It’s a “groundbreaking new collaboration” according to WPP PLC (LSE:WPP), but news that the advertising giant has employed Google’s Gemini large-language artificial intelligence model to produce advertisements for its blue-chip clients is sure to divide opinion.
Announcing the collaboration at today’s Google Cloud Next ‘24 event in Las Vegas, WPP said Gemini 1.5 Pro will be integrated into its AI-powered WPP Open marketing system.
WPP’s client portfolio, which includes some of the world’s largest corporations including Coca-Cola, L’Oréal and Nestlé, will be able to create “brand and product-specific content using gen AI, to gain deeper insights into their target audiences, to accurately predict and explain content effectiveness, and to optimise campaigns with ongoing adaptive processes”.
Integrating Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro technology will allow teams to generate headlines, turn sketches into images and create AI-generated video, including voice narration.
The latter will be handled by WPP partner ElevenLabs.
Gemini 1.5 Pro uses Nvidia’s Universal Scene Description technology to create what WPP calls “hyper-realistic product representation”.
“The result is a detailed 3D and brand-compliant product image that's perfect for marketing and advertising.”
While avoiding the topic of workforce obsolescence, WPP said the integration “has the potential to free up millions of dollars for brands to re-invest in only the best-performing campaigns”.
"This collaboration marks a pivotal moment in marketing innovation,” said Stephan Pretorius, chief technology officer at WPP. "Our integration of Gemini 1.5 Pro into WPP Open has significantly accelerated our gen AI innovation and enables us to do things we could only dream of a few months ago.
“With Gemini models, we're not only able to enhance traditional marketing tasks but also to integrate the end-to-end marketing process for continuous, adaptive optimisation. I believe this will be a game-changer for our clients and the marketing industry at large.”
Thomas Kurian, chief executive of Google Cloud, added: “AI has the potential to unlock new levels of effectiveness for marketers, whether it is optimising campaigns, automating repetitive tasks like brand descriptions, or sparking entirely new ideas.
“This partnership brings the power of Google Cloud’s gen AI capabilities together with WPP’s marketing domain expertise to help our mutual customers create better campaigns that resonate with consumers in a deeper way.”
WPP shares added 1.3% on Wednesday.