Dive Brief:
- WPP unveiled Production Studio, an application that uses generative artificial intelligence (AI) to create text, images and video for advertisers, per a press release. The news was also announced at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
- Co-developed with Hogarth, Production Studio provides direct access to WPP’s generative content engine supported by Nvidia and is implemented in the WPP Open operating system. The tool was built on Nvidia’s Omniverse development platform and relies on the chipmaker’s OpenUSD program for 3D workflows.
- Piloted by brands including Ford and L’Oréal, Production Studio is now available to all WPP clients. It is part of the ad-holding giant’s major investment in generative AI, a key piece of its turnaround plan amid slowing growth.
Dive Insight:
Generative AI was the talk of Cannes Lions as companies tried to position themselves on the leading edge of a trend that has shaken up marketing and media. WPP used the international advertising festival as an opportunity to promote its progress in implementing the emergent technology across its sprawling agency network, a strategy rivals are also pursuing.
Production Studio takes advantage of a content engine recently developed with Nvidia and marks an important step in bringing generative AI tools to a larger number of WPP clients via the company’s Open operating system. Advertisers are hoping that generative AI can simplify what are often cost- and resource-intensive processes and allow for greater iterative capabilities with their creative assets, or, as WPP terms it, “exponentially more content.” For WPP, generative AI stands to be an important way to win business as growth flags and creative shops fall under sharper pressure.
“Production Studio exemplifies WPP’s commitment to innovation and our ability to leverage cutting-edge technologies to drive growth for our clients through WPP Open,” said Stephan Pretorius, chief technology officer at WPP, in a statement. “By combining the power of AI with human creativity and expertise, we are redefining the boundaries of content creation and delivering value to our clients around the world.”
Production Studio assists in six key areas: Streamlining the production of 3D content models; producing high-quality, brand-relevant visuals; writing consistent, multilingual copy; compiling assets and ensuring they are tailored to the right channels; wedding assets with relevant data to improve targeting and personalization; and tracking performance to adapt asset performance quickly based on feedback. Nvidia’s OpenUSD helps generate hyper-realistic content at “an unprecedented volume,” according to the release.
WPP said that Production Studio has guardrails and human oversight in place to ensure brand safety and legal and ethical compliance. Those are some of the top concerns surrounding generative AI, which is trained by scraping existing media.
Production Studio is just one piece of WPP’s commitment to spend 250 million pounds, or about $318 million, annually on generative AI over the next several years. At Cannes Lions, the group also revealed a partnership with IBM around using generative AI to enhance its business-to-business marketing solutions. In late May, WPP brought the latest AI models of startup Anthropic into its operating system. Open previously integrated Google’s Gemini AI, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E and a variety of other AI software.
WPP is betting heavily on generative AI amid a larger turnaround push. The U.K.-based firm experienced revenue declines in its most recent financial quarter, intensified by the loss of some major accounts and broad tech spending pullbacks, and expects full-year growth to be flat or at 1%.
