Riding the AI Revolution to Achieve Top-of-Mind Awareness

 Artificial Intelligence as a tool


With Artificial Intelligence sweeping the world by storm, our product positioning for Pilot Pen as the leader in pen technology and innovation has found the perfect vehicle to drive up top-of-mind awareness.


We proposed kicking off a promo in school bookshops featuring, you guessed it, AI generated content containing gleaming metallic robots against galactic night-sky backgrounds evoking a futuristic world for Pilot Pen products. We would do three ads centred on this theme. 


Launch ad featured AI-generated robot hand and galactic sky


The launch ad offering two free tubes of pencil lead refills with pen purchase performed to expectations and generated considerable buzz in the schools.




This AI generated image featured a chrome-finished steel robot's hand 

against a galactic sky background.




Followup ad didn’t go down well.


For the next ad in the series which offered a free ink refill with pen purchase, we continued focusing on the product-as-hero theme with a refresh in layout and typography. 





The refreshed layout and typography failed to impress and was canned.


However the client’s bookshop operators felt the design was too similar to the first version, so we added a smiling robot as the centre of attention and point of differentiation. This too failed to make the cut and we decided to change tack.




Adding a friendly smiling robot head didn't help.



Barbie mania to the rescue


Fortunately a pink wave was trending following the screening of the new Barbie movie, and our Little Red Dot was being painted pink with celebrities and fans strutting their pink outfits. (For foreign readers not in the know, Little Red Dot is a moniker for Singapore coined by a former president of Indonesia who scoffed at the island’s tiny land mass but loud voice in foreign policy). So we started to think pink and created our tribute to the pink resurrection, and to win the hearts of Barbie fans, starting with those school. 



The final version riding on Barbie pink mania sweeping across the land.



Abandoned robot head received new lease of life.


As for the rejected robot ad, we salvaged the head and repurposed it as a range of products that advocate the embracing of AI at work. The aim was to calm the nerves of co-workers facing the future with trepidation at the prospect of losing their jobs to this disruptive force.


The message was "AI won't replace you. Someone using AI will!"   


These morale boosters are available on my online store at Zazzle.com/virtuocity


T-shirt


Wall poster


Coffee mug


Notebook


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