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As promised, more updates on our client pilots and what we’ve learnt. These pilots are a chance to explore a wide range of challenges to test our ever evolving models. We’re barely a month in and it feels like we’ve got that already…
We’ve covered a range of categories…
- OTC health / General health and wellbeing / Deodorants / Male grooming / Alcoholic drinks / Fragrances / Kids food and snacks
A range of project types
- Product innovation / Activation / Future Trends / Positioning
And started to explore specific markets…
- English language / UK focus / US focus / Africa focus
… as well as running our own internal tests across a range of other topics.
We’ve discovering that our 100% automated insight, strategy and innovation projects are as flexible as we’d hoped - maybe more so - and that the same core model and PLATFORMS and IDEAS methodologies are capable of taking on vastly different challenges and adapting to the nuances of the brief.
But it’s taking some work to get there. It’s been a journey of discovery, one that we are still on and will continue going forward. So I thought I would share some of our learning of how to get the most out of this exciting new approach.
Client pilots and maximising the process - our thoughts so far…
Nuanced briefing
The briefing process for these 100% virtual AI projects is simple, but perhaps deceptively so. Small choices about how you frame the challenge, or define the category, context or target can have significant implications for outcomes.
Which is a good thing. The same would be true when briefing a human agency. But it’s reassuring to know that this nuance is alive and well in these AI projects. Spending time really thinking the challenge through and refining the brief is time well invested and leads to great results.
Involving the broader team
It’s valuable to involve key stakeholders up front. To help get to the well nuanced brief of course, but also to kick off the engagement with the project right from the start. When a full project takes as little as under an hour instead of weeks you have to take the opportunity to get involvement and buy in up front
Internal + public sources + primary research sources
Automated AI projects work incredibly well using publicly available online sources like blogs, forums and the like. It’s often mind blowing what’s possible.
But we found that the inclusion of internal documents and previous research as well as any available primary research resources gives an extra layer of focus and richness that’s hugely valuable (and' it’s great to be extracting maximum value out of your existing research in a way that doesn’t sap in a lot of time and resource.)
Iteration
Even though nuanced briefing is important it doesn’t matter if you don’t get the brief 100% right the first time. Because the project process if fast and automated you can tweak the brief and run again and again, until it’s right.
Have you ever been in that situation when you’re at the end of a traditional project and you’ve thought ‘if I knew then what I know now I would have run this project differently?” Well now you can go back and run it again.
Some of our pilot projects have run like a dream first time. That’s great. But other have taken quite a few iterations, refining and focussing the brief. That’s been a hugely valuable learning experience.
The human journey
Just because the agency project process is 100% AI automated doesn’t mean there’s no human involvement. In fact the human journey in these AI projects is as important as ever, maybe even more so.
Because the insights and creativity come so fast and timelines compressed there need to be a clear plan in place for where and how the client team engages with it and unlock the value in the projects.
And it means working differently. Because are starting with a wealth of insight and ideas, not from scratch, you can use the time you have together as a team to focus on more value added building from a really strong foundation
Key intervention points
The brief isn’t the only vital point in the journey. We’ve found there are key intervention points where there is the opportunity to add the most value to the journey.
- Evaluating initial platforms and insight results
- Choosing key platforms to take forward to ideation
- Evaluating and prioritising early ideas
- Optimising lead concepts
By focussing peoples time and energy around these high impact focal points in a short, sharp and timely manner (and not dragging them into the endless process issues of long traditional projects) we can get quality client involvement in a high energy way.
Evolving the model
Ultimately this is a learning journey. We’ve had some great project results already. Some we’re still working on to get to the optimum point. But all the time we are refining our understanding and improving our models.
We’re not using the projects to train our model (our models are trained and developed independently from our project work and client information). But we constantly seek out new ways to add value by applying principles across and best in class approaches across all categories and challenges.
Which means every project we do in the future will get better and better
We’re going to continue to explore and push the boundaries 100% Virtual insight, strategy and innovation projects can deliver. The possibilities are so exciting.
If you want to know more about ONE Strategy Studio and our vision for AI driven virtual projects in the insight, brand strategy and innovation space then please do get in touch.
