AI technology opens the door for more creative solutions by increasing agency efficiency and efficacy.

Time is our most valuable asset and learning to spend it wisely is a puzzle most people spend a lifetime trying to solve. In the agency world, time is money—literally. Spending our time and our clients’ money effectively and efficiently is always top of mind, and delivering creative solutions that produce results is at the center of every project. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a relatively new but rapidly growing tool used by advertising agencies to streamline processes and optimize their advertising budgets in a variety of areas, from audience segmentation, social media management, and predictive analytics to creative idea generation and execution.

AI tools like Grammarly and ChatGPT can help eliminate spelling and grammatical errors, serve as an idea generator, or give an already-written paragraph a different spin, and design apps like Photoshop AI and Firefly have cutting-edge capabilities that enable creators to enhance existing images and bring new ideas to life in seconds. The example below shows how easy it is to use AI generative fill in Photoshop to change an existing image. Simply upload your image, select where you want to add or replace an object, type in a prompt (e.g., replace with cactus), click “generate” and you’ll have a revised image in seconds. Using traditional graphic design methods, the creative team would have spent hours perfecting to get to the same end result. With Photoshop’s AI feature, it took minutes.

Giving Frosty a Southwestern makeover

AI’s current capabilities and extraordinary potential are exciting but it’s important to remember that it’s a developing technology and, for it to become an effective and efficient tool, humans need to know how to use it properly. Common sense and human behavior can’t be reproduced and without the oversight of a person who can assess, improve, fact-check and redirect programs, AI will make mistakes.

Davidson Belluso’s leadership team stays on top of the latest trends, data, and tools available and carefully determines when and how those resources can benefit the agency and our clients. We currently treat AI tools like a digital assistant – it takes direction from our team and then provides additional ideas, recommendations, or content that will be reviewed, evaluated, revised, and improved upon by our team.

“AI technology won’t ever replace the raw talent of our creative team, but it will definitely help us become more efficient,” says Davidson Belluso’s creative services director, Gustavo Estrella. “From a creative perspective, it can enable us to explore more creative ideas, approaches, and executions in a fraction of the time.”

Turning our website into a winter wonderland through the power of Photoshop AI.

Recently, Davidson Belluso’s creative team put Photoshop’s AI time-saving techniques to the test to add some holiday magic to our website. Charged with designing the proverbial “holiday card” for 2023, Estrella and his creative team came back with a very 2023 approach. “We let Photoshop’s AI take our best ideas and run with them,” he said. “We wanted our holiday message to showcase our team’s creativity, leverage new AI features to save time, and let the team have a little fun. AI enabled us to explore a lot of different ideas in a fraction of the time,” said Estrella.

The team ultimately landed on an approach that would enable the agency to reach clients, partners, and associates where they interact with us the most — on our website and social media platforms. The creative team added some holiday cheer to our team page and turned the home page into a winter wonderland by making it snow!

From eight ball to Christmas ball in seconds

“Thankfully, the days of a traditional holiday card, mailing lists, and unforgiving print production deadlines are over, so we were able to expand our options and leverage the power of AI this year,” said Estrella. To keep hours to a minimum, the creative team focused on ideas that could be quickly executed using AI. After narrowing the list down to their favorites, they were able to quickly explore different executions of those concepts using AI programs like Photoshop and Adobe Firefly. Giving each employee a unique (and exceptionally festive!) holiday look would have taken hours using traditional graphic design methods but, after a few descriptive prompts from the team, Photoshop’s AI feature delivered the holiday magic in a few minutes. “There are so many incredible AI options to explore, and we’re only scratching the surface,” Estrella said.

Let it snow!

One of the hottest trends in marketing is the gift that keeps on giving … and evolving.

Changing backgrounds and/or removing unwanted objects from existing photos has been possible for the last several years, but results were average and inconsistent, with one “fix” sometimes creating other issues within the image. Technology continues to evolve and, ready or not, AI is becoming a game-changer in the digital world. “Photoshop’s AI tool was released earlier this year and we’ve been completely amazed by its features and capabilities, and how quickly and efficiently we can bring our creative ideas to life,” said Estrella. Photoshop’s new “generative fill” feature can look at a photo and remove requested elements (e.g., a specific person, a sign, or any background object) and generate a revised photo with correct size relations, perspective, shadows, lighting, and depth of field—all in seconds to minutes. It can change backgrounds, extend the size of the canvas, create images from scratch, and yes, even turn your graphic designer into a suave Christmas crooner.

Cheers to AI’s holiday magic

“Using an AI-driven approach to the holiday card gave our team the opportunity to explore new creative ideas and to experiment with innovative technology and state-of-the-art trends we’ve been researching to enhance our client work and results,” said Estrella.

Happy holidays from the holly jolly, AI-generated team at Davidson Belluso.

AI’s time-saving technological features are changing and evolving every day. Our team is working hard to stay on top of the latest trends so we can explore more creative options in less time, saving our clients’ money. It’s the gift that keeps on giving! Please reach out to us at contact@davidsonbelluso.com with any questions about AI, and how it can be implemented for your creative and marketing needs. We’re here to help.

Wishing our clients, partners, associates, friends, and family the happiest of holidays!