The half century is up. Welcome to Edition #50 of The SEG3 Report!

For today’s piece, we’ll be delving into WPP’s investment into Stability AI, and the tug of war that GenAI presents between efficiency and creativity in advertising; what traditional sports can learn from the Sidemen charity match and their approach to storytelling and entertainment, and lastly, the PGA Tour’s latest Roblox launch, and their wider ‘Fan Forward’ initiative to drive innovation.

Let’s dive in…

Contents: Edition #50

• WPP invests in Stability AI to shape the future of media & advertising

• Sidemen Charity Game sells out Wembley, raising over £4m for charity

• PGA Tours Ultimate Golf Simulator on Roblox & Fan Forward innovation initiative

WPP invests in Stability AI to shape the future of media and advertising

WPP has announced a strategic partnership and investment in Stability AI, one of the leading generative AI companies best known for its image generation technology. With the investment, WPP will be integrating Stability AI’s visual media models into their creative and content production processes.

Why You Should Care

TL;DR: Any legacy process that AI can augment and speed up, it will. Through necessity, the big holding companies like WPP have had to be quick to react and integrate AI into the fabric of their businesses to retain and attract clients. The sweet spot? Keeping the creative process a mixture of human with machine. Remember, connections are only built when brands make consumers feel something.

In full:

There aren’t many, if any industries, that have been as disrupted by AI as advertising. Big brands need to be content machines, and often have campaigns running year round across multiple territories that require attention.

For agencies like WPP this means they need large, global teams, filled with creatives, strategists, producers and more to be able to service their brand partners demands.

So how is AI helping and changing the old ways of doing things? Well, it is fast becoming:

• A creative assistant

• A strategy sparring partner

• A content creator

Which is brilliant from a production and output perspective. Doing more with less is always a positive.

The main challenge I foresee?

How unique can campaigns be unless the model is solely trained on the brands content, messaging and branding?

A brand only becomes a brand because it is recognisable. Because it has an authentic narrative. Because it is able to build a connection with a consumer through its stories.

And that’s where the human touch needs to come in. To differentiate. To add nuance. To curate.

So whilst I do not doubt we’ll hear of more stories where GenAI is being used throughout the creative process in advertising & marketing, the human touch to root through the AI’s output and piece it all together into an on-brand piece of content still remains an essential part of the process.

As Ben Affleck puts it, “craftsmen is knowing how to work, art is knowing when to stop”.

Sidemen Charity Game sells out Wembley, raising over £4m for charity

The Sidemen's charity football match, featuring YouTube stars like KSI, Speed, Logan Paul and more drew a sell-out crowd of 90,000 to Wembley, raising over £4 million for charity in the process, and reaching another 2.5 million live viewers.

Why you should care?

TL;DR: The success of the charity match shows that audiences are just as interested in sports products that focus on entertainment as they are on elite sport. The narratives that creators have built up over years all add to the drama and appeal of the event, and with numerous communities/fans converging to support their favourite creators, these events even create new content storylines that extend for weeks post-event and entice new sponsors to support.

In full: The Sidemen’s manager, Jordan Schwarzenberger, broke down the delivery of the event into 7 key takeaways, which are well worth a read.

I wanted to pick up on two of the reasons he pointed to for its success:

• Creators are the culture

• Sport must embrace entertainment

Creators are the culture

As you’ve heard us talk about a lot of this newsletter in the past, internet culture is fickle, and trends pass in a flash. Many of the creators you see as part of the charity match have spent years building solid communities through:

• Regularly producing content and experiences (and testing a variety of formats to see what resonates)

• Distributing content through accessible channels (i.e. YouTube, Twitch etc) to reach the largest audiences

• Being more relatable, and offering unfiltered access & unapologetic authenticity

For legacy sports and entertainment brands, it’s about finding a balance between commercialisation and thus, barriers/red tape, with the need to future-proof the brand.

Remember - the next generation cannot become fans of your brand or IP if they cannot find it or connect with its biggest stars.

Sport must embrace entertainment

People want to be entertained, and the charity match is the epitome that amateur sports with a strong storyline can draw the same (if not larger) crowd than the best in the sport competing.

As I said in last weeks edition:

And capture new fans it has. A sell-out at Wembley on a Saturday (whilst other football is going on across the country) and 2.5 million stream viewers can attest to that.

And with 90,000 attendees, it is likely to have been a combination of new audiences that wouldn’t typically engage with football/sport, alongside other fans that have chosen to watch the charity match over their local teams - both of which should set alarm bells off.

Either scenario is dragging fans away from heritage brands, and should be a wake up call that todays audience expects more content, more access, more entertainment and more reward in return for their fandom, and if traditional sports and entertainment brands cannot provide those things, they will seek it out elsewhere.

PGA Tours Ultimate Golf Simulator on Roblox, and Fan Forward innovation initiative

The PGA TOUR has launched the Ultimate Golf Simulator, developed in collaboration with PING, First Tee & The Gang. The simulator offers a fun and accessible way to experience golf, blending gameplay with skill-building features that align with First Tee’s mission to teach valuable life skills through the game.

This launch fits squarely in with the Tours series of fan-forward innovations to improve the spectator experience at events like The Players Championship. These innovations include AI-generated shot commentary, predictor games, the re-introduction of the creator classic (which we covered in edition #42), enhanced broadcast coverage and more.

Why you should care

TL;DR: The Fast-Forward initiative focuses on innovations that fans wanted to see. A roadmap driven by fan demands is a good way to prioritise what really matters. The re-launch of the PGA onto Roblox also signals their intent to grow the game of golf with youth audiences, and that’s a journey their development partner The Gang has been on with The R&A over the past year or so already, so you’d imagine there are a lot of learnings that can be applied.

In full: TOURCAST is well worth a visit for those of you unfamiliar. It provides an immersive way for fans to follow their favourite players, with shot trails, radar data, green view and video highlights all available within one place for fans to keep up to date.

And now, Tourcast has a new addition of AI-powered shot commentary for all 30,000+ shots of each tournament.

This is all part of the PGA Tours ‘Fast-Forward Initiative’, which is focusing on building in a number of innovations for the Players Championship (and beyond) based on feedback from 50,000+ respondents about what they wanted to see improved.

And they’ve been busy. The initiative has been behind the launch of:

• AI Course Setup Tool Presented by Morgan Stanley → Helping the rules committee

• Game the Green powered by Comcast Business → A predictor game

• Putt for a Purpose presented by Optum → Fan challenge

• PGA TOUR World Feed → More customised coverage for media partners

• Creator Classic at TPC Sawgrass presented by YouTube → A new event

• A partnership with Cosm → More immersive social experiences

• NBC Sports live drone AR → Introducing AR to broadcast experience

And innovation seems to pay, with a number of existing and new partners joining them on delivering or sponsoring these initiatives.

Then final piece of the puzzle being the launch of the Ultimate Golf Simulator on Roblox, where they’ll hope to be able to introduce golf and the PGA Tour to a new youth audience.

It’s great to see the PGA put the fan at the centre of the innovations they’re bringing to life, and we’ll be eagerly following along to see how the improved physical and digital experiences go down with their fans.

In other news this week…

• Fanatics partners with Ticketmaster for new marketplace: read here.

• Coinbase launches digital collectibles with LA Clippers: see here.

• SailGP announce DJ Khaled as Chief Hype Officer to aid US growth: read here.

• Formula 1 launches new subscription tier for F1 TV Premium: read here.

• Mysten Labs, developer of Sui blockchain, acquires Web3 Gaming Infrastructure Startup Parasol: read here.

• Grand Slam Track partners with Warner Bros Discovery for inaugural season broadcast in Europe & Asia: read here.

• O2 becomes headline sponsor of Baller League’s UK launch: read here.

• Clarks & Roald Dahl team up for themed shoes: read here.

• Sony Music backs AI rights startup, Vermillio: read here.

• GTA publisher, Take-Two Interactive, suing marketplace PlayerAuctions: read here.

• Mastercard & 9dcc launch golf-themed capsule collection for Arnold Palmer invitational: read here.

Working on anything cool, or have a press release you would like us to cover? Send it in for the chance for it to be covered in next week’s edition!

That’s all for now folks - thanks again for reading the latest edition of The SEG3 Report and we’ll see you next Tuesday for more on the intersection of culture & emerging technology!