GENERATIVE AI STOCK
At Corporate Finance Institute, we had a specific problem: finding stock imagery that looked like our learners was becoming more and more difficult.
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With learners all over the world and diverse financial teams, searching for accurate stock imagery that matched our brand style became a time-consuming chore. I knew there had to be a better way so after playing with some prompts in Midjourney, I presented it as a potential solution to our stock problem. With Midjourney, I am able to specify the diversity of our learners while indicating the specific dress, activities, and environments of our target personas.
proposal
Generative AI has exploded in the last year. While many obvious tools were becoming evidently useful in the marketing world, I wasn't hearing a lot about using generative image AI to replace stock photography solutions. I made a proposal to test my proof of concept and see if using AI would be viable.
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Side-by-side, I compared current ads with licensed stock photography with AI-rendered stock images replacing the original photography. I also tested if I could generate images of the environments our learners would work in.
licensed stock
AI-generated stock
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method
Once my proposal and proof-of-concept was approved, I was able to start strategizing about how to properly construct prompts to get images that not only matched our learners and environments, but matched the style of our brand.
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I rendered these examples to see if I could generate images that I could cut out for our digital display ads and email heroes, as well as prompts that could generate examples of what our learners would look like in their environments.
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outcome
Using this technology and refining my method for using it has been a game-changer for creating assets. It has allowed me to reallocate time I would spent hunting for stock imagery into easily generating dozens of images that can be used across every channel in every kind of asset. It's allowed me to target our personas more accurately by generating stock images that represent the diversity, dress, and environments of our unique learner base.
Cut Outs
Environments
Use in Marketing Assets
full-page ad
I used Midjourney and my refined ability to write effective prompts in order to generate an image that I used in a design for a full-page ad in the financial times, printed and published in November of 2023.
