The most beautiful friendships, like the greatest love stories, leave us speechless. This is what happens to Dog, an anthropomorphic New York dog who meets Robot, his new robotic friend. Theirs becomes an inseparable friendship in 1980s Manhattan, but the happiness is broken when Robot rusts during a swim in the sea. The silent film, currently also showing in cinemas and already nominated for the 2024 Oscars as best animated film, tells of a world populated by animals, humans and humanoids. Will it happen to us too? Never before have our social narratives intercepted the new frontiers of artificial intelligence, especially generative intelligence, which creates multimedia stories that were unthinkable compared to the past.
Ia within everyone’s reach
One plus one equals much more than two when the production of user-generated content – known in marketing by the acronym Ugc, or User generated content – is constructed with the help of artificial intelligence. Here then is the boom of AIGC, or Artificial Intelligence Generated Content. These are photos, videos, posts that are optimized, improved, increased thanks to tools that include painting, writing, musical composition, video generation, speech synthesis and programming. Thus the technology offers enormous potential to create unique and personalized content on a large scale for companies and users, wrote Forbes in America. The numbers also tell us this: today consumers spend 5.4 hours a day on self-produced content, which 75% of marketers consider valuable because they make a brand more authentic when they are intercepted. But be careful. Already thirty years ago, the two English sociologists Nicholas Abercrombie and Brian Longhurst theorized the rise of performers: the spectacle would soon overflow its natural boundaries to invade all the interstitial spaces of daily life. The innovation, however, lies in the AI that takes the field to shape this content. «Artificial intelligence has already entered our lives more clearly than one might think, also and above all on the content production front. Alongside the most advanced tools, there are many others that already incorporate AI-driven functions. Many smartphones integrate functions to crop a part of the image, eliminate elements or correct imperfections. For early adopters and more advanced users, many generative AI tools are now normal for both the production of texts and images and videos, allowing them to give vent to their creativity beyond practical abilities. The future will increasingly go in this direction, where we might all be creators. The real difference will increasingly lie in the ability to create”, says Matteo Pogliani, founder of Onim, the national influencer marketing observatory. Thus artificial intelligence makes its way forcefully into the production of user-generated content.
According to Globalwebindex, 18.1% of users already use these tools at least once a week. But the prospect is of exponential growth. In recent days, Dove has launched a campaign on the value of authentic images, reporting that by 2025, 90% of this content will be generated by AI. «Generative tools linked to texts such as ChatGPT are seeing strong use, but those linked to images and videos are also making their way: tools such as Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, DALL-E are capable of turning the ideas of users who perhaps do not they would have the technical capabilities to create them”, says Pogliani.
The choice of brands
Meanwhile, companies are also timidly starting to experiment with the adoption of user-generated content thanks to AI. Also to design, for example, the car of the future: this is the meaning of the campaign promoted by Mercedes for the launch of the EQ line. The German giant has created a landing page where, by inserting simple descriptive textual inputs of an imaginary car, with AI it is possible to design an advanced and sustainable, almost tailor-made vehicle. Among the brands that have given users the opportunity to create content with artificial intelligence is Coca-Cola with AI Holiday Card Generator. A way to create Christmas greeting cards thanks to the creativity of users. «For a brand, this enhancement implies greater creative capacity, but above all the possibility of giving shape to ideas more quickly and often economically, significantly optimizing processes. The focus must necessarily shift even further from execution to ideation, remaining connected to the needs of the brand without simply chasing a trend. However, the potential is undeniable, especially today when the quality level of these instruments is very high. However, the brands that believe in it must make an important leap in terms of preparation because AI must also be guided correctly to give the right results”, specifies Pogliani.
Meanwhile, marketers’ perception of the adoption of these technological solutions in their strategies is also evolving. «If initially it was seen as an exotic novelty, today marketers are understanding the real potential of the medium and its practical implications. A change in perception that transformed AI from an exception to a daily support, contaminating almost all the teams’ activities”, concludes Pogliani. Thus the final frontier is impacting the dynamics of the relationship between brand and consumer, accelerated today by artificial intelligence. He led the way in the world of Stitch Fix, an American giant that offers an online personal styling service that integrates advice from other users thanks to proprietary algorithms. This way clothing items are customized based on size, budget and style. With record numbers: last year the company recorded a turnover of 1.638 billion dollars. After all, markets are conversations. The Cluetrain Manifesto already stated this 25 years ago, but now, in addition to that human touch, there is the hand of artificial intelligence.
#creators #arena #usergenerated #content
2024-04-19 02:48:34