AI Design Sprint

Reima has always been among the first to utilize innovations, which is evident in their teams’ desire to constantly improve their work. Reima’s marketing team wanted to explore various AI tools in more detail and understand how they could streamline their daily work and add value to consumer communication. Their choice was Sherpa’s ”AI Design Sprint”, a service tailored for any client challenge. Merging the power of diverse AI programs and Sherpa’s expertise, they embarked on a joint problem-solving journey.  At the beginning of the collaboration, Sherpa introduced Reima’s organization to the fascinating world of new AIs, after which they practiced, brainstormed, and implemented together.

Concept, ideas, images, texts and learning

As a result, Reima received an imaginative and distinctive campaign. AI offered a vast number of creative ideas, and the campaign’s outcome was surprisingly insightful. The visual imagery and the playful tagline “Shell Yes” created by AI, featuring jackets made from oyster shells, undoubtedly stands out in marketing channels. 

And the learning curve continues; Reima’s in-house team has further honed their skills, preparing them for the challenges and opportunities of the AI-dominated future.

Weird arctic magic made easy

Päivitetyn identiteetin ydin on yksinkertainen layout-system, joka on rakennettu kuva-albumimaiseen kollaasityyliin. Brändi erottuu kilpailijoista ja identiteetissä on jatkuvuutta, jota on helppo ylläpitää inhouse-tiimin voimin.

Kuvaston suhteen päätimme kääntää kameraa toiseen suuntaan. Muuttaa ihminen katsojasta kokijaksi. Lapin taika ei ole vain maisemassa vaan sen vaikutuksessa. Persoonallisessa, positiivisessa outoudessa, jossa ihmiset kokevat, fiilistelevät sekä toteuttavat omia unelmiaan ja intohimojaan. Emme halunneet tarjota vain sitä, miltä Lappi näyttää vaan sitä, miltä Lappi tuntuu.

Oma kuvatyyli

Loimme generatiivisella tekoälyllä oman kuvatyylin. Tämän Only in Lapland -style tunerin avulla tuotetaan uusia kuvia eri sesonkeihin ja tarpeisiin. 

AI-style tunerin ansiosta asiakas ei saanut vain pientä uutta kuvasettiä vaan sujuvaan inhouse-käyttöön istuvan työkalun, jonka avulla voi tuottaa käytännössä rajattomasti uusia kuvia. Pääsemme kiinni detaljeihin ja mikrohetkiin, jotka koetaan ja aistitaan pikemmin kuin nähdään. Pystymme ilmentämään Lapin outoa taikaa ja vaikkapa sitä tunnetta, kun pakkanen puree poskea tai lumi narskuu kengän alla.

Lopputulema on harmoninen kokonaisuus, jonka tyyli säilyy riippumatta siitä ovatko kuvat uusia vai nykyisestä kuvapankista poimittuja. Luonnollisesti merkitsemme AI-boostatun materiaalin ja kerromme, että sen avulla pyritään korostamaan Lapin mahtavuutta – sitä ei tietenkään pysty korvaamaan millään.

Done with Docue. Even though there was no ready template for exactly this kind of cooperation, the basic contract template was easily modified. Within one hour, the first draft of the contract was ready for client evaluation. No AI is a match for lawyers, so after small modifications made by the Neste legal team, the contract was ready to be signed.

Done with ChatGPT. How to make people in Finland download the Neste app?

Apparently we are somewhat stereotypes for AI, as the first suggestions revolved around elements from nature ‘because Finns are known to value nature’. Thanks to our resident AI nerd Jukka, we were familiar with AI tendency to “hallucinate” – to provide false information that appears correct, and we were prepared not to believe everything at face value.

AI wanted to know more about the goals and target groups, and through discussions and evaluation, the focus became clear. The primary incentive to download would be a discount, supported by responsibility, as the app features help drivers to drive more economically, thus helping both their budget and the planet. It became obvious that the ones asking the questions decide the conclusion to a great length, and it is hard to say how much of the final result can be credited to AI and how much to our strategists.

Done with ChatGPT. How to reach the audience?

AI was more than willing to assist, but the media plan it provided appeared to be vague and unrealistic at best. Given the limited time and budget available, AI struggled to make realistic budget allocations and media suggestions. There are a lot of current limitations but also plenty of future potential – once the info and data can be trusted, AI can make media planning much easier. Eventually, these channels were selected: Facebook, online displays, DOOH (Digital out-of-home).

Done with ChatGPT and Copy.ai. What kind of concept would convince Finns to download the Neste app?

We asked for a concept including visuals, headlines, and CTAs – we got disclaimers and a promise to provide ideas for a starting point. (This was most human: AI politely telling us our brief was crap.) We also noticed that we needed to specify Neste a bit better. It is most useful to realise we do not know what AI does not know, and a lot of human experience and general knowledge is missing from the equation. As soon as we explained that basically everyone in the target group knows Neste, and that Neste ranks among the most responsible companies in the world, AI adjusted its approach in text and visuals. The language gap was apparent, and we ended up prompting in English while asking for Finnish copy. Styles, moods and registers proved challenging.

Concerning visuals, several AI solutions were not solutions but briefs: AI suggested a visual that would indicate this and that but not actually define what kind of visual would be able to do this. AI is based on a pool of data, so it provided a lot of ideas that could clearly be labelled as advertising – thus, creativity, wit, humour and emotions were not its core strengths. However, it was able to create generic content with given parameters easily and with good variation – in case you are a bulk provider, it is time to get scared.

Done with Midjourney Pro, Topaz Gigapixel AI and ChatGPT. We created the visuals using Midjourney with prompts provided by Chat GPT, while final versions were enhanced with Gigapixel AI for higher resolution.

First attempts proved that AI has no respect for names or logos, and wants to recreate and combine everything. It turned Neste into Nsta, Jesta and NSSTia. And once we got a symbolic image of a rather cool and artsy phone with Neste colours and asked AI to add Neste logo, it went all Lovecraft on us and combined the elements just like the transporter pod does to Jeff Goldblum and the fly in The Fly.

The key visual we chose based on AI’s suggestions was a car driving along a forest road. To set this up in a traditional way would have required more time and budget than what we had, but AI handled it nicely, with flares and reflections in all the right places. Obviously AI adds democracy to production: very nice pictures can be produced fast, without a major budget. The Midjourney signature style may feel dated already as you are reading this, but the sheer speed of AI evolution means one can apply any imaginable (or AI-imagined) style or approach convincingly very, very soon.