Everyone and their dog is talking about AI these days. But while you get naysayers and true believers in equal measure, it’s rarer to get people willing to say they’re not entirely sure what’s coming down the road (at least to trade press hacks, anyway).

Thinkerbell, however, has at least two such folk in co-founder Adam Ferrier and chief creative tinker Tom Wenborn.

Despite that uncertainty, the agency has decided to get on the front foot with ‘Made Promptly’.

Keen-eyed readers will have spotted Thinkerbell’s latest AI work for Menulog was produced with Heckler and ‘Made Promptly’. B&T, ever keen to find folks to buy us a beer in the name of networking, started asking around to see if Made Promptly was a new production company that we could meet with. We discovered there was a lot more to it than initially met the eye.

“We don’t really know what it is,” said Wenborn.

“It’s a label, I guess. It’s not a business, it’s not a company. We haven’t set up a separate department or anything. It’s just what we’re using to try to galvanise and wrap around anything that we’re making in an alternative way with AI at the heart of it. It’s mainly to signal to us internally that we have the capabilities where we’re happy to evolve with it but also externally to the industry and clients that we’re not shying away from whatever this is going to become.

“I guess it’s a tricky one because we haven’t actually defined what it is beyond a label of sorts,” Wenborn added.

So if Made Promptly is hard to pin down, perhaps its more indicative to show what is has helped to make.

In its work for Menulog, Thinkerbell worked with Heckler (and Made Promptly) to engineer a custom creative toolkit that fused live action filmmaking, traditional VFX and AI models. This, Thinkerbell said, allowed one campaign to scale into hundreds of unique ads, without sacrificing craft or storytelling

Here’s a look at two of those executions.

For TAC, it recast the automobile as Australia’s greatest predator. Wenborn said that the work was “an experimental process” with everything from image generation to the workflow to audio restriping having AI involvement.

“That was one were the client really came with us on a bit of a journey,” he said.

“AI is not new to the world but in the last two years, it’s become a big, loud thing for our industry to fear or try to claim. We’ve seen sole AI businesses pop up, work streams and other things,” said Wenborn.

“I don’t think we’re here to predict what it’s going to become or what it’s going to do. But what we do want to do is be part of it. We don’t want to try to define it for anyone… What we’ve said about Made Promptly is it doesn’t even have to endure. We could close it by Christmas or in six months time. It might reinvent itself in the coming months.”

Ferrier echoed Wenborn’s thoughts, saying that the current standalone AI businesses offered in the market are “pretty functional” but lacking on inspiration.

“What’s more interesting to us is how AI can enhance the creative process and distribute that content to put it in the world. when the right tools get developed to make [automation] happen, we’ll start to embrace those and bring them on board. But that’s not our business model to develop a tool specifically,” he said.

“We’re taking this approach because Thinkerbell’s proposition is to unleash measured magic into the world to keep things interesting. We’re interested in how AI can help deliver on that. So if we find it interesting and motivating, then that’s where we’re going to place our emphasis.

“At the moment, we’re embracing AI throughout the agency but we’re not trying to put it in a bucket and say ‘It has to do this’. We want a framework to be able to explore it as the area develops. That’s why we’re using ‘Made Promptly’ through the agency but we’re not saying it’s a division or it’s a separate business unit,” added Ferrier.

“Paradoxically, it’s a little bit of structure, a rallying point that people know to use AI and recognise when they’re using AI and deliberately leaning into the space a bit more.”

The Menulog work, Wenborn said, was a great example of what could be possible if both client and creative team lean into the tech. Ferrier and Wenborn both said that other clients, including Chinese automaker GWM, are starting to ask what Thinkerbell could do for them with AI.

“We put creatives in every conversation with the businesses we partner with so there’s a closer link between the creatives and the business problems. Now, thanks to AI, there’s a closer link between those creatives and production. We’re bringing the ability to make closer to the business problem—which is good, it’s exciting. But there’s also a heap of concerns and watch outs that come with it,” said Wenborn.

“There’s an experimental mindset that some clients are really leaning into and often Thinkerbell is thought of as doing those disruptive ideas. I think we’re getting a lot of knocks on the door because of that.

“Over time, everyone will optimise, find the shortcuts, save time and money here and there. But the truth is, if you care about what you’re doing, you care about what you’re putting out into the world, there’s going to be a very different standard between the AI slop that can generate itself and everyone being a creative versus the professionals that are using this tool to add value on top of what they’re already doing,” Wenborn continued.

At the moment, Ferrier said, Thinkerbell is “holding onto” Made Promptly.

“We love it. We’re holding onto it at this stage but we’re also holding onto it loosely. At the moment, it fits our needs to galvanise around the issue and figure out where Made Promptly sits, where it adds value, where it doesn’t and so on. It could become its own business unit, but it could also disappear. We’re totally open to seeing how it evolves,” he said.

And so are we, for what it’s worth. AI is very likely to be the future—Ferrier described as a “far cry” from the Metaverse and NFTs (thank god)—but what that future is, remains elusive as a prospect.

“It’s amazing that people are coming out with such certain predictions [on AI]. I’ve been around for a while and I’ve never seen anything as revolutionary as this hit our industry. It’s absolutely fascinating,” Ferrier said.

“This is something very, very different and so we have to ride with it. We need some language, an idea, a philosophy that rides with it as it develops—not to say, ‘Right, this is it.’

“The alternative has been to mop up the really boring bits and say ‘Right, we’re going to build a business out of the really functional stuff’. We have no interest in doing that. If others want to do it, then we’ll happily take that on board. But that’s not our game.”

That should be an exciting prospect for all creatives and all clients who value creative. Anyway, about that pint…

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