How I Use AI To Speed Up Creative
Holy crap! Where was AI 40 years ago when I started in the advertising industry? Imagine the speed of creation if tools like the ones we have today were available back then. Fast forward to 2063; I’ll be sitting there with my VR headset at the age of 96 creating some really cool stuff.
Before AI came along, creative ideation was done in a group setting or brainstorming, or my favorite, finding inspiration around me and letting my brain get lost in a song while dreaming up new ideas.
Back then, I used all sorts of tools: Magazines, Newspapers, Yellow Pages, Billboards, and Radio… ah, the radio was my bestie as a young ad guy.
Technology has come a long way since I wrote my first ad.
Today, creatives like me have powerful tools to speed up the ideation process. What once took days of development, and hours in meetings, is now delivered in mere seconds with a well-written prompt.
Making Pizza
Recently I created a campaign for Ooni, the pizza over company founded by husband-and-wife team, Kristian Tapaninaho and Darina Garland.
If you want to hear their incredible story, I recommend listening to their interview with Guy Raz on How I Built This.
I have always loved making pizza, but the cost of building a professional pizza oven in my backyard was outrageous. Enter the Ooni Koda 16, that’s the oven I use to make amazing pizzas. Trust me, this weekend, we made 12 for a small family gathering for one of my daughters’ birthdays.
The fact that I can make a proper Neapolitan pizza at home with my Ooni is just a part of this story, though.
OK AI, It’s Time To Speed Things Up
I poured a piping hot cup of coffee, very important when creating. Then I put ChatGPT to work by starting with the most basic prompt:
Give me 5 ways OONI differentiates itself from a typical home oven.
Mere seconds later ChatGPT delivered the following:
OONI, known for their portable wood-fired pizza ovens, differentiates itself from a typical home oven in several significant ways. Here are five:
Temperature Range: OONI pizza ovens can reach temperatures as high as 932°F (500°C). This is much hotter than most standard home ovens, which usually max out around 500°F (260°C). The higher heat enables the OONI oven to cook pizzas in just 60 seconds, giving the pizza a distinct, authentic wood-fired flavor and texture.
Portability: OONI ovens are designed to be portable. They are much smaller and lighter than a standard home oven, and some models even come with detachable parts and carrying handles. This allows users to bring the OONI oven to picnics, parties, or anywhere else they might want fresh, wood-fired pizza.
Fuel Sources: OONI pizza ovens can use a variety of fuel sources, including wood pellets, charcoal, gas, or even a combination. This flexibility isn't found in typical home ovens, which are typically electric or gas.
Outdoor Use: OONI ovens are designed for outdoor use, unlike typical home ovens. This gives users the chance to cook in open-air environments, adding another layer of enjoyment to the cooking experience.
Specialization: While a home oven is a multipurpose appliance used for baking, broiling, and roasting a variety of foods, the OONI oven is specialized for making pizzas. This singular focus allows it to excel in this area, delivering a unique, wood-fired pizza experience that's difficult to replicate in a standard oven.
What’s the lesson here? If I knew NOTHING about the Ooni, I now had 5 features to inspire me. I needed to decide the feature that benefited the user most.
950 Degrees Of Inspiration
While this blog isn’t about how excellent my pizza making is, although… just sayin’. 😜 It is about finding inspiration for creating a campaign. Hell, even a single ad needs a spark to ignite.
If you’ve ever tried to make pizza at home in your 500-degree oven, you know the results. The stone is hottish for pizza number one, but it takes 15-20 minutes to make a pizza. Multiply that by the number of pizzas you plan to make, in my case 12, and we’re eating a 4-hour-long dinner.
Because the Ooni has a tightly made box with heat from the top, it cooks fast. VERY FAST! The oven heats to 950 degrees. That’s twice as hot as my in-the-kitchen oven. There was my inspiration.
I’m Not Done With You Yet, AI
I prompted ChatGPT again:
Give me 5 single-sentence headline ideas that focus on temperature.
Once again, AI did the heavy lifting as I took a big gulp of my coffee, only to realize it was still boiling hot. AI is so fast my coffee didn’t cool off a bit. I am now writing with a lisp from the 3rd-degree mouth burn.
"Achieve Blazing Hot 932°F in Minutes with OONI - The Hottest Pizza Oven Out There!"
"Reaching Extreme Temperatures: OONI Ovens Transform Your Backyard into a Pizzeria."
"Why 932°F is the Magic Number for Authentic Wood-Fired Pizzas at Home."
"OONI Pizza Ovens: Where High Heat Meets Incredible Taste."
"Cook Your Pizza in 60 Seconds Flat at 932°F with OONI's Revolutionary Pizza Ovens."
This was OK, but it missed the creative ideation mark for me. It was missed because I wrote a bad prompt—a prompt that didn’t give it what I was thinking. So I write my next prompt with a bit more thought behind it.
Give me 5 single-sentence headline ideas that focus on the OONI temperature versus a home oven.
This prompt is looking for a different outcome, a deliverable that compares what we all have with what we all could have. I want to inspire desire.
Here’s what it delivered this time:
OONI vs. Home Ovens: Experience the Intense Heat Difference that Makes Pizzas Perfect!"
"Why 932°F? Discover How OONI's High Heat Leaves Conventional Home Ovens in the Dust."
"OONI Shatters Home Oven Limits: Achieve Authentic Pizza Temperatures in Your Own Backyard."
"Feel the Burn: How OONI's 932°F Cooking Power Transforms Your Pizza Experience."
"Beyond 500°F: OONI's Heat Superiority Over Home Ovens for Perfect Wood-Fired Pizza."
This was better than the last, far better. My brain was now starting to engage in some new, fresh ideas.
The responses helped me dial in my next prompt:
Like magic, inspiration appeared before me in an instant:
"Twice as Hot, Twice as Tasty: OONI Ovens Outperform Home Ovens in the Heat Game!"
"OONI's 932°F Heat Advantage: Cooking Pizzas at Nearly Double Your Home Oven's Max Temperature."
"Redefine Your Pizza Nights with OONI: Harness the Power of Twice the Heat of a Home Oven."
"Experience the 932°F Difference: How OONI's Extreme Heat Leaves Home Ovens Cold."
"Double the Heat, Half the Time: OONI's 932°F Makes Pizza Perfection a Breeze."
AI Is Not Your Creative Director
The biggest mistake I’ve seen people make over the last many months since AI entered our lives is using AI to replace their critical thinking, creativity, their writing… they’ve given up and handed it over to AI. This is not only a mistake, it is actually going to hurt you in the long run. AI is a tool in your toolbox; it isn’t a Swiss Army knife that does everything. Stop using AI like it’s the everything tool to make life better; use it to help you work more efficiently.
Something’s Cooking In My Brain
With ideation sped up by AI, my creative brain had both direction and a mission: Create the first ad focused on the Ooni oven temperature, to creatively differentiate the home oven from the Ooni.
This is where the human brain beats AI.
I thought about the fact that a home oven, which is only half as hot as the Ooni, can’t fully do the job. It’s kind of halfway there at 500 degrees.
Then, my mind went to the visuals. How can I develop a visual creative for the ad that supports the text I was developing?
AI is currently incapable of marrying disparate pieces of content to create something unique. It can’t place an image and a sentence in a creative way that cleverly builds something new. The biggest challenge AI has is it can only regurgitate what it’s been fed and can’t actually create anything.
There’s simply no way for AI to understand that showing half the oven supports the headline, or that the headline has a double meaning, or that the phrasing implies many things like your own oven, a pizza place, or a frozen pie.
Yes, AI is pretty incredible, but it’s not a replacement for humans, critical thinking, and making fresh creative. You could say that AI is half-baked.