Plenty of executives describe themselves as “ninjas” and “rock stars” on LinkedIn, but few can bring those loft claims to life in video advertising. However, new ads from customer experience firm 8x8 do just that, turning two of the company’s real-life clients into the featured stars in ads created entirely with artificial intelligence (AI).

The 30-second spots feature AI-generated versions of Chris Gensmantel, the chief information officer at LSH Auto, and Genelle Chamberlain, IT manager at PrimeSource, respectively, in a series of outsized vignettes that translate professional issues into visual metaphors. Gensmantel is an archeologist (excavating customer insights), a race car driver (speeding past legacy roadblocks), a tightrope walker (balancing systems) and a monster truck driver (demolishing outdated tech). 

Meanwhile, Chamberlain is a deep-sea diver (discovering insights), an orchestra conductor (harmonizing teams) and a daredevil in a cannon (who lands it every time when problems spark). Both ads end with a mundane moment in the office, like “crushing” a quarterly meeting or eating lunch. The campaign, made in collaboration with creative agency Barrett Hofherr and AI production studio 1st Ave, are part of 8x8’s customer-focused “Power of You” campaign.

“At the beginning, [‘Power of You’] was just a very good name that would put the customer at the center, and then it slowly evolved to not only putting them at the center, but also leading with the storytelling from their angle,” said 8x8 CMO Bruno Bertini.

The choice to use AI for the production of the ad developed out of a year-plus effort to refresh the brand and a decision to foreground the emerging technology that it was already using internally, from custom workflows to image creation — not “marketing BS AI,” Bertini said.

“When we were talking with our creative partners, they were like, ‘What's your appetite for risk?’,” the executive recalled. “Instead of seeing risk for us, it was an advantage because of cost — the ability for us to scale production was something that got me very interested.”

Finding its own ‘Moldy Whopper’

8x8 is a nearly 40-year-old technology services company with a name that nods to the 64-bit world of microchips. For Bertini, who joined the firm two years ago, a key challenge was to refresh a brand that had gotten stale and use marketing to help the company reposition beyond just its look and feel.

After a deep dive into clients spanning research and focus groups and time spent with analysts, experts and prospects, 8x8 crafted a rebrand that worked to change the brand’s energy, showcase both products and outcomes, and begin to surface the buyer in marketing communications. To build on the refresh, Bertini began casting around for an ad campaign that could serve as 8x8’s version of Burger King’s award-winning “Moldy Whopper” effort or Salesforce’s “Trailblazers” campaign.  

“We're a small brand and a small team, but we can eat risks that other people may think are too big for their company,” the CMO said.

That’s when 8x8’s agency partners broached the subject of using AI to completely create a video ad, eventually landing on a “Power of You” concept that would allow the company to showcase clients and serve as an iterable model that could help its ad dollars go further. After finding clients that were willing, both personally and legally, to participate, the brand and agency worked to translate client pain points into visual metaphors.

The campaign developed in tandem with the sharpening of AI tools like Google’s Veo 2. Early ad prototypes were not ready for prime time but showed promise, and as the AI workflows improved, so did the final product, from facial images to body representation of client partners.

“If they did not see themselves in those ads, our whole concept would have failed, and if they didn't adopt their ads as their own, we would have failed,” Bertini said.

Feedback to the ads, from both the clients included and others, has been positive and mostly consists of other firms interested in how 8x8 pulled off the ad using AI. For Bertini, the ad is proof that B2B marketers can use the same type of creative storytelling as B2C marketers, if they have the tools and the right attitude.

“If you've spent time inside B2B, get out of your square-headed thinking and just do something cool. It's not very easy for B2B, even for multibillion dollar companies,” the executive said. “Being able to have that culture is something that we're learning as a company and something that we're actually enjoying.”