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I explored this space in depth a while back. The problem with approaching the creative side of advertising is that it's an arms race. There's a reason creative

I explored this space in depth a while back. The problem with approaching the creative side of advertising is that it's an arms race. There's a reason creative agencies don't work with clients that compete with each other: you cannot share what worked for one client with another, otherwise it becomes less effective for both. Once you find a formula that works, everyone copies it, and it's no longer useful (i.e ad blindness). You can treat this as an optimization problem, but then everyone will do the same. Those who stand out will be doing something different, using different methods to draw attention that is not automatable. Also, there's usually not enough data available for making very good decisions, especially if it's based on longer but better signals of ROI, such as LTV or sale conversions. A long sales cycle means you might not have data for optimization until 60 days later. Finally, another problem is that AI can lead to deceptive or manipulative design (think dark patterns on steroids). That isn't just an ethics problem, it's a problem that could lead to lawsuits (e.g. false advertising, advertising the wrong things to protected classes of people, etc) In general, it's hard to optimize problems which involve others optimizing against you.

mrtksn 8y ago
AI feels like intuition more than intelligence to me, I mean the stuff that we somehow feel and can master with experience but cannot easily express in words. Maybe it can be useful when choosing the right image for the targeted audience but still leaving out the logical coherence to humans? AFAIK Netflix generates movie posters based on users data. I think this is an example of an AI based advertisement that we have today.
- jameslk 8y ago
  An AI assisted (or data driven) approach is more reasonable but less scalable. I think that makes the most sense given the problems that can arise if left on its own.
petra 8y ago
>> the creative side of advertising is that it's an arms race. Sure, for big businesses. But small businesses just need to have a good enough design, not beat their opponent by a few percent. And isn't that a big enough market to start with ?
- jameslk 8y ago
  SMBs don't usually have enough data to be able to guide optimization decisions in any meaningful way. Unless you're just sharing data between all other companies, which then results in the first problem I mentioned: you will not stand out. Usually creative agencies don't choose to work with two clients that compete with each other because of this dilemma, or if they do, they keep what works for each client strictly secret.
jameslk 8y ago
Oh and I forgot: another problem why this doesn't work very well: brands like to control their appearance. When it's their brand guidelines vs your black box optimization function which is backed by data, their brand still has priority. Your AI will also be blamed for the failure of their advertising even if it's a problem with their brand, product, sales, whatever.
- konsalexee 8y ago
  > When it's their brand guidelines vs your black box optimization function which is backed by data, their brand still has priority. We recently had the biggest telecommunication provider in Greece as a client, and we conducted an Eye Tracking study on their web services. We found that their branding guidelines in web elements like buttons were hurting the performance. A few creative employes of this company, when they mentioned this problem their supervisors ignored it. But when you are data-driven like we provided Eye Tracking evidence, they actually hear your opinion and you eliminate the subjective factor, or as the UX designer of the company told me the HIPPO effect. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/10/26/data-driven-decision-making-beware-of-the-hippo-effect/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/10/26/data-dri...
woodpanel 8y ago
> it's an arms race I can echo that, which is why I doubt that neither advertising nor design can become fully automated by AI I could see 2 things happening in this space: 1) AI may make ordinary advertising more accessible for smaller budgets It'd be similar to bootstrap or material design, in that they help non-design-driven products with not looking obviously cheap. But after adoption of said frameworks, products will look more alike. Hence the need for differentiation to gain more attention. 2) Given the said need for differentiation most revenue lies in the combination of inputs by humans and AI. For example when given the fundamental parameters that define a brand's design language, an AI could iterate on that to churn out new designs that continue this language with the human fine tuning the direction. An AI then could also deliver options of where to steer the design language in general, e.g. for car-designs: a) add an aston-martin-like front grill (go with the general trend) b) do the exact opposite of a) c) allow just small changes to current design language and never mind the competitors etc.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- konsalexee 8y ago
  >1) AI may make ordinary advertising more accessible for smaller budgets That means that the big players with large budgets will need to step up their game. As I see it, automation enables right now smaller budgets, so A.I. and in general machine learning can step up the "rich" guys game. >2) Given the said need for differentiation most revenue lies in the combination of inputs by humans and AI. I wrote in the article the definition of Predictive design.I quote the definition below. "In Predictive Design, data is collected, a statistical model is formulated, predictions are made, and the model is validated (or revised) as additional data becomes available." That means that A.I. in design will not work without designs created by humans and in general curation by humans. Unsupervised Designing is actually something I believe will never happen. You stated correctly that most revenue lies in the combination of inputs by humans and AI, cannot agree more!
doctorpangloss 8y ago
> LTV or sale conversions. A long sales cycle means you might not have data for optimization until 60 days later... I can’t believe it’s 2019, people still don’t know how to estimate LTV. The paper my company used for accurate LTV estimation needed 3 days of data, not 60. And it was written in like, 1987? What do you think Facebook uses to optimize creatives so quickly?
- haliax 8y ago
  Could you post a link? I'd love to see this.
- konsalexee 8y ago
  I would love to see that paper too. Actually, I didn't know about LTV estimation papers to be honest.
konsalexee 8y ago
> In general, it's hard to optimize problems which involve others optimizing against you. We have to options. Optimise something existing, which as you said a lot of competitors try to optimise again your side or the other option is to create new value/assets. The bet here is to create new value, iterate and pre-test with "A.I" models before conducting a time-consuming test, as a usability test, and last go on production.

mrtksn 8y ago

AI feels like intuition more than intelligence to me, I mean the stuff that we somehow feel and can master with experience but cannot easily express in words. Maybe it can be useful when choosing the right image for the targeted audience but still leaving out the logical coherence to humans? AFAIK Netflix generates movie posters based on users data. I think this is an example of an AI based advertisement that we have today.

jameslk 8y ago
An AI assisted (or data driven) approach is more reasonable but less scalable. I think that makes the most sense given the problems that can arise if left on its own.

petra 8y ago

>> the creative side of advertising is that it's an arms race. Sure, for big businesses. But small businesses just need to have a good enough design, not beat their opponent by a few percent. And isn't that a big enough market to start with ?

jameslk 8y ago
SMBs don't usually have enough data to be able to guide optimization decisions in any meaningful way. Unless you're just sharing data between all other companies, which then results in the first problem I mentioned: you will not stand out. Usually creative agencies don't choose to work with two clients that compete with each other because of this dilemma, or if they do, they keep what works for each client strictly secret.

jameslk 8y ago

Oh and I forgot: another problem why this doesn't work very well: brands like to control their appearance. When it's their brand guidelines vs your black box optimization function which is backed by data, their brand still has priority. Your AI will also be blamed for the failure of their advertising even if it's a problem with their brand, product, sales, whatever.

konsalexee 8y ago
> When it's their brand guidelines vs your black box optimization function which is backed by data, their brand still has priority. We recently had the biggest telecommunication provider in Greece as a client, and we conducted an Eye Tracking study on their web services. We found that their branding guidelines in web elements like buttons were hurting the performance. A few creative employes of this company, when they mentioned this problem their supervisors ignored it. But when you are data-driven like we provided Eye Tracking evidence, they actually hear your opinion and you eliminate the subjective factor, or as the UX designer of the company told me the HIPPO effect. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/10/26/data-driven-decision-making-beware-of-the-hippo-effect/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/10/26/data-dri...

woodpanel 8y ago

> it's an arms race I can echo that, which is why I doubt that neither advertising nor design can become fully automated by AI I could see 2 things happening in this space: 1) AI may make ordinary advertising more accessible for smaller budgets It'd be similar to bootstrap or material design, in that they help non-design-driven products with not looking obviously cheap. But after adoption of said frameworks, products will look more alike. Hence the need for differentiation to gain more attention. 2) Given the said need for differentiation most revenue lies in the combination of inputs by humans and AI. For example when given the fundamental parameters that define a brand's design language, an AI could iterate on that to churn out new designs that continue this language with the human fine tuning the direction. An AI then could also deliver options of where to steer the design language in general, e.g. for car-designs: a) add an aston-martin-like front grill (go with the general trend) b) do the exact opposite of a) c) allow just small changes to current design language and never mind the competitors etc.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
konsalexee 8y ago
>1) AI may make ordinary advertising more accessible for smaller budgets That means that the big players with large budgets will need to step up their game. As I see it, automation enables right now smaller budgets, so A.I. and in general machine learning can step up the "rich" guys game. >2) Given the said need for differentiation most revenue lies in the combination of inputs by humans and AI. I wrote in the article the definition of Predictive design.I quote the definition below. "In Predictive Design, data is collected, a statistical model is formulated, predictions are made, and the model is validated (or revised) as additional data becomes available." That means that A.I. in design will not work without designs created by humans and in general curation by humans. Unsupervised Designing is actually something I believe will never happen. You stated correctly that most revenue lies in the combination of inputs by humans and AI, cannot agree more!

doctorpangloss 8y ago

> LTV or sale conversions. A long sales cycle means you might not have data for optimization until 60 days later... I can’t believe it’s 2019, people still don’t know how to estimate LTV. The paper my company used for accurate LTV estimation needed 3 days of data, not 60. And it was written in like, 1987? What do you think Facebook uses to optimize creatives so quickly?

haliax 8y ago
Could you post a link? I'd love to see this.
konsalexee 8y ago
I would love to see that paper too. Actually, I didn't know about LTV estimation papers to be honest.

konsalexee 8y ago

> In general, it's hard to optimize problems which involve others optimizing against you. We have to options. Optimise something existing, which as you said a lot of competitors try to optimise again your side or the other option is to create new value/assets. The bet here is to create new value, iterate and pre-test with "A.I" models before conducting a time-consuming test, as a usability test, and last go on production.