The agency was intentional about the talent it chose to highlight.
“We wanted them to be aligned with the (marketing and advertising) industry or aligned with access—are you providing access, and is access a part of your story?” Gary Williams, co-founder and chief creative officer at Creative Theory Agency, told ADWEEK.
Other featured talent includes chef Keem Hughley of Bronze restaurant, who has provided a platform for Black and Brown chefs to experiment and learn their craft, and Angel Gregorio, who created Black + Forth, a commercial space to amplify Black-owned businesses in her native Washington, D.C.
Prompting the right images
The mechanics of getting the right images took a lot of trial and error by the Creative Theory team. It took over 20 prompts through generative AI platform Midjourney to get the right nuanced image for each subject to tell the right story, and the technology doesn’t always cooperate.
“Sometimes you get hallucinations, where there’s six fingers, or there’s an eye missing, or there’s no arm. To get an image that we felt was aligned with their lived experience … you really kind of have to be specific in your prompts,” said Williams.
Each subject got to approve their images, giving the stories a human perspective.
“The point that we’re really trying to prove is that these images align with someone and their story. We needed to take (the AI image) out of isolation and place it literally next to somebody so that people can see it in its in its truest form,” added George.
The need for AI inclusivity
There is an inherent fear that AI will take jobs away from the creative field, and Creative Theory Agency is cognizant that there are things that AI will commoditize. What “What Prompted You” hopes to achieve is to start a conversation around the jobs the technology will create, like prompt engineer or AI developer. But all creators having access to the technology is key.
“If we don’t have access to these tools, to the systems, we are going to be left behind in acquiring some of those jobs. If we have more input, there will be less demystifying that needs to be done around the fear of AI and what it’s going to do to our industry,” said Williams.
If the campaign can start a conversation around getting people access to these tools—whether it’s the building, the testing or the using—then the industry can start another conversation around the jobs that are going to be created.
The large OOH placements will be in the Union Market area of Washington, D.C., and will drive traffic back to whatpromptedyou.com, which provides resources around ways to get involved and learn more about AI. The agency also hopes it has an impact on how big brands, including tech brands that are developing AI, look to the future with the technology so that it grows inclusively.
“We wanted to make sure that this was big enough in scale where some of our brand partners can see it—the people who are literally making massive investments in these tools for the next century,” said George.