O2’s ability to creatively use Bubl was restricted by time and budget constraints, limiting his visibility and potential.
The production of Bubl at a high creative standard was hindered by high costs (~£4,000 per asset) and long timelines, limiting his use to high-budget broadcast campaigns, where crafting his personality was often sidelined due to prioritising the campaign’s proposition. Whilst being a beloved add-on to the story, 50% of O2 customers are unsure of Bubl’s role in campaigns. This lack of a consistent character and creative flexibility restricted his story-telling prowess as well as his visibility.
Objectives
Reduce Time and Costs of Bubl Assets: Streamline the asset creation process to lower both the financial and temporal investments.
Increase Visibility Across Diverse Media Channels: Extend Bubl's presence beyond traditional broadcast mediums to enhance audience engagement.
Develop a Stronger Character/Personality: There’s an opportunity to drive greater affinity by doubling down on Bubl as a consistent character capable of embodying and conveying O2's brand values, enabling him to do more of the narrative heavy lifting.
Our aim was clear: to cost-effectively proliferate Bubl across touchpoints, whilst transforming him into a more influential narrative force.
Bubl Generator - Branded Image model
In the midst of the AI zeitgeist of 2024 - O2 were desperate to try out this innovative technology that seemed to promise a silver bullet solution to their problem. However, the challenge is that the popular and accessible models do not know your brand… if fact legally they aren’t allowed to.
Our solution was to harness the creative potential of AI tools by creating our own bespoke diffusion model based on Stable Diffusion that is available to O2. The new-model is hosted on Microsoft’s cloud computing software, Azure which protects the client's IP. We were able to ‘See what Bubl can do’ by using simple text prompts to generate images of Bubl in almost any fathomable context, giving creatives a lot more creative freedom. We learnt that we needed to custom-train the model using images of Bubl from numerous unconventional perspectives (e.g. from behind) and poses in order to closely control our output. To achieve this we integrated a ‘digital twin’ of Bubl into Unreal Engine, allowing us to animate him in dynamic and novel poses. The images generated by our AI tool were strategically prompted to position Bubl in contexts that embody O2's mission and offer. We were able to endow Bubl with a personality, as a travel-loving, bread-baking, gig-attending robot, that can be disseminated across touchpoints.
Outcome and Impact
The AI tool's implementation has directly addressed and successfully completed the outlined objectives, revolutionising the way we leverage Bubl as a brand mascot for O2:
Increase Visibility Across Diverse Media Channels: Our AI tool has enabled Bubl to transcend the limitations of traditional broadcast mediums, amplifying his presence across a spectrum of digital platforms. By producing a variety of contextually relevant images, Bubl now engages audiences through reactive social media posts, websites, and other online channels, enhancing his visibility and reinforcing O2's iconicity. This widespread digital presence keeps O2 top of mind for consumers.
In conclusion, the AI tool has not only solved financial challenges but also elevated Bubl's role within O2's marketing strategy. Being able to produce branded assets at a speed and cost previously unfathomable has expanded Bubl's digital presence, and enhanced his character. The AI tool has redefined the effectiveness and impact of brand mascots in storytelling and brand engagement.
