The AIGC Ad Creatives Crushing It vs. The Ones Flopping

All right, we're going to talk about your two favorite letters today. I know what James is thinking QT because I'm up here, but it's not QT. It is obviously a You guys finish it. Come on. Hey, >> thank you. Yo, you got to get ready for happy hour, right? All right, let me introduce the panel. The one thing I don't like about panels is the moderator always says, "Can you introduce yourself?" I'm like, "Screw that. I'm going to introduce them for you." The other thing I'm going to show you guys, get your phones ready. If you got questions, put them up cuz we're here to answer your questions, not to kind of predict what you want to hear. All right, so without further ado, let me introduce the first guest. He runs perceptics. He works with six, seven, eight figure apps to try to scale them.

And he's and he's been an app marketer of the year. Without further ado, put your hands together for Nathan Hudson. [music] Good to be here. All right. Next, hopefully these applause will go up in nature and excitement. All right. He turned a one feature viral app into 300 million downloads. The app is called Reface. And now, most recently, he's found success with a new app called Bite Pal. It hit number three nutrition app, top 10 fitness app globally by downloads. This guy knows his is when it comes to app growth. Let's give it up for Anton. Come on.

[music] [music] All right, we're going to see AI in action and we're going to show you some creatives that these guys have found success with. And yes, spoiler alert, it is literally all AI. The Did you guys get the picture of the slido? Yeah, ask questions. I'm gonna monitor along the way. Thank you. This is cool. All right. What AI solution brought the most impact on business results? >> You're first. Go ahead, Nathan.

[laughter] >> Good question. I think over the last year, it's definitely been like Claude um just just generally, right? Like using Claude um for all kinds of different things across the across the board. I think I would talk about it more from like the development perspective and like how fast now we can ship experiments in as much as like even the growth teams um being able to actually launch experiments, launch onboarding experiments, launch payable experiments and not have to necessarily like rely on the dev team who maybe building out core features. Um this I think is is one thing that's quite cool.

>> Mhm. Yeah. For us I mean I would love to say that it's like a specific marketing tool for the app. or your consumer business that you can just take off the shelf but it would be also something very horizontal. So it will be NA10 actually and [snorts] uh the reason is that we are building inside reace this like machine the factory of the whole marketing process starting from creatives finishing with user acquisition monetization and a lot of automations and things the different models that we bring together they all connected with NA10 which we eventually upgrade to something which is more robust and durable but if I were to say one thing it would be NA10.

>> Oh what' you say? >> NA10. >> NA10. Yeah, >> I like that one. Okay, let me see if these clickers are working. All right, Anton, we got we're going to hit you with this video. >> Yeah. >> So, let's see. >> We got examples, ladies and gentlemen, of high performing ads. Here we go. And I'm feeling good. [music] I'm feeling good. [music] Break it down for us frame by frame. Yeah. So this is basically the app of u sorry this is the ad of our nutrition app bite pal. That's the one which is now reaching kind of top numbers in the nutrition health and fitness space. So this app uh was a very high performing ad I would say in February. Uh so it lasted probably more than a month which is relatively long for the current environment and also the the marketing spend that we do. And uh I think this app is this ad is interesting because we actually took the real influencer like the person who was basically ready to

give the footage and then we iterated around the background, the lengths, the music obviously the the pack shot and uh basically you probably can see like hundreds of different variants of this ad where you have this one anchor element which was actually the person who UGC UGCPs. So this background is not real, right? >> Yeah, the background is not real. So the real is just the lady and then uh obviously we changed the type of the food. I mean the the captions are pretty easy ones, but also the entire background is completely changeable. So yeah, do >> you guys have you know I always see these LinkedIn posts, oh I slept and I had 108 new creatives. Is that something that you guys are doing too?

>> Yeah. Yeah. So I think uh if you benchmark us to versus other relatively big publishers, I think it would still be probably a bit lower on the number of creatives we produce every month, every week. But I think what we do particularly well is the creative diversity which probably also one of the topics of today's discussion. uh uh and we have the internal tool which we've built uh with with the help of our internal team and a bunch of other other companies as well where a designer can actually construct the creative from different pieces. So you have a lot of AI models which are plugged in into the system and then it's a basically drag and drop. You type the prompt. We also have there basically the library of assets also live in this um in this specific software >> u and you can basically pick up the model whether it's an AI model or a UGC video of someone else and then basically create u in front of your laptop

everything that you see >> as someone intermittent fast like this is this speaks true to me like one minute before I'll be like seconds I'm like >> 15 minutes I'm like babe I can hold out I can hold out so yeah it speaks really well to the audience who actually fast >> I don't, but I guess it speaks well. So therefore, it was a relatively good performing ad uh in February. >> All right. VK says, "When is AI not the best solution?"

>> I agree. Yes. When is AI not the best solution? No, in all seriousness, I think it's it's hard because it's becoming so that it is always the best solution, right? Like in a lot of cases now I think as we see as we go like I I genuinely think that a lot can be done with AI. I think one thing that is not AIable at the moment is that kind of human aspect and that human feel to really come up with something that is like truly innovative um repeatedly right on demand. I think you know ideiation is still very much humane for now at least and people talk about like human taste and stuff like this. So I think it's a case of humans and AI as opposed to just AI and UBI. Um you didn't get that one universal [laughter] basic income right like us not having any jobs. Um I think for now that's the case but we'll have to see.

>> Anton, you want to add anything? Yeah, I mean um uh AI is super powerful, right? And then probably like in two three months we would have even the different conversation. But the way I think about it is kind of it's it's a funnel, right? And um at the bottom of the funnel you have like a human need, then you have a product, then you have let's say different funnels, and then the creatives, right? And I think what's actually pretty hard for AI to do is to kind of find the core concept, which would be kind of the main building block of everything else that you're trying to build. So for example with bite pal kind of the whole idea about the raccoon is a little bit like a tamagotchi you care about it it's a great idea which because it's the core of the product you actually cannot iterate it as fast as AI like enables it to do but what you can do is with the help of AI frame everything else around so I think kind

of the core idea the product use case I think it still sits with the person with humans with us as of now but let's see how it changes >> how much of a difference did change in in the background actually make though >> I mean it's it's actually interesting but uh it can be quite a lot and also >> what did you see if you're open to sharing >> yeah I mean I mean maybe the difference can be 20 30% >> wow >> uh but the thing is it also like if you make variations of the same creative which performs well you're able to tap into a little bit bigger total addressable markets >> and therefore iterating on something that works and changing backgrounds, changing the person, the the meal itself would allow you actually to scale what works a little bit bigger to like different pockets.

>> Did you guys change the meal? >> We changed meals. We changed the outfit. We changed the restaurant to the dining room. So, it's just like it's a constructor basically. >> It would be interesting to see the original then. That would be cool. >> Yeah. I don't even know whether it's original or not, actually. [laughter] >> All right, let's hit the next one. >> We'll go to the next one. This one. I love this one. All right, I'm going to hit play.

that you got your [music] love information now say [singing] [music] now. >> All right. Besides us probably doing this at happy hour, that dance, break us break it down for us. >> Yeah. I mean, here it's uh it's a bit more obvious. The raccoons are not real. Uh the song is also generated. So it's both the music and the uh the lyrics as well. Uh yeah and again the elements that we play here with but I think this creative is actually interesting because you can clearly see that it's AI but uh it still resonated with people. people still clicked.

>> Therefore, I feel like when we talk about the creative work and the ability to storytell through creatives through our very short attention spans, I think both actually work relatively well like the bet on authenticity where you have actually a real person but also this a bit like fake and real ads as well. >> What did you use to make that song? Cuz I literally thought that was a real song. >> O maybe suno but I'm not sure actually.

>> Okay. Yeah, I love >> Yeah. >> What kind of prompt did you tell it? I mean, did you know that? Hey, it's like I've got dancing raccoons. Are these raccoons or seals? Are these seals? >> They are raccoons. They should be raccoons, actually. >> That's crazy. >> They should be raccoons. >> Should we listen to it one more time? Cuz I I don't even know that it was AI. that you got [music] me love. [music] [singing] >> They love me because I buy Chanel. What is he saying? What's the word? What's the lyrics?

>> I I didn't [laughter] pay attention, but maybe maybe you saw there is a bike. I mean, but no copyright issues. >> Let's not talk about it. [laughter] >> Probably. I love this question from Vlad. Vladimir is like, "What are the biggest security and trust risks when integrating AI into mobile apps and how can they be mig mitigated without degrading user experience?" I mean in when you install any of our apps which is like reface uh our kind of app that we started with bitepal we have another one it's called honestly it's like AI journaling/ AI therapy. I mean you will be hit by multiple popups saying that hey actually we use Gemini and Gemini may send some third party data to Google back and stuff like that.

So we're actually pretty transparent within the product itself how we handle AI and to be honest I mean we're very kind of scientific companies probably everyone in the room so we AB test everything and we didn't see actually a big drop off of people if they're like facing straight away that it's AI. So it's kind of expected and I feel like people already started developing this >> a little bit of like GDPR blindness I would say that okay there is something to to read something to accept and people just they're okay using it tools I would say. All right, Anton, you got a friend in the audience, I think. Okay, before we move on, you Nathan, what is the one thing that you think made Bite Pal successful? I mean, there are hundreds of apps for this.

>> I mean, one thing uh looks like a web flow as well. Take the test. >> Yeah, I mean a lot of things of bite are pretty standard, I would say. Um but um you know there's like this is really nice book actually it's called um seven powers. It's the way how kind of companies build sustainable competitive advantage and I think in our industry I have to say that kind of operational efficiency is one that actually super important if you manage to be better by like 2% in every single single moment. We have a little bit better interface which kind of plays a little bit better on Tik Tok ads for example, right? And uh we have maybe a little bit like better creative performance. So these things pile up and it actually makes you get your extra margin which allows you to scale 10 100x otherwise you wouldn't be able to do. Okay. I like it. All right. Sorry Nathan. Bear with me bro. All right. Andrew says, "If you

were to start BPAL today from scratch right now and have limited resources, how would you grow it and what would you focus on? And did you Anton, did you just start off with running ads right away just to see if you had product market fit?" >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we had So, we had an idea. So, like what we noticed right now is a lot of people just like see the industry. It's like relatively big. Then sensor towers similar web like other analytical tools you see it's growing and people try to launch something pretty generic and then they try to find kind of first product market fit in with the ads and then they start building the product. The problem is that like a lot of people never actually reach this state right and maybe one of the ways to think about it is if you actually like the idea kind of invest in it even before ads work because I mean by pal kind of existed for a year before reaching positive

economics and uh we just really like the concept uh it's also an interesting complex interesting concept back then and uh we kind of invested already so much in the product that we didn't have a chance to kind of step back and do something else because it's a little bit of a cost sunk fallacy but it helped us to push through until it actually started scaling. >> Were you running ads the whole time that whole year? >> We were running ads the whole time and I mean we in a relatively good position because we had other apps which were cash generative.

>> Yeah. >> Uh so by Paul for quite a while was a heavy ai negative product I would say. >> Okay. Thanks for sharing that man. Yeah. >> All right. We got Nathan's ad as well. I'm going to give I'm causing headache over there for the A. All right. Here's this video. I love this. And this is right, Nate. All AI. >> Yeah, this video is 100% AI. Like everything you're seeing in this video is >> And I love these comment thingies.

>> The comment thingy uh the comment thingy is a legit comment. >> Yeah. Um, but you can tell by some of the text, right, that it's like that. Is that a username? No. [laughter] >> All right, I will hit the video right now. [music] All >> [music] >> right. What did you test? You test background. You test outfits. What did you guys What did you guys test with this one? >> Yeah. So, for this creative, so basically like backstory like for the last 18 months, I've been working on what I call my secret project, right?

And this secret project has been super secret project. Um, but essentially like what I've been working on is trying to build a super agent for mobile growth, right? Like in in short and one of the things I've been focusing on has been like creative production. So the the idea is how can we fully use AI to create the creative entirely, right? So taking it beyond using a real UGC creator and then like changing different aspects and just fully prompting to generate a creative. So this was this was actually oneshotted, right? So this was the first like version. Um but there's like 15 versions I was trying to select to figure out which one to show and I selected this one because one it's the most authentic. like, yeah, you can see the little comment bit that looks a little bit like, oh, that's not real.

But realistically, like if you're seeing an ad pop up on your phone, no one's looking at that. Um, and yeah, it kind of that's why we picked this one. The interesting thing is when doing this, like it took me maybe 15 minutes to create the 20 different ads, and the majority of that time was waiting for the ad to be generated. Um, right. It it's taken like over 18 months to actually build the thing to build the ads. All right. So, that's not been easy. Um, but what I notice across those 20 is that some of them suck, right?

Like it's exactly the same. The prompt is the same. It's the same. Why why is one of them she's like throwing the clothes and you can see that the gym set is like the the top and the leggings are connected as if it's like a kids dungaree set and I'm like well that's what what are you doing right like in different creators we see different thing in some some of them like she's holding the two shoes and like she throws up and a shoe lands on her head and I'm like what like I didn't say that I'm I'm confused and I think what I've come to learn is that the models are not consistent right yet. Um, but you can still generate creative end to end.

>> Do you have a prompt that you wanted to share or you want to wait till next? >> I don't for this one. I have a prompt for one of them. Um, the final video. I have I have the prompt I want to share with you. >> That's a little teaser. Then I'm going to go to the next question. Tell me about the >> the tools that you're using. Are you still using Claw to create those videos? >> No. So, like this is that's my secret project, right? So, like I've been working I've been working on building it and I'm not trying to sell anything by the way. There's nothing to sell here because it's not ready otherwise I would tell you that it's ready and I'd try and make some money.

Um, but I've just been focusing on trying to actually deliver something that can do a good job and that's what I've been doing. So, yeah, that was custom tool just like Anton mentioned like you guys have internal tools. Um, yeah. >> Yeah. All right, Nathan. Are you worried about getting too comfortable with AI in the growth space and cost ballooning in the future once the AI models look to make more profit? This is from Alex.

>> Yeah, great question. So, I I I think you're you're getting at the idea of like you're using we're using models, right, to generate stuff and then like let's say they hike their API prices up and then all of a sudden things are crazy. I think specifically for like generation and creation not not particularly I think if we look at what's happened with the um like models for coding for example yes you know anthropica are leading the way majority of developers would argue with like opus 47 um but like open AI are very close with GPT I don't know 54 now um open source models are really crushing it so I don't know if anyone here is a developer maybe not um maybe but like Miniax 27 really solid. Point being, I think open-source versions of these models will become available. Um, and I don't think that that is something to worry about. At some point, it's like it either looks real or it doesn't. And

when I can do it, like, okay, great. Now, when I say it doesn't land on her head, but I don't mind waiting a little bit longer to get one. That's right. Yeah. >> Anton, what were you using to change all the backgrounds and the food and the outfits? Oo, actually that's a good question. Uh, so before this panel, I chatted with a person who leads the stream at Rephase and she showed me. So the tool is called Pavuk in Ukrainian is a spider and then you have like different models like legs of the spider.

>> It's like clingai and then you have 11 labs. You have suna there you have nano banana obviously. So for different pieces there are just like different things. >> Yeah. >> And you just mix them together. >> Yeah. How many music things music tracks were you testing? >> I think I think quite a bit. Yeah, actually sound and music is an important piece of a creative. >> I mean, that's what I'm noticing. It drives performance quite a bit actually.

>> Yeah, that's crazy. That's crazy. Even with the little mute thing off, huh? >> Yeah. >> All right. >> What's the biggest mistake you guys have made when it comes with AI creatives? That's from Raphael. Thank you, Raphael. Appreciate you. >> Well, sorry. >> What's the biggest mistake you've made? biggest mistake we made. >> I would say um underestimating the potential of AI 100%. Like I I I vividly remember sitting down with the team like look like yeah AI is not coming for creative like there's no way AI is going to be able to do creative and then VO3 came out and I was like look it's like it's trash. it's like sometimes good and then Sora 2 came out and I'm like so um I think we should be worried and and now you know so I think the biggest mistake is being set in the old ways of doing things and being like no but this is our process like this is our process like we do it this way and that's the way we do

it and that's how we've got results like great but like your competitor doesn't care it's a question of can we adapt faster and can we adopt faster and can we win and make better creative or any aspect um when you're leveraging AI. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah. For us um I think so basically Reface was born back in 2019 and we became relatively big in 2020 when we deployed our own uh face swap model. So basically it was like a one-click 3second experience of putting your face onto any video. Some people call it deep fake but ours was not as good. So it's impossible to deceive people. it just has this kind of comical attitude, right? And then the industry started changing quite a bit. So obviously AI became like a big thing in 2022 2023 and we were a little bit struggling with our ego because back in 2020 2021 we were one of the few companies in the world who were able actually to develop

their own um AI models and the original face swap that you can see in Reface up still which is like a tiny feature now but back then it was like a very big thing and not a lot of people could repeat it and then the industry changed so much and we kept believing that okay we actually need to seat also in the model level and we need to have our own ML research build models and stuff like that and it took us some time actually to realize that okay I mean if you want to build models just build models but don't do other things and therefore we were choosing okay in this kind of value chain of consumer internet where we wanted to play and it took us a little bit more time to realize that actually we are a company which builds consumer products it doesn't matter what kind of AI we use it's much more about packaging UI UIX and also the distribution machine that we built.

>> Yeah, 100%. How do the roles in Reface marketing team change as a response to AI? >> The role of the marketing team. >> Yeah, >> I mean look to be honest like the role of the marketing team is I mean I would say number one for the companies like us. It used to be like this before and it's exactly the same now and I think it actually intensifies because I believe that the cost of the production and the ability to copy things uh the barriers to entry is just like so low like anyone can build by pal kind of in few days with the few developers although 5 years ago was much harder. So the question is where the competition happens and uh I think it happens on the distribution layer. Distribution layer is marketing.

So I think the role is even bigger than before. >> Did it shrink? Did it expand? >> It expand and it became the key competitive mode. >> Like if you were to ask what's our competitive mode, I would say I mean >> a lot of it is marketing. >> Yeah. Did your did your like interview questions change? You're like >> interview questions. >> If you're going to hire somebody who's like you better know how to prompt properly.

>> I mean yes, but I think what worked for us really well is we try to take people who are just naturally curious and motivated. I think this is what worked the best for us and we have like so many examples of a person who was doing completely different thing >> joined reace we saw that okay there is some energy to do things and then these people learn very fast also like to be honest like we have expert we have tools we have resources so now I think also like if we talked a little bit about the future of the apps and I believe distribution is the core I think for a person for a whatever person who is searching for a job or starting something is I think it's like the core motivation like what drives you and are you willing to kind of every day >> work hard that's that's the biggest competitive advantage I think >> I say I can't teach hustle I can teach you skills I can't teach also >> yeah yeah exactly exactly

>> I'm going assume this is yes but have you guys seen a significant reduction in cost by using AI or is starting with UGC a better a real UGC a better option >> yes so I would say yes we've seen a significant we're seeing increasingly cost decrease >> however like I would argue that for maybe even five years, like 3 years, like creative production costs haven't been the big issue, right? Like it's not a problem getting creative at scale.

It's a problem finding winning ads, right? Like however much you're spending on creative production, you're spending more on meta ads or Tik Tok ads, right? Like you're paying Zuck and no one has a problem lining his pockets. Ranting. Um but you know what I mean? Like for example, if you're spending five times as much on creative production and instead of spending 1,000 a month, you spend 5,000 a month on creative production, but you're paying a million in ad spend, I struggle to see what the issue is here. Um, especially if you're getting significantly better results. So when AI like models came out and like I think back in October last year I was really playing with Sora too and sometimes we were we were yeah we could get creatives cheaper but were they winning?

I'm not sure. And ultimately we're here to find winning ads, right? We're not here to reduce our creative production cost. Um because that's where the the uplift is. So I think yes costs are coming down and it's great like now Yeah. Like this ad hasn't been ran by the I made this ad this morning at 2:00 a.m. Um, and if you don't believe me, you can ask Emily because I was meant to submit the ad to yesterday, right? >> I was in that thread >> in the email thread and I was like, "Okay, I need to do this." Um, and that's because I was building.

[laughter] But but yeah, like I think it's it's kind of irrelevant. We just want winners. >> Last question before I show the next video. Are you guys using AI to come up with the script and the ideas or is that the human aspect of it? like hey I want somebody eating their meal and I want to show when they can actually eat and do that or did AI come up with that script and idea? >> Uh I mean for us it's a collaboration actually it's a collaboration and we also see some people who let's say come to reace and then they try to rely completely on AI idea generation it actually doesn't really work. Uh so AI can be like a multiplier I think of your own talent and things but still I think for you to kind of create a really winning creative you really need to understand how a person thinks a person who does fasting for example. So I just give you an example. So I'm I love cycling. So I do a lot of cycling. I I'm

very interested in this topic and I can clearly see if the company who advertises to me kind of talks in very general generic things or actually they know like how I live, how I think and stuff like that. So there is definitely still a human element. >> Yeah. >> You see the same thing? >> Yeah, I would agree. I would say so the video we just saw that was a collaborative effort, right? That was me and my super agent and that was the outcome, right? That was like collaboration. My concept there was like a try- on hall. I wanted like to combine a Zumba dance workout at home with a try on hall because I was like, you know, I was in my zone and I was like, "Yeah, I've got an idea." Um, and then this was the out outcome. Um, the video that we'll see at the end was 100% generated by like it from everything from idea to to script to storyboard to everything. Um, and I'll tell you what the prompt was that I gave it. Um, but

yeah, it's a it's a moving target. It's not this one, is it? >> Not this one. This one. >> Can I come back to this one? >> We can play the next one. And >> is it? >> Oh, not not this one. The other the one we haven't There was two Zimb. Yeah, this one's the one. >> This is the one completely AI. >> No, no, this is There were three. This is the second one that we should play now. This one I didn't come up with the script.

>> Um, >> AI came up with this. >> AI came up with this. I can't remember what I came up with. Let's watch it and then we'll see. >> All right. >> Yeah. >> Shall we? Is it ridiculous doing a Zumba workout at the same time as filming a try- on haul? Probably. But I'm going to do it anyway. [music] No. Who says tryon hauls can't actually burn calories? Real talk. If I can't Zumba in it, I'm not buying it. Anyway, I've got a workout to do.

Now I remember. So, I made the first one first and then I was like, "Oh, this is cool, but I want a voice over, right?" And I was, "Ah, I came up with I What did I come up with? I don't know. Maybe I came up with the hooks. I can't even remember." But we were we were sparring. We were sparring and then we came up with some script. I was like, "Yeah, I like the sound of this. Let's go with this." Um, and then it was really hard to get this right. Right. So, the other one I said took like it was fast to make. This one I've got 20 versions and 19 suck. Like really tricky. Um, I think it's because I was asking for quite a lot, right? There's quite a lot going on with like the script, the storyboard, the cuts. Um, but yeah, this one was again a mix.

>> Nice. All right. And one thing I will say actually that I want to touch on, I got my notes. You say, "So I've got this notepad." I'm funny because technically I should not tell you that I've got my phone inside the notepad with notes because otherwise like just why are you sitting there with the notepad? Just use the phone. But I did tell you like Yeah. So none of these have been ran, right? Um and a question is I'm looking at them thinking, do I think that they're going to be winners? Which would be an interesting thing. And I guess what I will do is I'll run them and then I don't know maybe I'll do like a post on LinkedIn to say like which out of the two Zumba ads performed better. Uh I'll have to ask the client. I made these this morning so they don't even they haven't even seen them. I might get in trouble. If I get in trouble I'm blaming BBs.

Anyway um but are they going to be winners? And I was sitting there thinking and I was like, I don't know, maybe, right? Like maybe they'll be winners, maybe they won't be winners, but I actually don't care because I'm not attached to the creative. And this is what really stood out to me. And it's the same thing I've noticed with like coding, right? You become less attached to your your your code, but you also I become less attached to the creative. I didn't spend hours and hours grafting on a single script and like going back and forth with the creating no like what are you doing? Why did you say the word that way? when did you say the word this way?

It took me hardly any time. So whether or not it wins or doesn't win, I don't care. And I'm also not going to try and like reverse engineer the win and be like, "Yeah, I I think this one won." Because if you notice, blah blah blah. Because as I said, there's like 20 variations of each of these. And it's way more efficient for me to focus my time on coming up with really killer concepts and sparring and just letting meta do its thing than it is for me to get emotionally invested into a creative. And the irony is I pretty certain that this time last year I was saying the opposite thing, right? And I was a big advocate of really diving into the performance. Like, of course, we want to know the hook rate. I still do.

Of course, I want to know the hold rate. I still do. But why? What is it? Is it the accent? Is it like the hook words? Is it the tonality? Is it the clothing she's wearing? Is it the backdrop? Is it the lighting? Is it the this? Is it? And now I don't care because across multiple clients and multiple apps, I see all these things. because I think that's that's it. And then when I try it somewhere else, it doesn't work. Or it was the case, but now the trend's moved on and what I thought was a winning ad is no longer a winning ad. So now I'm just like, let's just come up with ideas and make good creative and then hopefully we can grow.

>> Yeah. Anton, has AI surprised you in unexpected ways? >> I mean, yeah, it kind of probably keeps surprising. Yeah. >> Yeah. Have they grown in unexpected ways? And I'm assuming that audience that she had a female like it was targeting male and female >> uh human our products. >> Yeah. Well, no that that ad like it was just broad targeting. >> Yeah. I think I think it's broad targeting. Yeah. Yeah. And meta decides.

And I mean going back to your point actually we also like at Reace sometimes try to predict which creatives would work better. I mean we never we never able to do it and sometimes obviously we have this metric of cost per creative and then we have very cheap creatives let's say the static creative which is completely just like you click the button it been generated then you have a big story tell where we actually try to find a specific person if this person is real then we put together like a long story tell and I mean these ads lose and then the generated one in one second wins so it's it's actually it's impossible to predict you you know, throw everything there. I think as well like cuz I was having this discussion with someone I think earlier in the week about like predicting winners and we were debating and my argument is look anyone who claims that they can predict a winner is lying because otherwise

there should be someone out there with like a lifetime 80% plus win rate just like dropping killer creatives or like you show them 10 creatives like look mate don't even waste your money on that that's your winner and like they would be a billionaire and I haven't met that person right and there's a reason why we aim for typically like what 10 10 to 15% win rate is considered standard. So if we can't predict and we spend all of our time building creatives and working on creatives, we got to really ask ourself why are we so obsessed with prediction?

And I think you're right about it's the like it's the cost per creative like we we get attached to what's the cost per creative can I reduce that or can I reduce my cost per winner? But then you can take it even further and say who cares about a cost per winner? What about costs per creative that I can spend half a million on? Right. Like, so, >> all right, let's watch this last video. And you will share the prompt. >> I will share the prompt. I promise.

>> In my head, I was always going to start running. Then I finally did. And now I'm out here actually running my first 10K. Runner got me here. Start your plan today. Are you not entertained? [laughter] Is this not why you are here? Um, no. So, the prompt, the prompt, create me a killer ad creative for the runner app that I can show off at a demo today. They are not a client yet, but make them an ad that will make them want to be.

>> That was my prompt. >> No, no lie. That was my prompt. Um, >> and then no editing afterwards. >> No editing after editing. >> So that was that was one shot. And there's about three of these that are like really good. And I picked this one. Um, there was one that was a little bit arguably a little bit better. But I was like, no. But that one would have required tweaking and then I wouldn't have been able to say that. And I thought, what's the bigger wow factor?

It's being able to say that was the prompt. Um, but yeah, like I think with this creative, it's clearly AI, right? Like duh. Um, but I think there are two types of AI creatives. There's AI creatives where we're trying to make it seem as though it's not AI, which I think there's, you know, an argument to be, we can discuss like the ethics there. Um, but I think there's an argument that those creatives perform well, but then there's creatives like the one you showed with the Mircat, like this one here, where it's like, well, clearly this is not like completely human. It either is, it either is, and they've like spent a crazy amount of production on this, but it's not like UGC. Even if someone were was to recreate this with like I don't know like how Hollywood do the movies and Iron Man and Marvel. But yeah, like I'm sure expensive production studios could recreate this. But do I care if I'm

looking at an ad that is created by an expensive production company or AI? No. The goal behind this creative is just it's kind of entertaining. Yeah, the script is not that strong, right? Like as a as a growth person, I'm looking at the script thinking, "Okay, yes, it's a decent story." Um, but yeah, it took me >> Sorry, Nathan, I'm gonna jump interject. The Anton, I would like to get your thoughts on this. James says, "Do you think AI creatives cheapen your brand identity?"

>> Cheaping our brand identity? Uh, no. No, I don't think so actually. Um so at the beginning of our journey uh we try to uh kind of um follow the I mean kind of brand guidelines for all the creatives that we produce and obviously it's a constraint so it constrained the creative ability of uh our team and the creatives were not as broad as possible and then once we started just like uh creating everything without like very little constraints I would say the performance marketing started working.

So the way how we think about brand is actually creative. No one actually remembers what you clicked on. What you remember is your interaction with the product. Uh and therefore we kind of try to think about the brand and build brand down the funnel not uh not at the creative level >> and it's been working actually quite f quite fine. Yeah. Bipal has a lot of organic traffic actually a lot of word of mouth. It's a really good product.

Um, and the ads are I mean they're not uh >> I like that answer compliance quality. >> Yeah, it's the product. When you have to search for an AI tool to be used during during your day-to-day operations, what are the key aspects that you take into account when making that choice? >> I don't know about anyone else, but I really struggle adopting I did struggle adopting new tools in as much as like for me it has to there has to be like a reason to give this a go.

like if it's just like the same thing as something else a little bit differently, I I kind of can't be bothered. So, it's it's a it's a tough one. I think >> we've probably all fallen um anxious around all of like the the LinkedIn comment bait like if there's enough comment bait like you know what I mean like comment comment skills. Oh yeah, comment comment um runner and then get the ad or whatever. You know what I mean? Like this kind of stuff that makes me think, oh no, I need to try that. a thousand people have commented and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, am I missing out on something?" But I've come to realize that like every time it's a disappointment. Um, so now it's just like, is there a need? Do I have a problem with my current workflow or do I genuinely think that this might enhance it?

>> All right, last question. Now with Vibe Coding, we all seen the stats. There's so many apps out there. Where do you guys see? Where are we headed here? What are we talking about next year >> in terms of the apps ecosystem? And uh, >> yo, it's broad. take it wherever you want to go. >> I mean I think two two things right. So now obviously it's much easier to develop an app but it's exactly the same kind of companies that uh are at the top right. I mean obviously there is some rotation but the fact that it's much easier to code doesn't mean that you can crack distribution and therefore the you know like the the distribution is like very heavy on >> I always say too.

>> Yeah. Right. But um if we think about kind of what's coming next so I think I mean obviously a lot of apps now try to kind of implement AI somehow and the kind of the clearest use case is the assistant who can like talk to you and help with something. I think probably the next layer would be agentic flows when the app actually can do something for you. I mean we haven't seen a lot of examples of it working and actually to be honest we haven't seen a lot of examples assistance working as well or meaningfully improving the app by adding them. So I think it's still a lot to go and I feel like technologically we're way more ahead of the product application of what we already have. So even if we stop everything that's happening on the technological side of things, I think there's still 5 years of innovation that we can uh implement.

>> Yeah. Feels like you can get done with a smaller team than like I don't I don't think the need for a big team is that necessary anymore. That's why I was asking if you grew your marketing team. >> Yeah, you can you can be definitely smaller. You can be definitely smarter. Yeah. Yeah. >> And [snorts] I think if we face were born right now without obviously like the processes, the legacy that we have, we would probably be able to be much smaller and do the same things. But u it's something for the new companies to do much easier than for the the others who existed already. Right.

>> Closes out. Nate. >> Yeah. I mean, I completely agree. I was struggling to think what do I think the future's going to look like next year? And I don't know what next year is going to look like, but one of the big bets I'm betting on is this premise that the future of successful companies, like successful companies that are starting out like today and like startups at the moment and and mobile apps that aren't already massive, isn't having a big team. It's having significantly smaller teams of great great operators, right?

Like if you can have three to five A players who are using, you know, AI to the fullest, you're going to win versus a team of 50 who like stuck stuck doing things the old way. Um, and I think you you gain efficiency. And I think that's kind of where we're headed. Ladies and gentlemen, do not go anywhere because we're about to do prizes. But give a round of applause for Nathan and Anton.