Artificial intelligence (AI) has gained massive importance in companies and marketing departments since 2023 and is finding its way into the marketing and communication planning of well-known brands. While most of the talk so far has been about the theoretical benefits of AI, the Serviceplan Group and NIQ/GfK presented tools and case studies for the first time at their 33rd Brand Roadshow and the tenth in Zurich that make the motto “Artificial Intelligence: The new phase of brand management” tangible in practice.

Three dates in the last 30 years have brought about a new dawn:
In 1993, the World Wide Web became accessible to people in many countries around the world.
In 2007, Steve Jobs from Apple presented the first iPhone.
In 2023, AI really took off in the media and in the planning departments of many companies.

But - in the last two years, we have heard a lot about the theoretical benefits of AI and little about its practical application in marketing and communication planning.

The Brand Roadshow 2024 by Serviceplan Group and NIQ/GfK, under the auspices of the Markenverband, presented innovative AI tools and their implementation in concrete case studies for L'Oréal, Nike, Levi's and Verivox, among others, in all four phases of marketing:

• For data sourcing and the development of new strategic processes in real time, including and specifically for media use
• For innovative, creative implementation opportunities in completely new, surprising, cost-saving production
• For optimization and controlling

For example, it was shown how the AI tool “Generate AI” can completely dispense with the entire time-consuming and costly production processes and achieve excellent solutions without the need for photographers, models or a studio.

For the Verivox case, it was shown that the effectiveness of a new campaign can be measured not only after it has been used, but also during the development phase with the help of the “Emotion Engine” AI tool.

But beware: AI is available to all companies. It will therefore only bring success to those companies that use it more quickly and consistently. AI is probably the most fascinating tool in marketing history. But the window of opportunity to outperform others is limited.

NIQ/GfK used, among other things, the latest results of its “High Momentum Brands” index, which shows the success factors why brands grow despite crises. The four factors of innovation, uniqueness, trust and convenience were identified as decisive. Based on the latest surveys, the key drivers of successful brands are optimal experience quality using artificial intelligence. The right training with the right data sources is crucial for the success of AI solutions in order to avoid hallucinations.

NIQ/GfK presented this using the “gfknewron” platform, which uses AI to generate knowledge in real time to enable completely new decision-making processes in marketing.

At the Brand Roadshow Zurich, Petra Süptitz (Director Marketing & Consumer Intelligence GfK), Harald Schuster (Head of Marketing Science Central Europe GfK), Pascal Fröhli (Co-CEO Mediaplus Suisse) and Felix Bartels (CMO Serviceplan Group) explained how companies can make smart use of AI in their marketing in the future.


Photos of the event in Zurich can be found here.

Would you like to learn more? Here you can find the booklet for the Brand Roadshow 2024 as well as all editions from previous years:
Insights Marken-Roadshow