Every day at Inviso there’s a campaign to ship, a deadline to hit, or something more urgent than writing up what we’ve been building behind the scenes with AI. This month, we made the time!
We’ve got a genuinely useful AI tool of our own to share, plus a few AI campaigns that caught our attention. AI is everywhere in marketing right now, but our own research this month backs up something we already believed. If a campaign is good, and people love it, it doesn’t really matter how it was made.
– Jeanne Kirby, CMO
Behind the Build
CJ Hutchings, Senior Art Director at Inviso, recently tackled a familiar social media challenge: keeping content moving without getting stalled in production.
How AI Can Keep Short-Form Content Moving
“In an effort to streamline some of our short-form social content, I built a video generation tool around a self-aware AI influencer who isn’t afraid to state that they’re AI. Behind the scenes, I locked in the cinematography, setting, wardrobe, voice, age, and personality for four distinct versions of the same influencer, each tailored to a different demographic: Gen Z, Millennial, Gen X, and Boomer.
The workflow is simple by design. Choose a persona, add a script and a brief description of the action, then hit submit. The tool automatically pulls from the appropriate references and delivers a video that feels consistent, on-brand, true to the persona, and ready to publish.”
Here’s an example of the tool in action, with all four personas stitched together into one short: https://youtube.com/shorts/Zh3rPUmoZH8?feature=share
CJ is already thinking about what comes next. The goal is to build a more comprehensive tool that allows users to upload their own brand and creative references, then generate consistent, longer-form videos using just a few simple inputs while our backend handles the heavy lifting. Stay tuned for updates!
This study made us rethink our views on AI disclosure
Marketers have spent the past year wondering whether disclosing AI-generated ads might hurt campaign performance.
A new study from MediaScience and Adelaide University’s Ehrenberg-Bass Institute suggests otherwise. Researchers tested four disclosure methods against unlabeled ads, measuring brand recall, brand attitude, and ad likability. The differences were minimal, with several disclosure formats performing just as well as the ones with no disclosure.
Participants preferred an AI disclosure icon, but it was also the easiest format to miss. Text disclosures were more noticeable, making them the more transparent option without significantly affecting ad performance.
Bottom line: people don’t mind knowing AI was involved. They mind feeling like they were tricked.
The takeaway
New York’s AI disclosure law is now live, and the EU is close behind. The good news is that AI disclosure isn’t the threat marketers thought it was. A great ad will perform well whether it’s labeled or not. We’re adopting the same approach at Inviso, labeling any AI-assisted work we produce for full transparency.
Storytelling at its best: Keeping beauty real
Twenty years ago, Dove took a stand against unrealistic beauty standards. Now, with experts predicting that 90% of media will be AI-generated by 2026, their mission remains clear. Keep beauty real.
When generative AI is asked to create “the most beautiful woman in the world,” it often draws from narrow, heavily Eurocentric, and digitally distorted ideals rather than reflecting real women. With one in three women feeling pressured to alter their appearance because of unrealistic images online, AI introduces a new threat to authentic representation.
Dove’s commercial, The Code, explores how generative AI can reinforce and amplify these unrealistic ideals. In response, Dove has pledged never to use AI to create or alter images of women in its advertising and communications.
July’s word: Frontier
Over the past few years, we’ve been developing, testing, and shipping AI-powered tools, workflows, and videos, both internally and for clients. We use AI to move faster through the parts of the job that don’t need a human in the room, leaving more time and energy for the parts that do.
Microsoft has a term for what we’ve been building toward: the Frontier Firm. It’s an organization powered by hybrid teams of humans and AI agents, using on-demand intelligence to operate with greater speed and agility. Microsoft found that Frontier Firm leaders are far more likely to use AI for marketing, customer success, and internal communications.
For us, “frontier” isn’t just another buzzword. It means knowing where AI genuinely improves the work and how to use it thoughtfully for both our teams and our clients.
Marketing in the wild: Actual intelligence
AI campaigns are everywhere. The Economist decided to advertise the alternative. Its latest outdoor campaign pairs the publication’s signature red background with sharp, confident lines like “Think outside the bot” and “Actual intelligence.”
Simple and confident, the message taps into something many brands are still navigating: AI can generate answers, but people bring judgment, perspective, and original thought.
In a conversation this noisy, sometimes the smartest way to stand out is to say less.
Got your own “marketing in the wild” find? We’d love to see it!
Send a pic to max@invisomarketing.com with your favorite bits of IRL ad genius.
Remember, AI is along for the ride, but you’re still driving! See you next month.
The Inviso Marketing Team