Creating a Full Ad Using Only AI Technologies

A few weeks ago, I asked ChatGPT to create a video ad script for the product nuCaffeine. In this conversation, ChatGPT provided me with about a minute worth of copy, as well as sequence of scenes to accompany the VoiceOver.

Also a few weeks ago, I used ElevenLabs to create VoiceOver audio files (check it out here). I went back to ElevenLabs to create my audio files for this ad. I appreciated the variety of voices to choose from!

Another topic I covered in my blog was how to get royalty-free music. I went back to bensound, and although it took some time to find the right track, I got a free music file to perfectly match my ad's tone and message.

I put all of this together on Adobe's Premier Pro. I know. Premier Pro is not free. However, it is the software I am most familiar with. I know Canva also has a free version with video editing capabilities. If you are just pasting clips together, Canva would be a good choice for you!

So, after clipping and editing speeds, and adding a few sound effects, here's the final result:

The Video Clip Sequence by RunwayML

So, how does it look?! Well, the AI-generated humans are little scary. The anatomical errors, the extra limbs, the creepy smiles... these are all common AI-generated errors I've encountered in the past. Maybe it would be worth it to look into paid applications when trying to recreate human likeness using AI technologies.

I want to point out I used the same settings for all RunwayML clips: gen-2 with 35mm camera and 5 motion scale. The results were extremely varied!

As you can see in the screenshots above, the settings are the same. However, the first clip looks a lot more believable. The guy in the second clip looks like he could be in the 2022 Smile film! One of my beginning clip sequences looks cartoon-ish, even though all the settings remain the same.

The Script Created by ChatGPT

The script was actually pretty good! I think ChatGPT made a great job at taking the prompts I threw at it and coming up wot a well thought-out and cohesive message. If anything, maybe it was just a tad too long.  The average attention span now rests at 8.25 seconds. For a new brand with not much brand recognition like nuCaffeine, a one-minute ad is pushing it far beyond reasonable expectations!

Below is a screenshot of all of the information I fed ChatGPT to get a good working script. Again, I am very pleased with the results!

The full script created by ChatGPT is here.

Voiceover Content by ElevenLabs

Although RunwayML offers the ability to create voice from text, I decided to stick with ElevenLabs. I really appreciate the variety in voices. From accents, to genders and tonalities, there is surely a voice that will fit your project. After listening to all the demos, I chose to use Josh, whose tags declare he has a deep voice suited for narration.

Under the free plan, you are not able to edit or make adjustments to your voice clips once they have been generated. For example, if after creating my entire VoiceOver audio, I decided the CTA needed to have a little more "oomph," I couldn't go back to edit the audio file already created. I would have to generate a new voice clip and edit the voice setting then. ElevenLabs does not allow you to listen to a sample before you commit to your download. This is not idea if you are working on a long project and need to make constant edits, as you have a capacity limit.

From my ElevenLabs small demo and this project, I've used 10% of my free-account allotted usage.

This was a very enjoyable project for me! The video quality is not the best. But I am well aware I used a free service. I don't expect professional-looking assets without paying for them. I am interested to see how this mock video ad would be different if I used more advanced and paid platforms. Maybe that will be my next project!