Creating content using AI
from a recognised professional in digital marketing and innovation.
Imagine a world where your marketing content is created at the speed of thought, where creativity knows no bounds, and where strategic decisions are always accurate and produce good results. The efficiency and autonomy of AI technologies in the creative industry is growing at an incredible rate. And today we are on the verge of a revolution in content creation. But what lies behind the scenes of this technological spectacle? What opportunities are already available? How not to get lost in this world? What to expect next and how to turn the potential of AI into a powerful tool in the hands of marketers?
All these questions were answered by a true visionary of the digital age who not only knows all the paths of the digital forest but also paves new routes himself, having a comprehensive assessment of AI content development. It was Vladimir Cherner, Strategy Officer, CEO, and owner of the digital creative agency New Strategies, the same agency that won a silver medal at the Megogo AI Film Festival in July 2024.
On Saturday, 14 September 2024, Vladimir visited our students as part of the Innovation in Marketing module of the 6th level diploma programme. The purpose of the visit was to bring a deep understanding of modern marketing trends in terms of creating content using AI to the discussion of the day and to share his extensive experience in the digital sphere with our audience.
And he has a lot to share, as our guest's professional career is striking in its versatility. Over 14 years of business activity, Vladimir has established himself as an authoritative expert in advertising and various digital projects. Interestingly, his expertise is not limited to practical activities, he also holds the position of Chairman of the IAB SMM Committee, and makes a significant contribution to the development of the industry, influencing the establishment of rules and defining SMM trends at the regional level. In addition, Vladimir Cherner is the author and lecturer of the SMM with AI course, which is very popular among SMM specialists, designers, marketers and business owners. Throughout his career, Vladimir Cherner has developed and implemented projects for a wide range of companies, including such well-known brands as Microsoft, Henkel, Danone, Nestle, Unilever, and many others. His ability to adapt marketing strategies to different industries and target audiences is also impressive, as his portfolio covers various business sectors, from FMCG to tech giants.
More information about Volodymyr can be found on our website.
The attractiveness of the digital sphere is that each new direction in digital technologies often opens up opportunities that can qualitatively change any business, and communication with an expert of this level always inspires expectations of something special, and this time was no exception.
Looking ahead, the meeting with Volodymyr Cherner significantly enriched our students' knowledge of current trends in marketing and provided them with valuable first-hand insights into how innovations are transforming the marketing and advertising industry. In this article, we want to share at least some of them with you. And for those who like details, there is a surprise at the end related to the activities of a digital expert - don't miss it and be sure to read to the end!
Thus, during Volodymyr's presentation, it was noted that the quality and coherence of the results generated by neural networks are steadily increasing. Significant progress can be seen within a few months. This statement was clearly confirmed by the timeline of the evolution of neural networks for content creation. Using the example of a number of projects, including those implemented by our expert's team using combinations of different AI technologies, Cherner showed how AI has evolved over the past two years, when key periods of neural networks updates took place, and what their capabilities are today. A lot of attention was drawn to AI videos created for Air India's and NEOM Global. It was noted that there is a noticeable decrease in the labour costs of professionals required to produce high-quality digital content.
The importance of the meeting gained new significance when it turned out that AI content in the CIS countries lags far behind global standards, and human IQ is surpassed by artificial intelligence as early as March 2024.
Small budgets and tight deadlines are no longer an obstacle!
The creation of photorealistic, highly detailed images, as well as the production of realistic videos, requires less and less time and resources. There are already cases when a video work that was considered labour-intensive and time-consuming recently is created within a day or even in a few hours. For example, a commercial for Mad Max beer was created in just one day.
The examples of successful video campaigns of well-known brands that Volodymyr showed to our audience illustrated the economic feasibility of using AI technologies in the production of marketing content.
According to the expert, a public service announcement video where all key elements (visuals, animation, and even voiceover) were created using neural networks managed to attract significant organic attention from the audience on an extremely limited budget of less than USD 500 and achieve the expected effect.
An innovative content strategy developed in record time for the Graff tea brand has resulted in incredibly popular content for social media. Animated videos with cute fantasy characters went viral and significantly increased brand awareness.
However, the best way to understand the numbers and highlight the potential of AI tools in cost optimisation was through a video creative created for the sunflower oil brand Shchedryi Dar. The 30-second promotional cartoon, which would have taken about 2 months to produce before, was ready in just 1.5 weeks. It was also made on a limited budget, and the only material provided for its development was radio sound. As a result, a brand hero was created that quickly won the sympathy of the audience, and its vivid image, as it turned out, had a much greater impact on sales growth than other more expensive advertising visualisations of the same brand (see figures below). The cartoon video on YouTube garnered 4 million organic views, another 1.7 million were generated through pre-rolls, and another 2 million were added by Tick Tok activations and viral videos from opinion leaders. The overall results were simply stunning! During the 2024 advertising campaign (before the year-end), the brand gained +3% market share growth and +11% sales growth compared to the previous period. And compared to the same period in 2023, sales growth was a whopping + 63%!
Isn't this the best incentive to inspire you to make the task of integrating AI content into your future campaigns a priority today?
Banner advertising is faster than drinking a cup of coffee!
Vladimir Cherner shared a secret that turned our students' perceptions of creating advertising materials upside down. Today, they can forget about long hours of work on banners and tedious approvals with designers! Now, with the help of a tool like BannerBoo, they can create stunning banners in a very short time.
Why aren't you the Spielberg of the advertising world yet?
Agree, only a real film can be cooler than a cartoon!
Do you dream of turning ordinary videos into exciting short films without leaving your office and spending millions on a film crew? Vladimir Cherner's experience confirms that this is already a fait accompli!
Today, revolutionary AI updates allow us to create incredibly realistic, non-programmed emotions, solve questions using the same character in different scenes of the video, while retaining all their characteristics (body features, face, gait, voice, etc.). Until recently, this was impossible. But from now on, you can transfer characters that are already well known to everyone to each new series of your advert (as happened with the heroine Shchedrynka in the Shchedryi Dar advert). There are also options for transferring branding (for example, you can transfer your product image to the video), improving directing, animating dialogue and complex scenes (for example, moving objects or morphing), and the AI already has a super-accurate understanding of motion physics. All of this makes it possible to create Oscar-worthy advertising masterpieces without the same labour-intensive efforts.
The short film ‘Binarion’ demonstrated to the student group the quintessence of all that AI could do as of July 2024. During the production of this work, Volodymyr's team used 20 neural networks, creating about 4 hours of animated scenes, generating about 2000 images and using 173 sound effects.
Speaking of sound, Volodymyr was also able to show our audience an incredible technological improvement. As it turned out, neural networks are very good at voice cloning and music generation. They can also be used to improve sound quality and to create original music compositions without infringing on copyrights (for example, Soundraw creates royalty-free tracks). Vladimir gave a live demonstration showing how AI tools can be used to create a professional commercial recording. Everyone was so impressed by what he said that it even made them think about the future of traditional music.
It was also interesting to learn details about the new neural flagships released in August 2024. These are so-called neural networks with a realism bias. They have already been used in advertising by the Lincoln car brand, Pop soda, McDonald's Japan, and many others.
For marketers, such technologies are a real godsend. They not only save budget and time, but also open up endless opportunities for creativity. Now every brand can tell its stories on a cinematic scale, without being limited to the traditional framework of advertising production.
Neural networks! Neural networks! How many are there?
Let's face it, paying for each neural network separately is like buying a separate tool for each task. It is expensive and inefficient. But only those who have not been to the meeting with Vladimir or have not read our article to this point will overpay))). The digital advertising world already has a cool solution that significantly reduces subscription costs. This is the Cabina.ai service, which is able to create content using the option of several popular neural networks at once.
How to become a digital brush master?
Undoubtedly, for many of you, Mijonney has already established itself as a personal photo artist. However, today, the Freepik Mystic AI neural network has more magic in photo editing and many more options for creating more photorealistic images.
Unlike Mijonney, this technology does not require any complicated manipulations and hours of training, and easily understands the author's wishes through simple text. The latest version of the neuromodel understands Cyrillic (hello, mother tongue!) and works at cosmic speed. It's like having a whole team of designers working 24/7, but fitting in your pocket!
Exciting innovations are on the way!
In the final part of the meeting, Vladimir Cherner shared the upcoming innovations that are about to make a new breakthrough in the world of AI and turn the digital industry upside down. This is already a reality with the upcoming release of Midjourney 7 and the rapid progress of FIFO diffusion neural models.
But that's not all! Our students are already preparing for a new revolution in visual content. The world is awaiting the release of updates to AI tools for live video editing, which will allow you to manipulate objects like in Hollywood blockbusters. In addition, the expert announced that a neural model capable of generating text, graphics, and video simultaneously will soon appear. This surprise is expected to be released in 2025.
Is there anything cooler than GPT Chat?
As part of the meeting, Vladimir conducted a mini-review of text generators and, based on his own experience, explained which ones are worthy of attention of advanced marketers at the current moment in history. The Claude neural network took the first place among them.
Workshop on creating a commercial video
Finally, the guest speaker held an interesting masterclass on creating a scene in a video, explaining all the details, from how to set the camera angle and choose lighting to how to properly prescribe promo. At the end of the practical session, he presented the students with incredibly valuable gifts - the author's comprehensive 13-step algorithm for creating a scene and access to a database of 80 useful neural networks that were carefully selected by Vladimir's team on the principle of ‘the best of the best’.
And since we're talking about gifts, as promised, we have a pleasant surprise for our readers.
Vladimir runs popular YouTube and Telegram channels called "Shtuchka Intellect". Here he shares his knowledge and observations on the application of AI in marketing. Subscribe to these channels to stay up-to-date with the most relevant AI updates.
The Academy of Marketing sincerely thanks Vladimir Cherner for his time and the picture of the future that he painted during the training day, presenting each marketer as a creator of unprecedented proportions.
We urge all marketing professionals - from our students to our readers - to boldly master the art of interacting with AI to confidently conduct an orchestra of innovation and create unique, highly engaging content.
The future of marketing is here, and it is filled with endless possibilities. We hope you are ready to take on this challenge.
And if you are not confident in your abilities, the Marketing Academy invites you to study.