ARE AI - POWERED BRAND EXPERIENCES USEFUL OR JUST A GIMMICK.
- 1 hour ago
- 5 min read
Artificial intelligence (AI) is currently being added to everything from customer service platforms to toothbrushes, so it was inevitable that it would make its way into brand experiences.
We are seeing activations promising AI-generated portraits, personalised recommendations, virtual characters, live content and experiences that respond to each participant.
Some are genuinely useful.
Some are a standard photo booth wearing an AI hat because somebody wanted the press release to sound more exciting.
So, how can brands tell the difference?
> AI is useful when the audience benefits
The first test is brutally simple:
What does the customer gain from the AI?
A strong use of AI might make the experience more personal, more accessible, easier to navigate, more entertaining or more relevant.
A weak use of AI makes the experience slower, more confusing or less human while adding very little beyond novelty.
Customers really don’t care whether your activation uses the latest generative model. They care whether it is interesting, enjoyable and worth their time.
> Personalisation can create genuine value
AI can adapt parts of an experience using information supplied by the participant.
For example, it could:
· Recommend a product based on preferences
· Create a personalised visual or piece of content
· Suggest an outfit or beauty routine
· Adapt a story or game
· Translate information
This can give each person a reason to engage and something relevant to remember.
The important word here is relevant.
Changing the colour of somebody’s digital background after collecting their name, age, email address and favourite snack is not meaningful personalisation. It is a gimmicky screensaver.
> AI can help people explore complex products
Some products are difficult to understand in a short live interaction.
AI may help by asking a few questions and guiding the visitor towards the most relevant features, options or products.
This could be really useful for consumer technology, financial products or entertainment platforms, but the AI needs to support the conversation rather than replace the person delivering it.
A trained Brand Warrior can interpret body language, answer unexpected questions and understand when somebody wants more information – so never leave people out of the equation.
> AI-generated content can extend the experience
One of the strongest applications is creating content that participants can take away and share.
The content needs to be quick to generate, easy to access and recognisably connected to the brand. Think of things like a personalised image or message, a digital keepsake of an event or a tailored message.
But it also needs quality controls.
Nobody wants their carefully planned activation becoming famous because its AI image generator gave a customer fourteen fingers and quietly inserted a competitor’s logo.
Make sure you implement rigorous testing before your event to stop that happening.
> Technology must support the central idea
AI-powered activations are part of a much longer history of brands using new technology to create interaction.
Tribe’s Oculus Quest 2 experience used live VR demonstrations, mirrored screens and QR-enabled shopping to help customers understand and buy the product. The technology was central because the product itself was technological. See the Oculus case study.
The Coca-Cola Freestyle pop-up combined an app, custom drink creation, sampling, social sharing and physical keepsakes. The digital tools strengthened a real-world product experience rather than replacing it. Explore the Freestyle case study.
Neither of these examples was built around generative AI, but they demonstrate the principle: technology works when it helps people experience the brand or product more fully.
“Using AI” is not an idea by itself.
> Signs your AI idea may be a gimmick
If your campaign states it uses AI just because it can, or the output has little to do with the brand, it could be construed as a gimmick.
Try asking this question when considering using AI:
Does the idea still sound valuable with AI included?
When it does not, you probably have a technology demonstration rather than a brand experience.
Now, let’s look at a couple of things you need to keep in mind when using AI in your next campaign:
> Be clear about data
AI experiences can involve photographs, voices, personal preferences, email addresses or behavioural information.
Brands need to decide what information is being collected, why it’s needed and how it will be stored. If you’ve not thought any of this through, it could end up being a GDPR nightmare!
Do not hide an extensive data-capture exercise behind a fun personalised experience.
People should understand the exchange they are making.
> Test uncomfortable outputs
Traditional interactive experiences normally produce a limited set of predictable results.
Generative AI can produce things you did not specifically write or design.
Testing therefore needs to include:
· Offensive prompts
· Political content
· Sexual content
· Competitor names
· Copyrighted characters
· Brand criticism
· False information
· Unusual names
· Different languages
· Accessibility tools
· Poor-quality photographs
· Multiple people in one image
· Unexpected customer behaviour
Create clear guardrails and decide what staff should do when the output is inappropriate or simply rubbish.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen” is rarely a comforting response when the result is already on social media!
> Please keep humans inside the experience
The best live brand experiences create real interaction.
AI can help personalise, entertain, recommend or produce content, but it should not remove the human welcome that makes experiential marketing different from using a website at home.
Your staffing team matters. They are paramount to making sure the experience runs smoothly and can iron out technical issues and answer product questions – and provide feedback when things are not running as well as they should with AI interactions.
Technology can provide an output. People make it feel like an experience.
> Decide what happens when it fails
Every technology-led activation needs a back-up plan.
Think about what you’ll do if there’s no wifi, generation times for your AI are slow, customer content is lost or there’s unexpectedly high demand.
Can the experience continue in a simplified form?
Can staff switch to a non-AI interaction?
Can completed content be delivered later?
If the entire campaign becomes an expensive empty box whenever too many people are trying to access it, the back-up plan needs more work.
> Measure more than curiosity
AI may attract people because it is new, but initial curiosity does not prove that the experience was effective.
Measure whether it supported the campaign objective and compare those results with a simpler alternative where possible.
AI should earn its place in the budget.
> Does AI actually have a place in your experience?
Before running headlong into a full AI-scenario experience, consider the place AI fits into your brand.
Just to put the brakes on here a little, it’s worth remembering that all AI-driven technology has an environmental impact – and if your brand is publicly shouting about how sustainable it is, then randomly adding AI into your next experience without any thought could be a disaster.
Plan to answer important sustainability questions ahead of time so that any negative feedback from customers is kept to a minimum.
So, useful or gimmick?
AI-powered brand experiences can be useful when the technology makes an interaction more personal, relevant, accessible or memorable.
They become gimmicks when AI is added for attention without improving what the audience receives.
The strongest approach is often to make AI the engine rather than the headline. Let it do something clever behind the scenes while the customer enjoys a simple, intuitive and properly human experience.
And, don’t be swayed to include AI if it flies in the face of your brand values – that could do your reputation more harm than good.
---
Planning a technology-led brand experience?
Tribe creates experiential campaigns that combine creative thinking, production, technology, staffing, logistics and measurement.
