A little over a year ago, AI was largely a buzzword in experiential. On the heels of Open AI’s release of ChatGPT, marketers everywhere began to dabble in its potential for smarter, more personalized campaigns. Fast forward to today, and brands have made serious strides in unlocking new brand engagement frontiers with this tech.
“I think the true power and promise of AI, when we’re talking about events, is in the ability for it to expand brand worlds, inviting attendees into a brand environment and then allowing them to expand on it, build on it—within it and around it—to play with it, and to question it,” Megan Cross, executive creative director-U.S. at Momentum Worldwide explained during the Experiential Marketing Summit Summer School webinar on Aug. 14. “Efficiency is a part of the process that gets us there, but I believe that the true magic of AI-powered experiences when it comes to creativity is in the deep connections that expansion allows us to build with brands and for attendees to build with each other.”
Momentum partnered with Coca-Cola soon after the launch of ChatGPT to launch Coke AI Studio, a fan experience at festivals across North America in summer 2023 that leveraged three AI models to allow festival goers to create their own band name, track, album cover, and music video.
Coke’s vision, and the technology, continued to evolve from there across the industry. Let’s explore how.
Music in Motion
At AWS re:Invent 2023 last November, Intel brought together the power of music and AI image animation at its Intel Park exhibit, where the brand’s five-note identity logo took on a new life with an arrangement composed by violinist Rahmaan Phillip and performed in concert with AI-generated animation. The “Music in the Park” experience under a color-changing canopy was a hit among attendees. The AI visualization—abstract images with a nature theme—was reactive to the music and cross-mixed with Synesthesia music visualization software, with generation and rendering done on the same Intel Arc graphics processing unit. Each visualization was based on a new nature-related prompt, creating a unique and flowing experience. (Partner: The Taylor Group)
Photo Ops
At CES 2024 in January, Hisense showcased the vibrancy of its Art TV with an AI photo experience where attendees’ photos were transformed into masterpieces to be featured on the screens and sticker prints. (Partners: Impact XM, Keshot) Meanwhile, Google invited attendees to test AI-driven Magic Compose in Google messages and print them on physical postcards. (Lead Agency: Media.Monks; Builder: Sparks)
Sampling Manifested
Then in March, Coca-Cola’s AI-fueled mission continued as it celebrated the launch of its new Spiced flavor with a vibrant “Spiced Shop” experience and art installation that fused genAI and artistic expression. As part of the broader “It’s This” Coca-Cola Spiced campaign, the Spiced Shop invited consumers to use a genAI tool trained on artistic expression to articulate what they taste and feel when sipping the new flavor and yielded each participant a personalized “visual manifestation” of the sampling experience.
Biometric Art
For RedHat 2024 in May, Astound Group developed an Interactive Art Wall using real-time generative image technology, StreamDiffusion. By turning the audience’s body and movements into a virtual paintbrush, the massive 16-foot interactive wall became an ever-changing work of art, generating 5,573 interactions in two days and adding a dramatic and captivating element to the show floor.
Crowdsourced Art
Intel once again leaned into the power of AI for engagement with the Intel Encore AI Exhibit in Toronto this past June, a free experience at Illumination where emerging new media artists showcased the brand’s new processes in a living art gallery. Each piece continuously evolved “thanks to the contributions of every attendee,” with some notable examples including Dara Vandor’s photo booth that captured moments with imaginary friends and Casey Watson’s disco balloons that reacted to human emotions.
“AI is really putting the art of possibility in the hands of people,” Asma Aziz, director of marketing, America’s territories, Intel, described about the evolving role of AI in events during EMS Summer School. “So, whatever we could imagine is now becoming a reality and that’s how I want all of us to look at AI and these technological innovations.”
Personalized Selections
At Cannes Lions 2024, an AI-fueled Infinite Fleurs activation by Google Cloud AI caught the attention of experience builders. “We wanted to deliver a bouquet of creativity to anyone—all while demonstrating how an intuitive and attractive AI can help ideas and inspiration blossom,” the creators said. Guests discovered their perfect bouquet based on a series of prompts through an interactive creative process set among real flowers.
Executive ‘Chats’
Also in June, HPE Discover 2024 in Las Vegas was all about the world at the AI inflection point, so it was only fitting that anyone could have a conversation with HPE CEO Antonio Neri, or rather, his generative AI conversational avatar, as part of the show. (We experienced it, and it was still really cool.)
Built using a spatial computing platform by Proto, Neri’s holograph was so lifelike it was hard not to try to touch it. Attendees stopped and seized a rare moment to have an actual conversation with the man they’d just seen delivering a keynote at the Sphere and moving their worlds forward. The touchpoint delivered a real-life validation of the company’s vision and a personal connection with the brand, which was the reason the attendees came to this event in the first place.
* * * * *
Moving forward, event marketers are now being extra cautious about AI fatigue and diminishing attendee interested in AI marketing messaging. In fact, Coca-Cola has made a shift to deprioritize AI as the “hook” for consumers and simply let it play out as a tool on the backend of the experience.
“In terms of using AI for creativity and experience design, AI is a very powerful tool,” Cross said during Summer School. “But when AI is your hook, that message becomes less compelling especially as we all start to use AI as ‘the secret ingredient’ with the experiences that we’re creating. The technology of AI when you successfully should kind of like melt away. And what you should really feel as an attendee is the magic that AI is allowing you and those around you to create.”
