| | What we're reading
Retail media takes over at Cannes
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has for a good decade been just as much about ad tech (see how back in the mid 2010s, there was tension as the big tech firms moved in on the turf of the creative brands).
However, it's still remarkable to see how dominant retail media has been this year across the beach houses and tents. A profusion of retail media networks, agency buyers, platforms and associated channels.
Retail media partnerships announced at the Festival included Instacart and YouTube, Instacart and Omnicom, CVS Media Exchange and The Trade Desk, Flywheel and TikTok Shop, and Omnicom and Amazon Ads.
Is retail media perhaps the 'new digital'?
In a post on X, Instacart CEO and Chair Fidji Simo wrote: “Big theme from Cannes this year: retail media becoming such a core part of any brand’s strategy that retail media teams are merging with (and sometimes taking over) other advertising teams. Reminds me of what happened with social/digital years ago.”
Related reading: How FMCGs are adapting to retail media: from reorgs to mindset shifts
(BTW, Econsultancy offers a learning plan in retail media)
AI is reshaping marketing (in case you missed it)
Elsewhere at Cannes, Coca-Cola global CMO Manolo Arroyo described how AI will completely reshape marketing, with 90% of Coke’s experiments in this area focused on driving topline growth and effectiveness.
“Such is the belief in this new technology that Arroyo explained upskilling on martech and next generation AI is his major learning objective for the year,” writes Marketing Week’s Charlotte Rogers.
Related: Check out Econsultancy’s short course in AI for Marketing.
New image generation tools from Amazon Ads
Last autumn, Amazon Ads beta launched a proprietary image generation tool powered by generative AI, in order to "help brands produce richer creative". Amazon has now published an update on how use of the tool is going, sharing that "advertisers have used Image generator to develop and test significantly more creatives for their campaigns".
Use cases for the tool include things like changing the background for a product image to make it seasonal - for example, adding a Christmassy background to a coffee mug - that save advertisers from reinventing the wheel with their creative each time.
According to Amazon, advertisers using Image Generator have increased their campaign submissions by more than 20%, and that these advertisers have experienced an increase in ad sales of close to 5% per advertiser. Not too bad. A new aspect ratio capability is also being rolled out to help with repurposing creative between different formats - showing that Amazon wants to cover the crucial basics as well as the bells and whistles.
Pressure on creative agencies to adopt AI?
Creative Review's Megan Williams has an insightful piece out about whether we should be concerned about "AI washing" (NB. paywall). This is the practice by a brand, agency or studio of potentially playing up the use of AI in order to seem forward-looking and on the bleeding edge.
While you might think that the opposite would be true, Williams points out that there is a "general sense of pressure to adopt AI or get left behind", which may lead creatives and organisations to play up their use of AI, or in some way misrepresent their usage, to show that they are moving with the times.
The piece also provokes thoughts about what it means to be "adopting AI" - as Williams writes, "vague references to technical AI processes could mean little more than generating content with ChatGPT or Midjourney, something any of us can do, while posturing as a more complex method like training and using a custom model".
Does a single employee within an organisation who uses ChatGPT represent 'using AI'? Where do we draw the line? This issue is not getting any less murky as AI features are increasingly integrated into everyday tools and software.
Medium is on the side of 'team human'
On the opposite side of things, Fast Company has a profile of Medium - remember them? - that shows how the company is rediscovering its identity in the present-day creator economy.
While some creative organisations may see their use of AI as a selling point, others may sell themselves on the lack thereof. One of the ways Medium has decided to set itself apart is by signalling that it's "on the side of team human" and not permitting monetisation of AI-generated content (although free AI-generated content is fine).
London cinema cancels screening of AI-generated film following backlash
At first glance, it’s tempting to get angry at this headline in The Standard. Even the most-ardent GenAI optimist might admit that a movie written by ChatGPT isn’t what the pictures is all about.
However, the story is slightly more nuanced. According to an Instagram post from the Prince Charles Cinema in Soho, the film in question was to be shown at a private hire event with the client describing the work as an ‘experiment in filmmaking’ by a filmmaker “hoping to engage in the discussion about AI and its negative impact on the arts.” The rather meta plot of the movie, titled The Last Screenwriter, involves a human screenwriter who discovers a more capable AI.
Despite this explanation, feelings run high around this topic and the cinema cancelled the event. |
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