Commentary

Cosabella Lingerie Balances AI With Humans

Artificial intelligence is showing up in many places and one global luxury brand is tapping it for everything from ad buys to personalized promotions.

Cosabella, a global lingerie brand headquartered in Italy, transformed how it interacts with customers with AI-driven targeted advertising spending.

Using an artificial intelligence system called Albert, Cosabella increased its global customer reach, identifying new customers in various countries around the world.

AI creates a lot of efficiencies,” says Guido Campello, CEO of Cosabella. “We applied AI to our ad spend and now we’re focused on how we scale it.”

(Campello will be discussing his company’s marketing transformation and detailing what an AI journey entails in his presentation at the MediaPost OMMA AI Forum on Wednesday morning.)

Cosabella put Albert in charge of advertising spending and uses AI for personalized email promotions. “We replaced our email marketing pretty quickly,” says Campello.

Using Albert converted the programs into one of constant evolution.

Now that various systems are automated via the AI of Albert, Cosabella is essentially re-balancing.

“We’re bringing people back into the process,” says Campello. “It’s about getting the right mix of people and technology.

“AI needs the human element in our category, since trends and forecasts are not necessarily predictable. There are so many variables and factors.”

Adding AI into the company processes also drove some internal changes.

“We took the marketing and digital department spends and merged them together,” says Campello.

Albert has helped Cosabella to buy ads based on identifying and leveraging the best search words, though is somewhat challenged by discovering future words.

“That requires a mix of human and IA,” says Campello.

The first phase of using Albert was basically to let the AI do its thing.

“I hate saying this, but it’s like having an agency in a box,” says Or Shani, CEO and founder of Albert. “Brands bring their creative assets, tell Albert the goals and set a budget. But at the end of the day, Albert is a machine and that machine measures results as it goes.

“In reality, machine learning is only needed with a problem that is so complex, like the synchronization of messaging, that there needs to be machine learning. Brands come to us not because they want to use AI, but because they want to solve a problem. Five to 10 years from now, everyone is going to use this type of solution.”

Shani views Albert as part of a team rather than simply a tool.

Cosabella tends to agree. Campello said the internal team, being Italian, even refers to the AI engine as Alberto.

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Many aspects of artificial intelligence, including a presentation by Cosabella CEO Guido Campello, will be featured at the MediaPost OMMA at Advertising Week conference Tuesday and Wednesday. Here’s the agenda.

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