Creative is an impactful lever for paid media performance, but when timelines are tight or resources are limited, the “good enough” visuals often win out.
Enter: ChatGPT’s image creation tool.
Here are two ways that you can use ChatGPT to unlock creative direction, test new visual styles, and surface better alignment your personas and goals.
Here are two examples of real case studies that bring your next unlock to life.
Persona-Based Creative
The Challenge
A brand was struggling to supply timely creative assets. Without strong visuals, even the best-optimized campaigns were hitting a ceiling.
The Approach
This is where deep use of ChatGPT’s image generation tools was born, hiking of a team-wide hackathon.
Could it?
- Ideate new creative concepts tailored to the brand’s key personas
- Visualize ad variations based on persona intent and channel
- Quickly mock up directional examples to streamline stakeholder feedback
Using prompts customized to each persona’s behavior and preferred channels, we generated visual examples that reflected where they spend time and what kind of messaging resonates. The output? Creative mockups built for personas. Not just about them.
The Result
Pretty cool. Here are some anonymized examples of what became possible.
We presented the output in a QBR with senior leadership. What stood out?
The ability to connect the dots between feedback, persona strategy, and visuals.
We took it one step further: We fed the transcript of the SVP’s commentary into ChatGPT and generated fresh creative directions reflecting the tone and preferred style (“more fun,” “less stock imagery,” etc.).
That quick feedback loop allowed our teams to implement tailored creative at a much faster pace, saving the client money on creative resources, allowing us to scale creative testing more quickly.
⚡ Bonus: Collaboration. Multiple team members could jump into the same ChatGPT conversation, layering prompts and building on each other’s ideas without starting from scratch. It helped maintain momentum and made the whole process feel more like a shared brainstorm than a handoff.
Image Testing on Product Feeds
The Challenge
In Shopping feeds, the default is simple: white-background product images. It’s clean, consistent, and aligns with Google’s best practices. But what if “best practice” isn’t always best?
Below is an example of the SERP for surfboards.
The Solution
Most brands stick with white backgrounds, lifestyle imagery could offer an edge in storytelling and engagement.
We uploaded white-background product images into ChatGPT’s image tool and applied a saved prompt to reimagine them in relevant lifestyle settings. This allowed for quick generation at scale.
Below is an example of an image transformation for a product found on Google Images:
Some tips to help:
- Use ChatGPT to assist with creating a prompt for the background.
- Make the background simple to keep the product prominent.
- The product should be centered.
- We had better output with ChatGPT over Google Merchant Center’s Product Studio.
TL;DR: Creative Innovation Takeaways
- Creative gap? Try a hackathon. Fast internal sprints help explore new tools without over-investing.
- Personas ≠ fluff. When tied to visual outputs, they spark more strategic creative conversations
- AI is a compass, not a replacement. Use tools like ChatGPT to directionally explore ideas, not finalize them
- Feedback loops matter. Responding quickly to client comments with tailored visuals shows alignment and initiative
- Build now, scale later. Save prompts, test in small batches, and lay the groundwork for broader adoption
Need a guide for exploring ad generation with ChatGPT? We’d love to show you the ropes.
