Invinte your crew to voyage.
Completed in 2023 while Director, Experience Design at VML.
All content is owned by VML and Virgin Voyages
Chief Celebration Officer
What if the chief of celebration Jennifer Lopez could invite you personally aboard a Virgin Voyages cruise? Check out VML's hype video below.
First things, First.
VML's creative team is top notch.
First, I want to express the genius of VMLs creative team to break fairly early into generative AI campaigns and thank the massive team that was a part of this campaign. I was asked to join a long list of incredible creative directors, UI design directors, technology specialists, video teams and many more who made Jen AI possible. To truly explore the depth and impressiveness of this campaign look to VMLs case study.
For the sake of this dive into the world of Jen.AI I want to speak to my experience in my first dive into the world of generative AI.
Meet Jen.Ai
In a pioneering move to establish an early foothold in the AI hospitality space, Virgin Voyages sought to revolutionize the cruise experience through the creation of an innovative digital concierge. The vision was to develop 'JEN AI,' a virtual assistant modeled after global icon Jennifer Lopez, designed to enhance the guest experience through personalized invitations. This cutting-edge initiative aimed to differentiate Virgin Voyages in the competitive cruise market by leveraging artificial intelligence to create meaningful connections with passengers. The digital concierge would respond to user prompts, helping guests plan their voyage activities, discover onboard experiences, and create a final video inviting friends to a new voyage.
An Exploration into Creating a Generative AI platform.
While our creative team was preparing for a video shoot with Jennifer, our CX team was hard at work figuring our the right flow, the right questions, and the right look and feel. The video shoot was pivital to the user flow and story, using consistent footage for the intro to each question and a bulk of the final welcome video. A studio session to capture Jennifer on video and audio saying certain words would then be the filler for the AI based personalization.
The question became, what do we need to ask each person to both have a fun, personalization invitation video for friends, but also capture enough data to actually pair each user with possible dates, destinations, and links to book, from the microsite. Below is the final journey from the media through to booking, determining what data is needed at each step.
From this journey, I worked with our technology team and creative team to determine where in a video based wizard we would ask users about their hoped for vacation while dialing up the celebration alongside our Chief Celebration Officer.
Each question was to be introduced by JLo while showing off a related part of the ship, after her video we'd but to a b-roll for the users to enter. Reducing the need for looped uadio tracks and JLO having to reappear from behind the various user inputs.
Jennifer appears, showing off part of the ship and then asking to the camera:
"What's your name?" - Users enter their name for the final video. Here the system cuts the user off from using certain offensive language.
"Who are you celebrating with?" - Users enter the invitees name for the final video. Here the system cuts the user off from using certain offensive language.
"What are you celebrating?" - Users select from a long list of common reasons to celebrate. Our hope was to leverage AI for open ended reasons but hit limitations with the technologies accuracy and high standards to not morph JLo's face.
"How do you celebrate?" - After seeing a tour of JLo's favorite on ship activities, users can select up two three of Virgin Voyages onboard activities. The AI then strings the prerecorded voices together with video to give a seamless invitation.
"Where do you want to celebrate?" - Users are given current destinations with Virgin Voyages, these data let's the system recommend real itineraries for booking.
Each of the questions tied data to a temporary key, ending with the user's email. Once the system had the info it generated the video and send a copy to the creator. They can then send that link along to whoever, and however they pleased. Each video ended with a CTA to explore and book cruises.
The "Jen AI" campaign was a viral sensation, generating over two billion impressions and driving significant traffic to Virgin Voyages. VML's creative approach blended widespread interest in AI with the celebrity appeal of Jennifer Lopez, providing the target audience with a flavor of the extraordinary experiences they might expect aboard a Virgin Voyages cruise.
With 25,000+ personalized invites and a surge in new prospective sailors, the campaign achieved its goal of high engagement, increased site interaction, and delivered a notable uptick in opt-ins for future communications – proving the power of AI in the art of invitation.