In a singular stroke of brilliance, someone over at Virgin Voyages’ marketing department came up with a captivating and adorable new ad campaign that capitalizes on the cruise line’s existing partnership with music and cinema superstar Jennifer Lopez.
It’s a lighthearted send-up of the most talked-about technologically of the moment—generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI), which has made a substantial leap in the past year or so in terms of the technology’s ability to create computer-generated images and sounds that are so lifelike as to be indistinguishable from actual recorded ones.
The commercial begins by depicting J. Lo—or, rather, her digital twin, “Jen AI”—lounging on a cruise ship deck as she delivers a promotional spiel to the audience, but a “malfunction” quickly reveals her behind-the-scenes operator to actually be a dude named Kyle, sitting in an office setting and performing in a full motion-capture suit.
Once his coworkers deem Kyle unworthy to play the part of Virgin Voyages’ big-name “Chief Celebration Officer”, one by one, they each make their own hilarious attempts at playing the part of Jen AI to try and deliver the brand’s messaging in the best manner possible.
The whole thing pokes fun, in a cute and affectionate way, at the prominence to which AI’s advanced capabilities are currently rising in our modern, tech-dominant society. And, the campaign doesn’t end with the promo video. Viewers are invited to go online and create their own customized video invitation to cruise, starring Jen AI, to send to friends or family.
There has been plenty of coverage and controversy surrounding the potential ramifications of advanced AI systems recently, including the natural language processing software ChatGPT, released in late 2022, which allows chatbots to conduct organic input analysis and carry on humanlike conversations with users, and carries potential to be used in any number of applications.
In fact, the Berkeley Institute for Data Science reported last year that AI-powered audio, image and video synthesis engines have finally overcome the so-called ‘uncanny valley’ and are now completely capable of creating human faces that are indistinguishable from the real thing.
The guy behind Virgin Voyages’ Jen AI campaign and the technology that powers it is Brian Yamada, Chief Innovation Officer at the marketing firm VMLY&R.“Jen AI is a combination of two different generative technologies. The first is generative voice and the second is generative video,” Yamada told CNBC. “The generative video allowed us to mimic her mouth movements to make sure that the look of the video actually followed the different syllables.”
The creative team behind the campaign told the outlet they were extremely careful about how its AI components are presented, in order to alleviate concerns about possible misuse of software that can replicate Lopez’ voice and appearance. Precautionary measures have been woven in, including adding a noticeable effect whenever Jen AI says something J. Lo didn’t say in real life, and filtering and blocking offensive content users might try to enter.
Virgin Voyages told CNBC that the campaign, which launched in June, has already generated more than 1,000 bookings. “Our engagement rates are more than 150% in previous campaigns,” said Virgin Voyages’ Global Brand and Experience Strategy Director, Billy Bohan Chinique. “It did require a substantial financial investment, but we are already seeing it pay off,” he added.
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