Trailblazing Human vs AI debate wins award

As industry leaders in AI-powered brand data insights, GfK-NIQ understands the importance of pushing boundaries with our own award-winning brand awareness campaigns.

Leaders in AI Innovation

AI technology has played an integral role in GfK-NIQ’s operational landscape for many years. Our flagship market, consumer, and brand intelligence product gfknewron would not be possible without AI. Early this year, inspired by the ChatGPT phenomenon, we decided to make AI the centerpiece of our 2023 brand-building initiative. As innovators in the AI-powered data insights field, we embraced the opportunity to demonstrate our forward-thinking approach to AI in a fun, lighthearted, and engaging manner. Additionally, we wanted a unique idea to showcase our leadership in the CMO arena while putting our capabilities to the test with a swift, effective, and relevant top-of-funnel brand campaign.

Thanks to our innovative efforts in bringing the Human vs AI campaign to life, it not only resonated deeply with our audience and gained significant traction on social media, but also garnered recognition from esteemed industry awards.

Our campaign won Silver in the "Best Use of AI" category at the B2B Marketing Awards 2023. This award places us among a distinguished group of brands that have showcased exceptional creativity and innovation in their respective fields this year.

A lot of thought and effort went into bringing this concept to life. I encourage anyone to watch the video because the outcome was excellent. The AI’s answers were not just intelligent but were what I would expect from a discussion with another CMO. Margaret did a fantastic job briefing ChatGPT for the debate – of course, this in itself proves that human direction is still very important when working with AI tools. I thoroughly enjoyed bantering with Ruby the Robot and look forward to the next ‘Human vs AI’ challenge.

Gonzalo Garcia Villanueva

Global Chief Marketing Officer, GfK-NIQ
This campaign advanced our goal of establishing GfK-NIQ as a thought leader in the AI space. The campaign exceeded our expectations, generating brand awareness with 6.87 million impressions through optimized use of paid and programmatic ads, highlighting our commitment to innovation in the way we deliver our campaigns. We are thrilled to solidify our ‘Full View’ promise, leveraging advanced AI capabilities to drive industry conversations and business growth. Huble was the perfect partner, contributing their strategic, creative, and execution expertise to the success of this campaign.

Ben Murphy

Global Head, Solution & Audience Marketing, GfK-NIQ
We are witnessing so many practical and innovative uses for AI. The ongoing debate about which tasks AI can take over from humans, which tasks it can’t, and the ways humans can work together with AI to make our lives better, smarter, or happier – was the inspiration behind this idea. For the last several years, we've partnered with GfK – now an NIQ company – which uses AI in one of its key solutions, gfknewron. So, naturally, we thought this campaign would be a fun, relevant take on how AI could potentially go head-to-head against a CMO to tackle key trends, challenges, and where it could be heading into the future.

Margaret Ady

VP of Strategic Marketing Services, Huble

The birth of Human vs AI

As with many of our campaigns, our internal marketing team at GfK-NIQ collaborated closely with creative agency partner Huble. Led by Ben Murphy, Global Head of Solution & Audience Marketing at GfK-NIQ, and Margaret Ady, VP of Strategic Marketing Services at Huble, a compelling video campaign idea was conceived featuring a debate between our CMO, Gonzalo Garcia Villanueva, and ChatGPT.

The debate revolved around current industry trends and how marketing leaders should adapt to them, addressing the intriguing question: "Can AI truly replace our roles?" The debate covered five pivotal marketing questions, with Margaret Ady moderating and awarding points for the winning responses.

Beyond the video debate, the stellar internal and agency team driving execution leveraged a multi-channel approach to ensure the campaign and paid media plan encompassed a range of components: teaser videos for advertisements and social media, meticulously crafted landing page content, social media posts and captions, paid search and social media content, various collateral materials (banners, emailers, newsletters), programmatic advertising, online publications, and collaboration with B2B influencers.

These elements converged harmoniously to form a comprehensive and impactful campaign. Making GfK-NIQ the first business to launch a marketing campaign featuring a debate between a human CMO and an AI.

Watch Huble’s case study on the Human vs AI campaign:

Introducing Ruby the Robot

To bring our composite AI character, Ruby the Robot, to life, we employed the AI-powered video tool, Studio D-ID, to create a captivating animated avatar. We collaborated with 11Labs to give the robot an effective voice to communicate ChatGPT’s answers. Additionally, we engaged Beatoven to incorporate AI-generated intro and outro music, ensuring that our campaign fully embraced AI throughout.

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The video production was handled by New Leaf, who worked closely with us on location, visualizing the robot, and managing all aspects of production. This seamless collaboration resulted in a captivating and cohesive campaign that effectively showcased GfK-NIQ's innovative approach.

Watch the full debate in the video below:

An AI campaign with incredible brand impact

Our primary campaign objective was to elevate brand awareness, with a particular focus on tracking impressions through the landing page gfk.com/AI. The campaign went above and beyond, surpassing expectations by nearly 2 million impressions. Initially projected at 5 million, the final count exceeded expectations at an impressive 6.87 million.

The effectiveness of our paid advertising efforts on Google search and GfK-NIQ's social platforms was evident, as they accounted for the majority of the campaign's budget allocation. Remarkably, these channels generated 90% of the total impressions while only utilizing 34% of the budget, a testament to Huble's SEM consultancy expertise. Our programmatic ads, executed through Demandbase, emerged as the second most successful avenue for impressions. Notably, this channel also proved cost-efficient, consuming only 15% of the campaign's budget.

Despite their higher cost, publications such as Wired, Campaign, and Emarketer played a pivotal role in enhancing the campaign's visibility. Although they constituted 30% of the budget, they played an indispensable role in reaching our target audience and bolstering brand recognition. Our engagement with influencers, while representing a substantial portion of the budget (21%), delivered valuable exposure and engagement. Though their impact in terms of impressions may have been comparatively lower, their influence extended beyond mere numbers, fostering meaningful connections with our target audience.

In summary, the campaign's remarkable results and strategic budget allocation across diverse channels underscored the effectiveness of our chosen strategies and the campaign's ability to achieve widespread brand awareness.

Click on the images to enlarge:

A closer look at Human vs AI

Interested in delving into the campaign's intricacies? Across two episodes of the ANA Marketing Futures Podcast, Gonzalo Villanueva and Margaret Ady provide an in-depth exploration of the campaign's inner workings.

In the first episode, they reveal the inspiration that sparked the idea, delve into the various AI technologies that brought Ruby to life, and discuss the fascinating process of getting ChatGPT to think like a CMO.

The second episode features Ruby herself, as the team reflects on the composite AI's remarkable ability to engage in a debate with a real, live CMO.

Driving global growth with unparalleled insights and AI integration

The B2B Marketing Award not only attests to the campaign’s excellence but also validates GfK-NIQ’s legacy of trust, innovation, and impactful marketing. We take immense pride in our achievements and are excited about the possibilities ahead. With 100 years of building trust worldwide, GfK-NIQ is a reliable growth partner, offering ‘The Full View’ of insights into consumer behavior, market dynamics, brand performance, and media trends. GfK’s merger with NIQ in 2023 has strengthened our global reach, allowing us to provide unparalleled insights on the consumer landscape, powered by advanced AI analytics. GfK-NIQ continues to lead in AI integration, transforming decision-making and consistently delivering exceptional results.