Launching RYA™ - an AI tool for marketers
It was a confluence of three things that came together late in 2023 that made me think that we – our creative agency Episode Four – had found something great and potentially game-changing.
The first was our data. Over the last six years we have built a proprietary data set that deeply answers a simple question. What would you do with your free time or extra money? We can legitimately answer that question for a tiny subset of Americans and provide answers across 300 different genres of music, sports, food, entertainment, and so on. Our data is richer and broader than most consumer marketing data sets.
The second were our ideas. Over the last year our clients have continued to trust us to make great creative work. And our data has given them permission to make bigger and bolder things. That includes a line of craft beers for a financial services firm, a reality dating show where you find a mate based on how someone drives, another badass muscle car/golf tournament prize, a talk show about how the brain works, and more.
The third was the creative industry’s AI reckoning. Watching our industry grapple with all that AI will change made us take a hard look at the value of Episode Four and how we can succeed in this rapidly changing space.
So we have compelling data that no one has. We have made things that people in the world really like. And instead of wondering what might happen to us, we saw a way to lead through a period of massive marketing transformation.
After months of quietly planning, building, and testing we believe we have made something really compelling – AI that is truly creative.
Not just a series of clever headlines or a slate of topical blog posts. Also not an image generation app or video creation tools (some of which are mind-boggling).
We have built and trained an LLM that continually and iteratively generates original ideas based on real client briefs. We’re not talking just tv spots or print ads. These are big ideas that can apply to events, activations, content, experiences, sponsorships, and so on. Expansive and unique ideas (just like the ones we’ve created at Episode Four).
We’ve trained it on hundreds of genres – places where people want to spend their time and money. So we already have differentiated consumer insights.
We’ve trained it on thousands of creative formats, mechanics, narrative styles, and production techniques. Things we know that audiences love and can be twisted into something new.
We’ve prompted our model to create new and better ideas. Radical yet acceptable ideas (RYA…get it?).
So far it’s really working. We’re super excited. More so, we would love to give you a demo and see if you agree that what we’ve built means that AI can be genuinely creative.