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“WPP is going to unquestionably become an AI company,” said Jensen Huang, co-founder, president and CEO of tech company Nvidia.
Mark Read, who heads up WPP, the world’s largest marketing services company, agreed wholeheartedly. “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Read told Adweek after the pair took the stage at Cannes Lions last week.
Nvidia, which recently joined the rare club of trillion-dollar companies thanks to its advances in artificial intelligence, is working with WPP to build a generative AI-enabled content engine.
“What we’re seeing today is as revolutionary as the internet was in 2000. As revolutionary and as disruptive,” said Read.
“Just like in 1999, the communications and media industries were at the forefront of the change because we’re dealing with consumers, and consumers adopt this technology,” he added. “So, that is our ambition.”
The quality/quantity price discussion is something that is going to enable our stories to be told in better ways.
Mark Read, CEO, WPP
The pair spoke about the lightning speed of advancement in generative AI tools, many of which use Nvidia’s chip technology. “We’re trying to catch up,” Huang told Adweek. “We have a lot of chips to build.”
Personalization at scale
The partnership between Nvidia and WPP, announced in May, will see the companies develop content through the Nvidia Omniverse, which uses AI to enables creative teams to produce commercial content at scale in a “faster and more efficient” way, which is the primary goal of the tools.
Production will not only be more cost-efficient but environmentally sound, as large-scale shoots will not be necessary. Read noted that cutting spend on things like production will be realized “as a reinvestment in quality” elsewhere.
“It’s going to be a new skill,” said Read, who added that “prompt engineer” would become a new job in product engineering to help AI create the necessary content.
The engine will enable artists and designers to use 3D design, manufacturing and creative supply tools such as Getty Images and Adobe to combine and integrate content for brand campaigns and marketing assets.
“We’re building the factory. And there’s a whole bunch of building to do,” Huang said, adding that Nvidia will build the infrastructure, software, algorithms and methodology for using AI.
“How do you make an AI speak the language of a brand, speak at the tone of the brand, and speak with the integrity of the brand?” he asked. “We need practitioners like WPP to put it to work.”
A video case study is being used by both companies to showcase the potential of the partnership. It features work for Volvo with a real car placed into a virtual set that looks like a vast desert, but created with GenAI.
This could also meet clients’ almost unrelenting need for branded digital content.
“You’ll see imagery used in situations where it wasn’t before,” Read said. “When you buy a car, [the company] sends you a video of your car in an environment. That would have cost the client millions of dollars to make before,” he said. “The quality/quantity price discussion is something that is going to enable our stories to be told in better ways.”
Read also sees the technology helping media agencies optimize their media plans so “the right message (gets) to the right person at the right time, relevant and personalized.”
We’re already seeing it
WPP agencies Ogilvy and Wavemaker have worked with AI on creative campaigns including last year’s #NotJustACadburyAd campaign during Diwali, with thousands of personalized messages for shops across India. For Nestle, a campaign featuring a portrait by Johannes Vermeer called “The Milkmaid” used Dall-E to extend the image through its art direction tool to tell a broader story in the artist’s style.
Read also revealed that a brainstorming session saw creatives ask the technology to offer names for a new product before being given feedback such as “make it longer” or “make it funnier,” with the creative director understanding the necessary nuance before offering further instructions.
Huang said this is no different from how creative directors currently instruct their teams: “The language that comes out of their mouth—you can almost manifest their words into mental images, but that’s the beauty of creative artists.”
Brand benefits and AI concerns
Guidelines are being developed to ensure brand safety both internally and for clients, as well as for when GenAI tools are used. Read believes because AI is ubiquitous in our daily lives, “it’s impossible” to highlight every instance of its use.
Huang is skeptical about the use of watermarking technology. He believes other new tech would be developed to remove that watermark, making it a self-defeating exercise.
Huang explained that Read and his teams will have to adapt the AI and “fine tune” it for each client. This will mean an evolution for WPP, its agencies—ranging from Grey and VMLY&R to GroupM and Mindshare—and its more than 115,000 employees.
He said the agency will work with internal teams as well as brand clients on training.
“There’s a lot of work to do on our side, and we’ve got to really lean into this,” Read said. “But I think as we do, we can be the guide to clients on how to create their brands and how to build their brands just like we have in the past.”
