The Power of the Prompt (and the System)

A Real-World Experiment in AI Powered Marketing

I’ve talked a lot about how important it is to know how to prompt properly. This week, I wanted to actually put it to the test with a real-world example: creating some fun (and fake) marketing campaigns for Airbnb.

Every time I drive by an AirBnB billboard (which is quite often in San Francisco), I can’t help but kinda love their marketing campaigns. They are funny, witty, and generally make me laugh in a memorable way. So, I decided to challenge Gemini to generate some new billboard ideas, using Midjourney to bring the accompanying images to life.

Round 1: A Less-Than-Stellar Start

My initial prompt was intentionally simple:

"Come up with 3 billboard-style marketing ads for Airbnb. Tell me the slogan for the billboard, and then describe the picture that goes with it in detail."

The results were…underwhelming. The slogans were generic ("Live Like a Local, Not a Tourist," "Your Journey, Your Home," "Unlock the World") and the image descriptions, while detailed, lacked the distinctive Airbnb charm…

Round 2: The Power of Examples

Clearly, Gemini needed more guidance. So, for round two, I fed it a few examples of existing Airbnb billboards (the funny, quirky ones I love) along with a revised prompt:

"Come up with 3 new billboard-style marketing ads for Airbnb. Use the examples provided to generate these new ideas. Tell me the slogan for the billboard, and then describe the picture that goes with it in detail."

The difference was striking. The slogans were snappier ("Shell-abrate", "Vine and Dine", "Sky High") and followed the Airbnb style of pairing a short phrase with a relevant category ("OMG! Category", "Vineyards Category", "Amazing Views Category"). The image descriptions were also much more creative and aligned with the brand's aesthetic…

From Good to Great: Refining the Process (and the Product)

While the second round was a significant improvement, it wasn't perfect. The category names, while present in the images, were slightly off, and the Airbnb logo was entirely wrong.

This highlighted an important point about building AI-powered tools: the final product isn’t as simple as the output from a single prompt; that’s often just the starting point. In this case, a true "AI marketing tool" wouldn't just generate a single image from a simple prompt; it would involve a multi-step process with different user inputs and more than one single model call:

This modular approach allows for higher quality outputs, and greater flexibility and control - enabling users to tweak the output and ensure brand consistency.

The Takeaway: Prompting and Systems Thinking are Key

This experiment reinforced a fundamental principle of working with generative AI: while the quality of the output is directly linked to the quality of the prompt, it's equally important to think about the entire system. How do the different AI components work together? Where are the opportunities for human intervention and refinement? By considering the end-to-end process and designing a system that combines the strengths of both AI and human input, we can unlock the true potential of this transformative technology. It's a reminder that AI is not a replacement for human creativity, but a powerful tool for amplifying it. And when wielded effectively, within a well-designed system, the results can be truly remarkable.