How technology is accelerating digital marketing with AI-powered campaigns

The fashion industry has switched into early adopter mode – perhaps at just the right time.

Industries that took years to embrace e-commerce have changed their tune and are now moving fast to keep up with the rapid changes in technology, nowhere is this more evident than in digital marketing, where fashion, beauty and luxury brands connect with consumers.

Nearly every aspect of business today relies on some form of technology, a fact highlighted by Friday's tech meltdown, when banks, airlines and companies around the world were thrown into disarray by a software update.

Now the fashion industry is embracing technology, with brands and retailers quickly jumping on the next big thing, including the metaverse, augmented reality and blockchain.

Today, artificial intelligence is not only opening new doors, but also has the ability to accelerate other tech trends, making it the nexus between consumers and technology trends.

Machine intelligence is already working to solve a variety of marketing woes, from finding alternatives in ad targeting to developing strategy and creative content.

Why AI will impact marketing

“We're talking about a shift that gives independent marketers, creatives and startups the tools to execute like billion-dollar brands, at a fraction of the cost,” explained Massimiliano Tirocchi, chief marketing officer at Trafilea Tech E-Commerce Group, the consumer technology group behind shapewear brand Shapermint, lingerie line TrueKind, The Spa Dr. Skincare and The BodCon conference.

The fashion and beauty industries are already using genAI to cut photo production costs, he said, as these systems can offer instant changes and multiple options in different formats without the need for reshoots or weeks of post-production and editing.

While big brands like Valentino, Moncler, and Prada began exploring the advertising and marketing power of AI early on, others ran into difficulties as they rushed to adopt cutting-edge tools. In 2023, there was backlash against Levi's. The company was criticized for failing to introduce a plan to test models created with genAI. Initially, it said it was a way to increase the “number and diversity” of its models, but later clarified that the statement did not adequately represent the program and it was suspended.

But the AI ​​craze isn't over. In fact, the technology is spurring new projects, from Etro's AI-generated campaign in early 2024 to European fashion group Mango's first fully machine-created campaign in July. Even tech company Motorola got into the fashion world with a fantasy runway show featuring models wearing styles inspired by the company's foldable smartphone.

According to McKinsey, genAI is expected to increase the fashion industry's operating profits by $150 billion to $275 billion by 2030, with marketing being one of its biggest drivers. These tools are constantly evolving, driving marketing at all levels and becoming more widespread.

“In the past 12 months alone, we've seen creators, influencers, and startups become faster and more creative when it comes to creating scripts, caption styles, and video edits without needing a team,” says Tirocchi. “They can even create entire videos, photoshoots, and images entirely with just genAI and the right prompts.”

Content is only part of the equation: AI allows marketers to conduct advanced market research and get sentiment analysis quickly, helping them identify opportunities and organize focus groups and interviews in days instead of weeks.

Once you train your bot with internal and market data, it can instantly tackle your entire campaign, from briefing to content creation, keeping your brand's tone and specific targeting in mind.

Of course, AI gaffes and illusions will still occur, so human involvement and judgment are still necessary, but big tech companies are racing to iron out the flaws and perfect the machines.

Brands are preparing for AI marketing

Tirocchi cited Google, Meta and TikTok as examples of how major platforms are racing to develop AI tools to help creators and advertisers produce content faster, and these tools are coming at a time when brands are ready to take advantage of AI.

Over the past few years, the fashion and beauty industries have upped the ante in technology by jumping on trends, experimenting with new techniques and implementing new knowledge. At the same time, we have also seen major cycles of disruptive forces pushing and pulling in digital advertising and marketing.

The industry was soon at a boil over with metaverse hype, gaming giants like Roblox approaching retailers, full-scale panic erupted when Apple and Google made it harder to track users, the possibility of TikTok being banned in the US emerged, and the influencer-driven creator economy prompted outrageous predictions, with Goldman Sachs estimating it could be worth almost $500 billion by 2027.

“From the 2020 metaverse to the continued politicization of TikTok and other social platforms, marketers understand that trends are changing faster than ever before,” said Jen Jones, chief marketing officer at Commerce Tools, a tech-driven digital commerce platform that serves a wide range of clients from Sephora and NBCUniversal to HighSnobiety.

A big question mark hangs over TikTok after lawmakers issued an ultimatum that it must find a US parent company or it will be removed from US app stores.

Jones said that while logging out of TikTok is a possibility, brands are in no rush to do so.

In fact, Jones said the opposite is happening.

“Despite the political issues, we've seen a huge shift in digital marketing budgets to platforms like TikTok,” she said.

On the platform, her attention is glued to the longer videos (up to 60 minutes) that TikTok has started testing, which Jones calls a “digital marketing goldmine,” giving brands and retailers easier commerce integrations and room for product promotion and discovery, while TikTok is endlessly leveraging its prolific AI powers to personalize the feed.

With each new development, brands have become smarter and smarter, and now they are looking to apply that smartness when connecting with their customers.

For many brands, that place is somewhere within an ecosystem like Meta.

Big Tech Company Has Big Vision for Adbots and GenAI

Understanding what works best, and in which places and formats, across the internet or even within an ecosystem, is a challenge. Consider that 3.2 billion people use one of Meta's apps every day (up 7% from last year).

This massive audience is spread across Instagram, Facebook, Messenger and WhatsApp, and ranges from organic and sponsored posts to Facebook and Instagram Shops. For example, Reels' short-form videos have seen a 50% increase in user watch time.

Meta released an automated AI advertising tool called “Advantage Plus” last year, and since then, fashion and beauty brands in particular have flocked to it to understand all the use cases, said Karin Tracey, head of industry, retail, fashion, beauty and luxury at Meta.

In a way, Advantage Plus acts as a marketing shortcut: brands can use it to target audiences across the entire customer journey with a single, AI-driven campaign, eliminating the need to deal with fragmented advertising with different goals like lead generation, retargeting, retention, etc. But it also does more than that.

“Think of it as an end-to-end solution. [with] “Everything is automated through AI: targeting, bidding, creative,” she explained. That could be crucial in a crowded market where Chinese e-commerce apps such as Temu and Shein are buying up ad inventory, sending prices soaring.

According to Tracey, it has seen a 32 percent increase in return on ad spend, and an average 9 percent increase in cost per app action when used in conjunction with App campaigns. This machine learning-based approach selects the most effective placements and shows higher-performing creative to the most relevant audiences.

The system also features creative genAI tools that can generate or enhance content or reformat it as needed.

“You can have one size image and then scale it up to fit all the different surfaces. [or] Text variations — so you put in one version of your copy, you can create dozens of versions, and the AI ​​will find the most effective combination of that copy to reach the right people,” Tracy added.

This level of flexibility is important for a brand like AS Beauty's Laura Geller, which targets mature consumers looking for anti-wrinkle creams and serums, so it's easy to think those ads should run on Facebook. But Scott Kramer, vice president of growth at AS Beauty, says it's best to take a more simplistic approach. Shoppers may find their needs change at different points in time.

“The great thing about AI is that as consumer shopping habits evolve, we don't have to think, 'Hey, my customer base is getting older, so I'm only going to market to them through Facebook,'” he said. “We let the AI ​​make decisions that will change month-to-month, year-to-year, instead of us making those decisions ourselves.”

“Some women in their 30s may spend a lot of time in the sun, so their skin type may have the same concerns we see in our ads.”

AS Beauty first got involved with Meta's AI platform last year, putting 5 to 10 percent of its advertising and marketing budget on the platform, but was so pleased with the results that after analysis, they stepped up spending to about 50 percent, pulling back on search advertising to free up resources.

Similarly, clean beauty brand Ogee Beauty saw “immediate, huge results,” said co-founder and chief marketing officer Alex Stark, who also doubled down on the initiative, calling it a “game changer.” In fact, Advantage Plus has been particularly powerful when combined with Shops, helping to drive a massive 250% sales growth for the brand's online business over the past year.

While Stark may not know specifically why tech companies are deploying AI in marketing on a large scale, he speculates that such tools have been developed “probably because of iOS updates, privacy changes and a cookie-less future. They're trying to prepare us for that.”

“The uncertainty of the future is one of the reasons we want to continue to work on other platforms and spaces,” he said.