In a world where everything looks the same, uniqueness is the only weapon marketers have to win over competition. But uniqueness comes from innovation, and the only way to break through into innovative communication is with deep exploration and iteration. Only when teams can test different solutions, explore opposing ideas, and conceptualize divergent solutions, do uniqueness starts to emerge - paving the way to create better experiences.
But, what are we calling "better experiences," and why is this such a big deal? In the world of digital marketing, "better experiences" really just means creating moments that are special and personal for each user, that touch them emotionally, and that clearly reflect what the brand is all about. These special moments help people recognize and remember, and build a strong emotional connection between them and the brand. But what's really cool is that these moments aren't just about buying or using a product or service. They're about the journey each person goes on, and how that journey leaves them feeling good about the brand.
In other words, the power of iteration lies in understanding that the more time you spend trying to define a brand, create a website, or conceptualize a campaign, the closer you get to innovative solutions.
“It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.” - Albert Einstein
But how do you spend more time when you are expected to do even more with less time? How do you push for uniqueness in a market where launching a week later could mean a heavy hit on revenue and market positioning? That’s where AI plays a unique role and gives an unfair advantage to those who can truly harness its power.
The iterative power of AI helps brands move faster through iteration, allowing them to explore different variations of an idea, or even entire new concepts, in a fraction of the time. For example, designers can change backgrounds on a website hero, or test different styles from 3d, sketches, artistic, and more by just using a prompt in Midjourney. And the best part is that this process is not about moving quick and dirty, this process is all about fast-forwarding innovation by speeding up iteration.
Tools like Midjourney, Dall-E, and other generative AI, which are used to create images, can be applied in a wide variety of ways, ranging from finding inspiration to creating mood boards. Our mood boards typically focus more on how the website should feel, so these tools are excellent for discovering concepts beyond UI elements.
Beyond generative AI, large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT have the capability to serve as brainstorming companions, where you can exchange ideas, research concepts from different fields that could bring inspiration into design, experiment with various content, and more. And beyond even that there are breathtaking things being researched and developed like DragGAN, which lets you manipulate images by just dragging them, Flawless, that lets you change the language or edit scripts of videos while manipulating expressions and lips movements, or Blockade Labs, that allows you to create 3d environments with doodles.
But moving deeper into iteration, you can feel there is a new wave of AI breakthroughs that are changing how we work. Like Google with Style Drop, that turns images into text, but in any style you pick from a reference image. Or Spline with AI Style Transfer, which lets you changes the style of 3D designs in seconds.
There is so much coming up to keep empowering design iteration and keep pushing the boundaries of the experiences we can create!
