GenAI in advertising, done right!

The clear buzzword of 2024 was AI. And going by the way things are moving, AI may be dominating 2025 too. Besides all the use-cases of AI, one specific use-case that was also very visible was using Generative AI in advertising.

We have seen a few ads that were made using GenAI.

The most famous one, because of the brand behind it, was Coca-Cola’s Christmas ad that was made, for the first time in the ad’s long history (a series titled, ‘Holidays Are Coming’), entirely using GenAI.

There were a couple of versions of this ad (the agencies involved included Secret Level, Los Angeles, Pereira O’Dell that worked with Silverside AI, an AI tech lab based in San Francisco, and Wild Card, Kuala Lumpur). Here’s one of them:

Here’s also the 1995 ‘Holidays are coming’ ad by Coca-Cola made by the agency W.B.Doner, for context:

Vodafone released another GenAI-made ad through the agency New Commercial Arts shortly after the Coca-Cola ad, in early Decenber 2024.

Earlier in 2024, a few other AI-generated ads made news (for assorted/wrong reasons). A few examples:

Toys R Us (agency: Native Foreign)

Motorola

Still GIN (agency: Rosewood Creative)

Closer home, ad agency Rediffusion made an entirely AI-based ad for Tata Power, for Christmas 2024.

In all these examples, barring the Still GIN ad, the use of AI seems rather forced. There is no idea in these ads, the AI is the idea in all of them. It’s almost like all of these were made as a trial run to explore the ways GenAI can be used in creating ads. Even the Still GIN ad’s idea is not new – movies have used the idea of trying to recreate a dead celebrity using special effects. This ad recreated dead celebrities using AI, that’s about it.

But if I were to showcase a splendid example where the idea comes first and then GenAI is used to help execute that idea, there is one such example.

Unfortunately, it also happens to be a spec ad, meaning, it was created by the agency (using the name and product of a famous brand) but merely as an experiment without it being officially commissioned by the brand.

But even then, given how well the agency thought of a solid idea before using GenAI, it is worth observing this ad closely as a template for advertising that is idea-first and AI-second.

The agency in question is Tool, an US-headquartered agency with branches in Belgium and France. The work they produced recently using GenAI was for Land Rover Defender, though they call it ‘experimental’, which in simple terms is ‘unofficial’.

Here’s the ad!

Clearly, the central idea of the ad is, ‘Who says cars can’t dream?’.

Given that idea, the agency then worked backwards – how to incorporate GenAI, and where to incorporate GenAI, so that we can bring the idea to life.

The script is in perfect sync with the idea. There’s a Land Rover Defender leading a dreary city-based existence. One day, like any other day, its owner comes back from office and parks it. That night, the car dreams of being in exotic locations befitting its all-terrain nature. The ad ends in a delightful stroke of magical realism which makes it all the more endearing!

Tool explains that it was a single day shoot! Had they used conventional techniques, it could have taken several days and several different terrains to achieve a similar output.

The single day’s shoot involved the human (car owner), the actual Land Rover Defender and the garage it is sitting on. The dream sequences include an AI-generated photo-real Land Rover Defender and this is placed in several AI-generated vistas/environments where the car wants to travel, true to its nature!

To shoot all these out-there environments, and in those climatic conditions, it would have needed far more days and more effort, but AI reduced the effort considerably. Tool says that AI generated content made up about 50% of the visuals in the final 45-second ad.

This experimental ad infuses AI only where needed, after thinking through advertising’s first rule – idea first. In fact, unless you are told that this ad uses AI, you wouldn’t even guess it on your own. That’s how AI should be, in advertising. Like great special effects or cinematography in movies that do not call for attention to itself but serves the larger purpose of conveying a great story convincingly.


Now that you have seen this Land Rover Defender ad, does the ad remind you of some other ad?

The older ones—from the Doordarshan days—among you may do 🙂

The original Tata Sierra ad made by the agency Lintas: “It takes the rough with the smooth”!

No, the idea is not similar at all. The car doesn’t dream in the Tata Sierra ad. But the narratives are identical, even though they lead to a different idea/thought. The common point is a clean car becoming dirty, all on its own! In the Land Rover Defender ad, it dreams and becomes dirty, while in the Tata Sierra ad, it gets dirty as a way to make itself ready for the owner’s next trip.

But just consider what the Tata Sierra ad could have done using GenAI – all the rough terrain shots could have been generated using AI, and just the house shots with the owner needed a real shoot!

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