The rise of generative AI (GenAI) is shaking up the advertising world, forcing agencies to reevaluate their value propositions. While agencies currently use AI to streamline mundane tasks, and the majority plan to make further investments into AI to power productivity increase, the true potential of GenAI lies in its ability to amplify human creativity.
Brands increasingly prioritize cost-effectiveness while upholding the same expectations on the quality and impact of work delivered by their agencies. Many are implementing AI-based creativity tools, or leveraging those available on the market. So how can agencies prevent creativity from becoming commoditized, and safeguard, or even enhance, their margins? The moment has arrived for agencies to tap into GenAI's potential and explore new horizons. By moving beyond mere productivity gains and embracing technology as a partner in creativity, agencies can unlock a wealth of new possibilities. Read on to find out how.
Advertising Week Europe 2024
At this year’s Advertising Week Europe in London, our VP of Marketing, Valeria Balaro, was invited to speak about the critical topic of how AI is changing agency propositions due to evolving brand expectations and the overall value of the creative industry.
Key takeaways from the session:
- Rethinking compensation: GenAI is democratizing and, in some cases, commoditizing creativity. As GenAI reduces operational costs, brands might develop their own AI tools or reevaluate agency partnerships, shifting away from labor-based fees.
- Evolving creativity evaluation: Brands are now demanding higher creative standards. Using GenAI to elevate authentic human creativity provides heightened value, along with necessary distinction from content purely generated by AI.
- Streamlined personalization: Proprietary, public and client data sets can be plugged into GenAI to model consumer responses for optimization and hyper-personalization, all in near real-time.
- New revenue streams: Agencies can productize GenAI tools, offering them to brands as part of their tech stack. They can even provide a marketplace model, allowing other vendors to build extensions and add-ons on top of their AI tools. This positions agencies as indispensable tech partners to brands and unlocks new revenue streams with monetization models such as subscription-based or consumption models.
The future of agency-brand relationships depends on how well agencies adapt to and integrate GenAI. Agencies shouldn't adopt GenAI merely because their competition is. Its use should be strategically aligned with agency and client goals, and deeply integrated into new business models, serving both internal agency needs and value to brands.
Watch the event recording
Online panel discussion: Generative AI in advertising
Recently, we hosted an insightful online panel discussion to delve deeper into the generative AI in advertising beyond its role as a productivity tool. Valeria Balaro (VP of Marketing, Star) was joined by industry leaders Jon Lonsdale (CEO, Publicis Pro), Vitaly Pecherskiy (CEO and Co-Founder, StackAdapt), and Scott Tieman (Global Head of AdTech & MarTech, Star) to explore the following:
- The impact of GenAI on agency-brand dynamics and programmatic capabilities
- Insights on operational augmentation and compensation model shifts
- Star's strategic framework for monetizing GenAI tools for agency growth
Missed the panel discussion? Don't worry! You can watch the recap to catch up on all the valuable insights from industry leaders.
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