IBM COGNITIVE COLLECTION

TitleIBM COGNITIVE COLLECTION
BrandIBM
Product / ServiceIBM WATSON
CategoryB01. Corporate Communication & Reputation Management
EntrantIBM Singapore, SINGAPORE
Idea Creation OGILVY & MATHER SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE
Production HOGARTH & OGILVY SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE

Credits

Name Company Position
Eugene Cheong Ogilvy & Mather Singapore Chief Creative Officer
Nicolas Courant Ogilvy & Mather Singapore Executive Creative Director
Mervyn Rey Ogilvy & Mather Singapore Creative Director
Jason Grech Jason Grech Fashion Designer
Ginny Lim Ogilvy & Mather Singapore Senior Art Director
Aritra Dutta Ogilvy & Mather Singapore Senior Copywriter
Simon Jenkins Ogilvy & Mather Singapore Senior Copywriter
Kevin Wijaya Ogilvy & Mather Singapore Designer
Charlie Lowe Ogilvy & Mather Singapore Regional Strategy Director
Soohan Han Ogilvy & Mather Singapore Regional Group Account Director
Catherine Francis Ogilvy & Mather Singapore Account Director
Alexis Lefort Hogarth & Ogilvy Singapore Lead Producer
Angus Gordon Hogarth & Ogilvy Singapore Director
Andrew Maccoll Andrew Maccoll Photographer
Rob Morrison Ogilvy Sydney Creative Director
Magdalena Trajkoska Ogilvy Sydney Social Strategist
Sam McDougall Ogilvy Sydney Social Media Manager
Jennifer Stalker Ogilvy Sydney Account Director
Taylor Freely Ogilvy Sydney Account Executive

The Campaign

We chose an unexpected and fickle industry for IBM Watson to work in: fashion. Using visual recognition, Watson analyzed over 500,000 images from fashion archives and photos from prominent Instagram users to forecast next season's popular colours and styles. His insights helped Jason Grech, an Australian fashion designer to design the world’s first cognitive couture collection. The dresses were launched at the opening gala of Melbourne Spring Fashion Week, showcasing how an A.I. could help design a collection of couture dresses. ‘The Cognitive Collection’, brings together the artistic vision of a fashion designer and the power of IBM Watson, under pressure, to create the world’s first AI-enhanced couture collection.

Execution

We created print ads, display advertising, and content was seeded across digital and social platforms to create awareness of the successful application of IBM Watson to the fashion industry. Melbourne Spring Fashion Week launched the campaign, where we showcased Watson’s capabilities on the runway. We also held an exclusive dinner for industry decision makers where Jason explained how he utilised IBM Watson in developing his collection. Followers were kept up to date with videos and images documenting the process from conception to runway, and an immersive 360° video showcased Watson’s contribution across each piece of the collection. A website housed all the content we generated around the partnership, including educational content on the Watson tools Jason applied to his business. The website also provided further content on cognitive technologies and a link to trial IBM Watson’s APIs to demonstrate ease of use and capture new business leads.

The campaign made IBM Watson top-of-mind with our audience. The pre-roll video outperformed industry completion rates by 34%. Digital display drove a 0.054% CTR, exceeding industry benchmarks by 8%. A combined engagement of 1,133,357 across paid channels, with total video views of 874,936. And, an increase in social reaches YoY by 382%. From the numerous new leads that were created, many came from industries outside of IBM’s traditional clients from fashion sellers to jewelry retailers to luxury goods businesses and of course new interest from traditional sectors too. We achieved an incredible expense-to-revenue of 3%. And an ROI of over 3,235% on media. Also celebrities across Australia are lining up to wear dresses designed by Jason Grech + IBM Watson. See below in confidential information for the jury for full unprecedented sales results.

The Situation

To show Watson’s capability and generate business leads, we chose an unexpected industry for Watson to work in: fashion. Watson analysed over 500,000 images from fashion archives and social platforms to help Jason Grech create 12 dresses. The collection was launched at the opening gala of Melbourne Fashion Week. We also created print and digital ads, an immersive 360° video and social content documenting the designing process. Our website housed all the content on the partnership and a link to try IBM Watson’s APIs. It generated new leads from fashion sellers to luxury goods businesses and traditional sectors too.

The Strategy

IBM Watson provided a data-driven approach to design and decision-making, and helped the fashion industry by enhancing their design capabilities. By leveraging IBM’s sponsorship of Melbourne Spring Fashion Week, Watson partnered with Jason Grech to reimagine the fashion design process. We developed two cognitive tools utilizing Watson’s Visual Recognition API. The Zeitgeist Tool analyses trends and creates a trending colour palette and the Visual Discovery Tool uses deep image understanding to match inspiration inputs. Ten years of runway images and thousands of fashion photographs from Instagram were analysed to predict the next season’s colours, styles, cuts, necklines and fabrics. We accelerated Jason’s process by 600% - down from 28 days to just 4 days. From the projected data, Jason was able to develop the world’s first cognitive collection comprising 12 stunning couture dresses.

Links

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