10 Inspiring & Practical AI Ad Creative Examples
Published May 22
AI is transforming ad creative, saving time, reducing costs and enabling personalized experiences, while still valuing human creativity and brand identity. This article showcases 10 successful AI ad creative examples ranging from Nutella to online news.
According to Adobe, 81% of creative professionals have already used generative AI tools like DALL-E, Midjourney or Stable Diffusion in their work.
Nearly two-thirds, 62% of creative professionals using generative AI, have reduced the time spent on tasks by about 20% and 69% believe these tools provide new ways to express creativity.
A poll from our AI summit echoed the same sentiment with 76% of creative professionals viewing generative AI as essential to many creative processes.
Jim Lecinski from the Kellogg School of Management surmises, "This is not another new website or another new social media network. This is a tectonic transitional moment and we have had few moments like this in business history. And so, like electricity did to steam, AI has the opportunity to reshuffle winners and losers and remake businesses, industries, categories and brands."
Where's the proof? Check out these real-world AI ad creative examples that made a real impact.
10 Brands That Have Made the Most of AI Ad Creative
The following AI ad creative examples show what happens when you give extremely talented people the right tools to unlock entirely new opportunities.
1. Heinz “AI Ketchup” campaign
In 2023, Heinz capitalized on the hype around generative AI tools—Dall-E in this case—to create this award-winning campaign.
The concept was simple. Use Dall-E to generate images of ketchup bottles and build an ad campaign around the results. But something incredible grew out of this when every result for “ketchup,” generated by Dall-E, had one thing in common.
They all looked like Heinz bottles, even the weird ones. This led to one of the greatest taglines for an AI-powered ad.
“This is what ‘Ketchup’ looks like to AI.”
How AI changed the game
AI didn’t just help create this campaign, it’s at the very core of it. A concept that capitalized on the AI hype was all Heinz needed to win the 2023 Clio Gold Award for Product/Service. But it went a step further than that. During the campaign, the folks at Heinz encouraged their customers to generate their own ketchup bottles with AI, using the result in gallery displays, bottle labels, and more.
While there are tons of artists and other creatives out there who could have responded to a call like this without AI, Dall-E made it easy for anyone to contribute.
That said, there are two elements to this campaign that AI can’t replace: brand and creativity.
- Brand: This campaign only worked because Heinz has been building their brand for decades. Customers associate Heinz with ketchup because it’s the leader in its market. It’s no surprise that AI did the same.
- Creativity: Human creativity can’t be replicated. This is the kind of campaign that makes you slap your forehead saying “god I wish I’d come up with that!” and AI can’t replace that.
2. Boomi pushed creativity and productivity to the max
After a daring rebranding, Boomi needed to reinvent the ad creative they used for lead generation. Their existing ads just didn’t stand out from the masses enough, especially in the crowded tech market.
But when you’re looking at finding a new creative direction, you’re dealing with limitless options. You could lock a hundred designers in the office for a week and still feel like there’s an option out there in the aether that would fit your brand just that much better.
That’s why Boomi used Superside’s AI-Enhanced Creative Services for this initiative.
How AI changed the game
Neither Boomi nor Superside wanted to lock designers in an office to get this campaign going, but we wanted the same results. That’s why we used a combination of Adobe Firefly and Midjourney to generate a ton of visuals to help Boomi hone in on a creative direction. That resulted in:
- A 3x increase in creative output.
- Over 75 images generated.
When you want to be sure you’ve seen all your options before choosing a creative direction, AI tools are a fantastic asset.
Want to know more about how Superside made this happen for Boomi? Read the full story.
3. Coke “Create Real Magic” campaign
With its Create Real Magic campaign, Coke wanted to channel the creativity latent in every single customer. That’s why they partnered with Bain & Company and OpenAI to build a tool anyone could use to generate their own Coke visuals—and share them to social media.
Based on a library of Coke imagery, this tool allowed customers to create their own graphics with just a little bit of image editing and an AI prompt.
The result? A massive crowdsourced campaign that rode the AI hype train and delivered a ton of new creative.
How AI changed the game
Could you imagine the resources it would have taken for Coke to supply enough resources for an ad campaign like this without AI? No matter the results of the campaign, it’d be tough to justify all the work involved or get a positive ROI from it.
AI-Enhanced Creative Campaigns are at their best when saving your designers time while delivering outstanding results. And if your campaign is intrinsically linked to AI conceptually? Even better.
4. D2L Brightspace defined a new market space
Consistency and innovation. That’s what D2L Brightspace needed to start a new, more playful chapter with its visual brand. It already had stellar copy for its campaigns, but needed a range of creative assets that would both express a new, standout visual style while remaining consistent throughout.
Doing this with a more traditional design process would have taken months, all to have a few creative directions to choose from—and not enough assets for more than a few campaigns.
By combining AI tools with the creativity and judgment of human designers, Superside and D2L Brightspace were able to create a distinct, consistent visual identity in a fraction of that time, plus a ton of new creative.
How AI changed the game
AI made this rebranding much smoother than it would have been otherwise, giving the team at D2L Brightspace more time to focus on implementing the campaign instead of generating creative. In hard numbers, that meant:
- Saving 70% of the design time required for this campaign.
- Creating 114 ad variations.
All while maintaining brand consistency.
Want to get more detail on how this happened? Read the full story.
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5. Nike: "Never Done Evolving" campaign
Nike’s campaign, featuring the greatest tennis player in the world, used AI to crunch data from almost two decades of tennis matches and generate 130,000 games that simulate a matchup between Serena Williams early in her career and her at her 2017 level of play.
The result? AI-generated visuals that capture the imagination and inspire a generation of athletes. Oh, and an award-winning campaign, to boot.
How AI changed the game
The resulting creative for this campaign pairs two of AI’s greatest strengths; processing tons of data and generating visuals in a fraction of the time it would take a human artist. Human creativity is at the core of this campaign, but an AI-enhanced creative process is what made the end result possible.
6. Unigloves got photorealistic, fast
When it comes to trusting a product with your skin, nothing is more convincing than seeing people like you using it. But when your ideal customers include everyone from mechanics to firefighters and tattoo artists, getting the creative you need for an ad campaign that covers them all can quickly eat up your budget. That’s why Unigloves teamed up with Superside for this AI-enhanced campaign.
The goal? Producing creative that targeted all Unigloves customers with a small budget and killer ROI. With AI, we were able to generate more than enough creative so every Unigloves customer was represented in the final campaign.
How AI changed the game
By using Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, and Photoshop for those finishing touches, Unigloves got the big campaign they wanted without the price tag. That meant:
- A 57% reduction in overall design time.
- 250 unique images generated.
7. Nutella: Unica jars
Imagine if a brand could personalize its design for every single customer, giving each of them a one-in-a-million experience. That’s exactly what Nutella did for its Unica campaign in Italy.
Using a single algorithm, Nutella designed 7 million unique labels based on dozens of patterns and thousands of color combinations. The jars each had their own unique ID code and were distributed throughout Italy. The code could be used to redeem a unique digital experience where each customer was invited to create their own video showing off their personal jar of Nutella.
How AI changed the game
Seven million unique designs. That’s the kind of scale that’s only possible with AI. Pair it with a feeling that’s truly human—being unique—and you’ve got the makings of a great campaign.
8. SmartNews got clever with sports photography
If you’re into sports, you know just how valuable data is. Coaches use it to tailor their training programs and their strategies. Managers use it to decide which players to draft every year. Even sports betters rely on it to win big. For a news aggregator like SmartNews, the game is all about getting that data in front of its readers faster than the competition. When it came time to launch a digital campaign last summer, the team at SmartNews wanted more than just stock photos and basic design. They wanted game-winning, buzzer-beating ads.
With AI, Superside created a distinctive visual brand for SmartNews that went the extra mile, with graphics that stand head-and-shoulders above the competition.
How AI changed the game
It’s tough to beat stock pictures for convenience and speed, but they’re not iconic. With AI-enhanced creative processes, Superside delivered on the speed associated with stock pictures with a unique style for SmartNews. Here are the numbers
- 67.5% reduction in design time.
- 154 unique options generated.
9. Trivago took AI to TV commercials
Planning a trip can be overwhelming, which is where platforms like Trivago come in. But video production at scale can be just as overwhelming, which is where AI platforms come in.
As part of a broader revamp of its visual identity, Trivago needed new ads and creative in multiple languages for multiple demographics. That’s why they turned to AI-enhanced creative to cut down on production times (and costs) without sacrificing their campaign’s reach.
How AI changed the game
For some campaigns, AI is at the core of the initial concept. For others, it’s a tool for streamlining production without sacrificing quality, which is especially important when your creative is at the heart of a broader—more expensive—initiative.
10. Amsive built a brand library
Amsive is a performance marketing agency operating at the cutting edge of cookieless advertising and precision targeting. They needed striking graphics for an upcoming social media campaign that matched their forward-thinking services.
The team at Amsive wanted that delicate, ever-elusive combination of quality and quantity without sacrificing brand consistency. Other design teams might have taken months to produce just a few assets. But with Superside’s AI-enhanced creative process, the Amsive team got a custom-built content library they could reuse and remix to supply campaigns for years to come.
How AI changed the game
AI-powered creation challenges conventions around what’s possible on a tight budget. By pairing the judgment, skills, and creativity of human designers with the raw power of generative AI tools, Superside generated tons of creative in a fraction of the time it might have taken five years ago (and a fraction of the budget too).
Want Your Own AI-Enhanced Ad Creative and AI-Powered Creative Team?
Whether you’re building an asset library to spin up ads on the fly or a campaign that marries the best of human creativity and AI output to create stunning results, you need a partner who gets it.
That’s where Superside comes in.
Superside’s AI-Enhanced Creative Services are industry-leading, helping you find that intersection between the efficiency of AI and the unique creativity only human designers are capable of.
Want to see how? Book a call and we’ll be happy to walk you through it!
Nick is a Content Writer and Strategist specializing in long-form marketing content and turning SEO traffic into paying customers. He's well-versed in the technology industry and pulls from his experience as a marketer who's worked closely with many creatives to craft content for Superside. Two truths and a lie: He's been a professional wrestler, writes on a blue typewriter and reads 100 books a year.
