/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmvTcY_HEtk
Very interesting advertising campaign that you brought up. Despite the claimed succes of the campaign, I actually had not heard about it yet. As impressive as the entire project is, the final painting seems very dull to me. Perhaps this is because the algorithm basically creates an ”average” Rembrandt painting, taking bits and pieces from all its work. Besides how the painting actually looks, it really shows the endless possibilities and potential in which data can be used. This really strikes me and makes me wonder what the future holds.