If we took a tour through the history of marketing, we would realize that the discipline has evolved at the pace of humanity.
The discoveries and inventions of the human being have given rise to the media, advertising, tools and ways of selling to evolve as well.
From the Theban papyri, which many authors consider to be the first evidence of ancient advertising, through the invention of the printing press, the first illuminated advertisement in Times Square in 1882, the first TV commercial in 1941, the Ridley Scott spot for Macintosh in 1981 and even viral marketing and its boom in the first decade of the 21st century, all have been an evident example of the development of the human being.
How far is 2022 taking us?
What until very recently was seen as science fiction is now a reality. Yes, reality, but ENHANCED.
Proof of this is the interesting project carried out by Michelob Ultra by combining the real with the virtual.
The beer brand in collaboration with the production company Unit 9 developed what is known as “McEnroe vs. McEnroe ”, the first tennis match of a real person against a virtual player, both, John McEnroe, where the current former tennis player faces his opponent, who is his younger version from 5 different times. To do this, this young McEnroe is generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI), thanks to the software known as the Unreal Engine Metahuman.
This 45-minute product was scheduled to be broadcast on the ESPN sports platform and will demonstrate how the game was created thanks to technology based on machine learning, which is a category of AI that allows a machine to learn from previous data without the need to program it.
Unit 9 took it upon themselves to scan John McEnroe’s body as well as his movements to create his photorealistic digital human versions from different eras (his 1979 debut; 1981 when he was number 1; 1982, year of underachievement; 1984 when he returns to the first place and 1992 which is his retirement year) to project their avatars on a hologram particle screen and then simulate the game using a throwing machine and a ball return machine. In this way, for example, when the real McEnroe throws the ball, his avatar responds in the same direction and, according to his movement, another ball is thrown at a precise point so that it appears from the position of the avatar racket.
In addition to analyzing hundreds of hours of video from the former tennis player’s past, a total of 308 shots were recorded with over 259 mixes to capture his footwork, shots and volleys. These recordings also include real phrases and expressions of the tennis player so that he could have a virtual conversation with his “opponent”.
“McEnroe vs McEnroe” is part of Michelob Ultra’s recent campaign that is based on its slogan “It’s Only Worth It If You Enjoy It”.
Here is the trailer for the show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCCbAjc9Vh0
Does it surprise you? Maybe not (or yes), but what is certain is that companies and their brands are applying the uses of new technologies to get closer to their different publics of interest in a more precise way.
Let’s see, for example, recent cases of already recognized brands that are taking different paths to get closer to their consumers/users:
Snapchat will have more features that expand its e-commerce capabilities using new tools to create Augmented Reality (AR) shopping content that will give brands the opportunity to guide their target audiences towards a purchase, as is the case with its Dress application Up, which collects fashion tests for users to experience their new looks and share them before making their purchase. More than 250 million Snapchatters have used AR Shopping since January 2021, generating more than 5 billion total interactions.
Puma and American Eagle are already among the brands offering virtual try-ons of their products using Snap AR Shopping.
Another case is that of Doritos, which partners with Netflix to promote the new season of Stranger Things and creates “Live From The Upside Down”, a virtual concert (created as the “best concert that never happened”) in which will present The Go-Go’s, Corey Hart and Soft Cell (those who lived through that time as a server will know that they are artists of the time that the series represents) and which they can enter by scanning the marked bags of a limited edition of Doritos 3D Crunch Three Cheese . Tickets for the June 23 event will also be available through Frito-Lay’s Snacks.com site, which will sell “Live from the Upside Down” merchandise to give attendees a souvenir of the experience.
From the most elaborate to the simplest activation, technology and its advances are already an obligatory part of marketing actions.
It must be very clear that traditional marketing actions are ceasing to be important, because people are no longer passive beings who do not participate in what is communicated to them. The means that they have at their fingertips (literally) make them participatory and, believe it or not, increasingly empowered in their decisions to select the brands they consume and use because technology is a tool that allows them to be more and better informed.