Why the creative power of gen AI in advertising starts with the prompt
Opinion
What truly distinguishes average AI outputs from extraordinary ones? Seedtag’s SVP of design advises how to tap into generative AI’s full potential.
The promise of generative AI in advertising has dominated industry conversations over the past year, as tools begin to shoulder more of the creative workload. However, as the market becomes saturated with similar capabilities, a deeper question arises: what truly distinguishes average AI outputs from extraordinary ones?
The answer lies not in the tools themselves, but in how we use them.
Too often, we treat generative AI like a magic wand, where we feed it a basic prompt and expect brilliance instantly. However, the quality of its responses is only as strong as the information it receives. In advertising, the conversation must shift from obsessing over the AI engine to focusing on the fuel we feed it.
The prompt is the product
If generative AI is the engine, then the prompt is the steering wheel, and the prompt writer is the driver. Just like in Formula 1, the performance of even the most advanced machine depends entirely on the skill of the person behind the wheel.
In the context of creative development, the prompt isn’t merely a request. It’s a strategy. Nuanced, real-time insights about consumer behaviour, media environments, and content trends shape the best prompts. These insights, like those drawn from intelligent contextual technologies, do more than improve relevance. They breathe intent into the output.
This is where the synergy between contextual understanding and generative capabilities becomes a differentiator. By harnessing high-fidelity contextual data on topics, tones, environments, and user mindsets, advertisers can guide generative AI to create content that matches the format and platform, while genuinely speaking to the moment.
Without this data-led prompting, the creative risks falling flat. With it, AI becomes a co-pilot in telling stories with precision, emotion, and impact.
Tapping into GenAI’s full potential
With 78% of organisations across the globe already incorporating AI tools in their operations, the differentiating factor isn’t access; it’s mastery. This involves knowing what to ask for, training the AI on the right data, and crafting data-driven prompts that guide it toward outputs that serve a strategic goal.
It also means understanding the difference between decoration and direction. AI-generated content may look impressive, but does it resonate? Do you think it makes sense in the context? Does it reflect what the audience is feeling in that specific moment?
The true power of generative AI lies in intentionality—how we align creativity with context, and prompt the tools with data that truly reflects the user.
From attention to intention
At its best, advertising doesn’t just capture attention; it aligns with intention. That means serving creatives that reflect where an ad appears, why the user is there, and what mindset they’re in.
While the human element is still essential for monitoring and approving outputs, this is where real-time contextual intelligence, analysing live content, plays a critical role. AI systems can infer key signals, such as tone, sentiment, topic relevance, and cultural nuances. These signals can then inform how generative models are prompted.
Crucially, this approach also serves as a privacy solution. By relying on live content cues rather than personal data, marketers can create campaigns that feel personal without infringing on user trust.
Driving better outcomes
The output of generative AI isn’t the endpoint; it’s merely a function of what goes in. Prompting is a creative brief in itself, and the more grounded in context and purpose it is, the more effective the results.
Leading marketers now treat prompting as its own discipline, sitting at the intersection of data, media strategy, and creativity. Marketers need to incorporate real data about the environment in which the ad will be displayed, as well as the language and visual tone that work best with the customer, into their prompts. The more precise and organised any information provided is, the better the output will be.
This level of specificity doesn’t just come from gut instinct. It comes from partners that can translate media intelligence into structured, data-rich prompts. The real value lies in the bridge between insight and output.
Generative AI is already reshaping our perspective on creative production. However, if we want to move from novelty to impact, we need to become more strategic in how we engage with it. The best ads won’t be those created by AI alone; they’ll be the ones shaped with it, guided by real-time insights, and prompted with intention.
Fernando Pascual is SVP of design at Seedtag