O2 has worked with Faith, the AI creative arm of integrated communications agency VCCP, to launch a pair of AI tools to elevate marketing communications for the telecoms brand.
The Bubl Generator harnesses generative AI (GenAI) to create custom imagery of O2’s brand character, Bubl, based on prompts. Meanwhile, the Copy Checker has been developed to ensure tonal consistency across the brand’s written marketing communications.
“The Bubl Generator and The Copy Checker are tangible results of our GenAI explorations with faith and how we might deploy the technology in our marketing,” said Simon Valcarcel, Marketing Director at Virgin Media O2. “The models we’ve developed together create consistent, high-quality distinctive brand assets and copy at speed – allowing us to work in ways which would not previously have been possible. It’s exciting to keep learning by doing, as the GenAI space continues to evolve.”
The Bubl Generator, which is the result of multiple rounds of training for the AI, enables prompts to be generated into images of Bubl in “any imaginable scenario.” For example, the generator could create a brand image of Bubl holding a cup of tea or kicking a football at the request of an O2 marketer.
The Copy Checker helps O2 copywriters to paste text into it to receive feedback and suggestions on how the copy could be improved. This tool was trained using the brand’s tone-of-voice documentation, guidelines, legal documents, and metrics co-developed with Oeil Jumratsilpa, Virgin Media O2’s Head of Copy and Tone.
“GenAI tools often lack the creative control and brand identity needed for production assets. This limits the practical usage of AI to concepting or simple background tasks – we wanted AI to do more of the heavy lifting and prove its worth in creative applications, this is what this work represents,” said Morten Legarth & Ben Hopkins, Creative Directors at Faith and VCCP.
