The Math Has Changed Behind Scalable, Personalized Video, CTV and Audio Campaigns

It’s not a thesis, it’s a fact: brands need to deliver more content across multiple channels, make sure the content is truly engaging, and all on a shoestring budget. To get it right, campaign personalization and contextualization—achievable at scale with the right AI strategy—must be part of that equation. Spray and wash approaches are fast disappearing, and nowhere is this more important than with high-impact video and audio campaigns.

The numbers show that this exchange is already working. A recent McKinsey report found that companies using AI in their marketing and sales are seeing a 3-15% increase in revenue and 10-20% increase in ROI. But they are even more eye-opening: more data from McKinsey shows this personalization – the sweet spot of AI – increases customer satisfaction by 20% and conversion rates by 10-15%. For brands willing to move quickly, there is (yet) a rare opportunity to gain a concrete competitive advantage.

The Paradox of Personalization

IAB research shows that 90% of consumers actively prefer personalized ads, while the exponential growth of marketing channels requires more variations of each campaign. The execution challenge is then clear: traditional methods of creating deeply personalized ads are labor-intensive and stubbornly resistant to scaling. Marketing teams and agencies face an impossible task – unless they adopt a radical change in approach.

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Transforming creativity on a grand scale

Think traditional personalized and contextual ad creation: booking studio time, coordinating voice talent and managing weekly production schedules – for each ad variant. Want to keep track of different locations, time of day, weather and local offers? This could mean over 100 versions of a single ad. Even with improved engagement metrics, ROI just doesn’t work.

A smart AI strategy changes that fundamentally. From a single finished creative, marketing teams and agencies can now generate and test countless personalized variations on video, CTV and audio ads in hours, not weeks. Production timeline? Pressed for minutes. That’s not just a cost savings—it’s a complete transformation of what’s possible at scale.

Even more powerful: AI enables real-time optimization of campaigns. Instead of launching a new monthly variant testing project, marketers can now A/B test different creatives on the fly, manage campaigns in real-time and continuously fine-tune based on performance metrics. AI offers tools to easily manage mixed media buying, match video, CTV and audio creatives to media, while leveraging Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) to turn one ad into more and maximize performance across all channels. Result? Every ad becomes an opportunity to personalize and improve performance.

AI as a creative catalyst

The traditional creative process is linear and fragmented. Creative teams are often informed only after media teams have made key decisions, resulting in inefficiencies, missed opportunities and delays. Many brands continue to use unoptimized creative simply because they don’t have the time or resources to make changes.

The speed of AI-powered production unlocks new creative possibilities: instead of betting everything on one creative direction, teams can now quickly explore different (and sometimes very different) approaches with their existing assets to see what sticks.

Here’s what it might look like in practice: computer vision can analyze every frame of your existing video content, automatically tag the context and create a searchable library. From there, teams can quickly remix these assets—trying out new musical comments and visuals to create completely different emotional impacts. What would have previously been a large production becomes a matter of minutes, allowing teams to test multiple creative directions simultaneously. More creative risks can be taken, more variations can be tested, and more powerful campaigns will explode to the top.

Proof point

A recent ad campaign led by dentsu directly tested the performance of generic versus personalized AI-generated contextual audio ads and found some remarkable results. Generic non-personalized ads created with AI led to a 3 percentage point increase in purchase intent and a 9% increase in brand likeability. An improvement over the current state yes, but the personalized variants were on another level. Personalized ads generated by artificial intelligence have outperformed generic ads with a massive 18% increase in purchase intent and a 22% increase in brand popularity. Audiences were also 60% more likely to consider buying from a brand that personalizes and 73% more likely to pay attention to an ad personalized with AI.

Don’t be afraid of the future

We’ve been here before. When computer publishing came along, marketers feared the death of traditional design. Similar concerns arose when launching Photoshop. Today, these tools are essential to how we work—not because they have replaced human creativity, but because they have enhanced it.

The AI ​​wave is following the same trajectory, but with even greater potential. By automating the time-consuming aspects of personalization and production, AI allows marketers to focus on what humans do best: developing strategic insights, creating compelling stories, and pushing the boundaries of creativity. The question is not whether to embrace change, but how quickly you can seize the opportunity.