Artificial intelligence is only as good as its prompts and its learning, which is why many creatives are wary of using it for campaigns. AI is also bad at representing inclusion and diversity in its images.
A new campaign from independent Black-owned Washington, D.C.-based agency Creative Theory Agency hopes to right those wrongs and get people more interested in involving AI to tell real stories of lived experiences.
“What Prompted You” is a campaign and call to action to showcase how first-person, organic human perspectives can enhance and uplevel creativity. By digging into lived experiences, each creative piece of the campaign conveys the unique elements of the subject’s experience, using sensory details where possible to enhance visualization prior to AI interpretation.
Tamon George, co-founder and CEO of Creative Theory Agency, said the agency, which works with tech giants like Google and Meta, was excited to use AI, but he didn’t see that same level of intentionality and thought that the agency brings to its work being brought to AI.
“As marketing advertisers, we quickly realized that if we were going to have a statement about this, and if we were going to share our voice in this particular moment, we needed to do it as advertisers in a way that resonated with the developers of some of these tools,” George told ADWEEK.
Going big with AI
The agency will put up large-scale out-of-home placements in Washington, D.C., showing real people telling their stories, with AI images setting a scene from their lives.
For instance, Dionna Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Creative Ladder, a nonprofit connecting and elevating talent for a more inclusive industry, set a scene: “Every Saturday, I poured a mountain of cereal and sunk into a sea of cartoons—all the stories and colors flashing across the screen, pure childhood bliss. I’m always chasing that feeling.”
The resulting OOH placement shows a picture of Dorsey alongside her quote, with an AI image recreating her lived experience.
