A few months ago there was a Coca-Cola advertisement that everyone was talking about. Coca-Cola has decided to create a “Masterpiece” advertisement by using Generative AI Stable Diffusion (Dean, 2023). The ad itself represents a student in a gallery hall drawing sketches, while a Coca-Cola bottle is being tossed around people who come alive from classical and modern paintings. The bottle changes its appearance according to the style of the painting that it is currently in. At the end of the ad the bottle reaches the boy, he drinks and feels inspired to continue his drawings (Dean, 2023). When watching the ad, the audience cannot distinguish between what is AI generated and what is added by humans because of their perfectly blended combination. However, the making video reveals that the characters from the paintings that come to life are real people but everything around them is generated by Stable Diffusion. The ad is named “a true work of art” (Rajput, 2023). Furthermore, Coca-Cola is creating a new limited edition Y3000 flavour “with a taste of the future” which design is fully generated by Stable Diffusion (Edwards, 2023). Therefore, it seems that Coca-Cola will continue using Stable Diffusion in different forms in their marketing in the future.
Stunned by this experience, I decided to try the tool myself and see how endangered is the marketing industry. I tried with generating different people and animals. Overall, the pictures look realistic, but there are some problems with them. Some defects that I have encountered in people are related to their eyes looking in different directions, their teeth being blurry when they smile, their fingers being more than 5 when they hold something and also not that detailed such as having no nails. The Coca-Cola bottle is also blurry and the label is not readable. When looking at the rat, it has 4 hands because the AI is confused and has added extra hands for it to hold the bike frame.
The experience with Stable Diffusion (the free online option) has left me with a good impression of its ease of use and fast generation of content. Although there are still some problems with perfect people and animals generation, the Coca-Cola advertisement is showing a new way of ad creation which can be impressive and easily captivates the attention of the targeted audience through the whole time of the ad (Gaiduk, 2023).
Do you think that Stable Diffusion can change the world of Marketing and how far are we from that to happen? In what ways? Maybe more personalized AI-generated ads based on each other’s preferences?
References:
Brinks, D. (2023). Coca-Cola’s masterpiece – MarketingFacts. Marketingfacts. https://www.marketingfacts.nl/berichten/coca-colas-masterpiece/
Dean, I. (2023). Finally, a good use of AI? Coca-Cola’s new ad is a branding masterpiece. Creative Bloq. https://www.creativebloq.com/news/coca-cola-ad-masterpiece
Edwards, B. (2023). Coca-Cola embraces controversial AI image generator with new “Y3000” flavor. Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/09/ai-hype-reaches-coca-cola-with-new-y3000-flavor-co-created-with-ai/
Gaiduk, D. (2023). AI creation, AI validation: A case study of Coca-Cola’s ‘Masterpiece.’ Medium. https://cooltool.medium.com/ai-creation-ai-validation-a-case-study-of-coca-colas-masterpiece-e50aaebd3933
Rajput, A. S. (2023). Coca-Cola’s latest commercial: A stunning fusion of 3D, Film, and AI – Social Nation. Social Nation – Find what’s happening in the digital content world. https://www.socialnationnow.com/coca-colas-latest-commercial-a-stunning-fusion-of-3d-film-and-ai
In my opinion this post is really interesting and also stimulates you in thinking about the consequences and revolutions that artificial intelligence can have and is having in the world of advertising. I appreciated the Coca Cola advertisement example and the input that the ads gave you in going to try the generative artificial intelligence platform. I have had a chance to try several AI generators and I see myself very much in what you say, although it is impressive the speed and the content they are able to generate many times is not of high quality or has flaws. Also, the example of the new coke flavour created entirely by AI is also very interesting, and it would be interesting to be able to analyse this topic in more depth. As for the questions, I would say that there is a high probability that these kinds of AI tools have great potential to revolutionize the marketing world, and I suppose it is strongly related to the cost-saving aspect, as I imagine that creating a commercial with AI is less expensive than actually doing it (hiring actors, renting locations, personnel, etc.).