USING AN AI PIPELINE FOR STARBURST TO CREATE MODULAR CONTENT THAT IS “DIFFERENT EVERY TIME”
Our friends at DDB Chicago and Critical Mass came to us with an innovative opportunity for their client, Starburst. They wanted to pay-off their creative tagline “Different Every Time” by creating unique animated worlds “unlocked” by consuming a Starburst. The trick is they wanted to create a LOT of different versions of the video and use a mixed media pipeline that leverages AI to develop the animation styles of the worlds.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Ad fatigue is real. It’s been proven that a brand sees diminishing returns after someone has seen an ad multiple times. To combat this, the goal was to take a modular content approach to the creative and production so that multiple variations of the commercial would be created and served to people before ad fatigue sets in.
THE CREATIVE
During the scripting phase, a formula was created with modularity in mind. The script was broken into 4x modular sections:
1. Establishing Scene
4x different opening scenes (Living Room, Library, Kitchen and Office) that mapped to different real-world scenarios where our GenZ audience may be consuming Starburst.
2. Consumption Moments
The next portion of the video was the consumption moment, different ways of consuming Starburst (e.g. flavors, combos, etc.). The key to the creative tying back to Starburst was showing how the consumption moment unlocked the different worlds this would take our two featured talent.
3. Worlds
The third portion of the video were the worlds that we transport the stars of our spot to after they consume the Starburst. In each video, we showed 3 different worlds each triggered by a consumption of a Starburst.
4. End Card
The final portion of the video were different end cards that had taglines specific to the type of person we were targeting when they were delivered the spot, e.g., in work, study, chill or eating mode.
THE SHOOT
We cast two actors to show the interplay between people enjoying life and Starburst together and shot them on a 1 day green screen shoot.
Knowing that we wanted to leverage an AI pipeline for the animation/stylization of each world, it was important to shoot with this in mind. Some of the considerations were having enough data within the footage being captured (e.g. foreground or background) for a seamless AI detection. We also had both motion and static camera shots and ultimately used the static as this was better for the AI to use.
A MIXED MEDIA PIPELINE
A mixed media approach was taken using 3D for the backgrounds of the opening shots, VFX for compositing the live action with the 3D environments, as well as for compositing the photoreal instances of the AI worlds with the live action footage of the talent, combined with an AI style transfer pipeline applied directly to the live action footage that stylized the talent and the background and added subtle motion.
THE PURPOSE FOR USING AI
AI was used to style and animate the :09 “bridge” in the middle of the videos to create a variety of different Starburst worlds. This approach allowed us to create a unique look that gives these commercials a new type of design style. We leaned into the AI, its weirdness and inconsistencies (between frames). It provides a look that we wouldn’t necessarily achieve with a traditional animation pipeline. Additionally, it allowed us to create a new pipeline for creating a # of animation worlds.
AI STYLE TRANSFER
To inform the animation styles, we generated images with the Getty Images generative AI platform. This allowed us to use design styles and images that were licensed. These assets were then used for style transfer. Images and assets were generated on a private and local environment.
In addition, this library also establishes the reference images for creating the different AI world styles (e.g, Papercraft or Y2K). This was a collaboration process between DDB and Tool on pulling image style references from Getty and customizing it with Photoshop. Once ready, our training process used IP Adaptors to train on this content and apply the AI world style to the video from the green screen shoot.
POST PRODUCTION
Ultimately, 20 AI World Styles were delivered and integrated into the different variations, which culminated to 60 unique 3 second sequences. This included 16x 100% AI Style Transfer Worlds and 4x Photo Real, compositing the talent from the shoot into the backgrounds generated using AI.
In summary, we output 320 videos in all aspect ratios (4x5, 16x9, 1x1, 9x16)
AI STYLE TRANSFER WORLDS
Y2K
Wireframe
Pink Flamingo
Stained Glass
Cherry
Hot Air Balloon
Anime
Retro Soccer
Pixel
Papercraft
Orange Space
Fruity
Blockworld
Collage
Puzzle
Illuminated
PHOTO REAL WORLDS
Poster
Neo-Noir
Limoncello
Dinosaur World
WATCH THE SPOTS
"Studying"
"Homework"
"Working"
"Streaming"
CREDITS
Team OMC: DDB Chicago and Critical Mass
CLIENT SERVICES
EVP, Global Client Lead: Alysson Scartz (Critical Mass)
VP, Client Services: Lauren Rapoport (Critical Mass)
Account Director: Joey McGlumphy (Critical Mass)
Assistant Account Executive: Samuel Hess (DDB Chicago)
PROJECT DELIVERY
Program Director: Sarah Lobdell (Critical Mass)
Project Manager: Emma Carelle (Critical Mass)
BUSINESS AFFAIRS
Director of Business Affairs: Jillian English (DDB Chicago)
Business Affairs Director: Robyn Ho (Critical Mass)
STRATEGY
Global Strategy Director : Josh Drueck (DDB Chicago)
Head of Strategy: Jaime McGill (DDB Chicago)
Group Strategy Director: Kathryn Swiston (Critical Mass)
Associate Strategist: Jaylyn Oliver (Critical Mass)
CREATIVE
Chief Creative Officer: Colin Selikow (DDB Chicago)
VP, Executive Creative Director: Andrew Lavery (Critical Mass)
Group Creative Engineering Director: Cody Murri (Critical Mass)
Group Creative Director: Will Danilow (Critical Mass)
Group Creative Director: Brian Culp (DDB Chicago)
Group Creative Director: Katie Bero (DDB Chicago)
Creative Director: Mihail Alesksandrov (DDB Chicago)
Creative Director: Pedro Araujo (DDB Chicago)
Associate Creative Director: Meghan O’Neil (Critical Mass)
Associate Creative Director: Stephanie Newton (Critical Mass)
Associate Creative Director: Chantal Miyagishima (Critical Mass)
Designer: Iris Ti (Critical Mass)
Copywriter: Liam Walsh (Critical Mass)
PRODUCTION
Head of Production: Annie Larimer (DDB Chicago)
Senior Producer: Tommy Costello (Critical Mass)
Production Design Lead: Daniela Perez (Critical Mass)
Associate Production Designer: Paige Burger (Critical Mass)
Production Company: Tool
Live Action Directors: Bobby and Brig
AI, Creative Director: Ezra Paulekas
AI & Post Executive Producer: Dustin Callif
Content, Managing Director: Nancy Hacohen
Content, Executive Producer: Rob Sexton
Content, Head of Production: Adam Litt
Line Producer: John Scarth
DP: Liam Mitchell
Production Designer: Bill LeBlanc
Experience, Head of Production: Kaili Kubpart
AI & Post Producer: Max Knies
Post Producer: Syahirah Mansor
Editor: Ed Yonaitis
AI Tech Director: Dr. Sam Khoze
AI Tech Supervisor: Wim Vanhenden
Lead Dev: fbrc.ai
Editorial: RPS
VFX: Mathematic
Color: Primary
