Intuit Mailchimp uses AI to create its ‘clustomer’ marketing campaign

Intuit Mailchimp used AI to create a B2B marketing campaign focusing on the “clustomer,” the amorphous and diverse audience brands must reach with ads. The resulting ad performed in the top 5% of Ipsos ads, a success which Intuit Mailchimp CMO Michelle Taite attributed to the team’s willingness to experiment with AI.

Source: Intuit Mailchimp

AI in action: AI was used in ideation and proof of concept.

• An AI image generator was used to visualize the “clustomer” concept and how it would appear in campaign assets.
• AI imagery was used to test the ad with focused groups. The images could then be adjusted and retested to account for feedback within 15 minutes.
• Text-based generative AI was used as a starting point for translating the “clustomer” concept into other languages.

The campaign was “probably the most extensive campaign in terms of the amount of assets,” said Taite, but it took less time than others to create.

“We landed on this concept in the first of our meetings,” said Taite. “Usually it takes about five meetings to get alignment on a creative concept.” Taite attributed that speed to the ability to “show versus tell” what the concept would look like

Human touch: While AI functioned as a “colleague,” humans were the main drivers of ad creation, said Taite. The “clustomer” idea was a human pitch, and creation of the final campaign was done by real people. When working with AI, people still need to bring context to the table, said Taite, which in this case meant understanding what Intuit Mailchimp’s customers are looking for—effective marketing automation and targeting capabilities.

“Whether it's cultural context or business context or brand context, context really matters and context is what makes for great creative,” Taite said.

Put it to work: Leveraging AI starts with making marketers comfortable with AI. “Use it every day,” said Taite. For Intuit Mailchimp, this was working as a group to prompt ChatGPT either through shared exercises in person or comparing prompts over group messages to improve skills.

“What the shared sessions did for us was give people the confidence that this is going to automate something in your day and give you better insight and enable you to work in a way that is more efficient, but still requires your ingenuity,” said Taite.

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