Just over two years ago the presentation of OpenAI’s ChatGPT triggered off a hype about so-called Artificial Intelligence (AI). The initial excitement has since died down, but the technology behind it has established itself across the broadest range of fields in no time at all. eppi magazine spoke with industry experts about what has changed within their companies over the past years as a result of the new technological solutions and how they use the opportunities of AI themselves.
Merely a fashionable trend, an amusing pastime for the tech-savvy or really a revolution for the daily work routine? For the AI expert, Timo Springer, co-founder of Decaid, the answer is clear: “AI will revolutionise the business world. A key aspect is the massive increase in efficiency and productivity.” This is long since not an individual opinion, but actually common sense.
The initial impulse
The fact that many companies have in the meantime recognised this potential is not least due to the hype that the introduction of ChatGPT kicked off. Whereby the concept of AI is much older than ChatGPT and the experts have actually been discussing it since the 1950s. However, the topic reached the general public with the user-friendly Chatbot. All of a sudden, millions of people began experimenting with the tool. That is also how Christoph Ruhrmann, Managing Director of the promotional products agency, Plan Concept, described it: “The major breakthrough came with ChatGPT. We started playing around with it and noticed that it is fantastic.” Helge Petersen, Creative Marketing Manager at mbw, the German specialists for cute promotional products like cuddly toys and rubber ducks, sees the situation similarly: “As is probably true for most companies, ChatGPT was our first point of contact with AI in everyday life. We began occupying ourselves intensively with this technology at mbw in around January 2023. We quickly integrated ChatGPT into our processes and gathered initial experience.” Silvan Dolezalek, Managing Director of the E-Commerce specialists, CosmoShop, that offers solutions specifically designed for the promotional products market, was on the other hand originally sceptical: “We didn’t jump on the bandwagon straightaway, we wanted to wait till the hype died down first. We always look for the practical benefit before occupying ourselves with a theme in detail.”
Areas of application
However, CosmoShop found plenty of these very quickly. “We noticed that it made sense to implement an AI plug-in in the shop software for the article data the suppliers send to the distributors,” stated Dolezalek. Because these are huge amounts of data that are often rudimentary. Furthermore, all of the distributors receive the same data from the respective supplier – both of these facts have a negative effect on the search engine ranking of a web search. CosmoShop’s plug-in with the ChatGPT interface allows the product description to be optimised automatically for search engines. Dolezalek explained: “The description texts of the items are unique, have more scope and contain the important keywords. It would take years for many distributors to carry out this work by hand – by then the supplier would long since have a new collection.”
For its AI.Art by Rastal, the glass manufacturer uses image generating AI to embellish glassware.
The suppliers’ product data is also transformed into attractive product texts at Plan Concept. “We can do things today that wouldn’t have been worthwhile before or which we didn’t have the manpower capacity for. Generating texts for over 40,000 products – that is a volume that we couldn’t even have handled if we implemented all of our employees.” Ruhrmann also makes AI assistants available to his employees, which aid them in compiling appropriate offers for their customers or for processing complaints. “The AI assistant provides information on the customer and suggest the right wording. The idea is that AI learns to understand the needs of the customers and thus saves the skilled employees time.” Ruhrmann also sees an advantage in the implementation of translation tools like DeepL: “It helps reduce language barriers. This applies for maintaining contact with the customers and the suppliers, because such tools allow emails to be written in English faster and more accurately. But it also enables foreign, skilled employees to be integrated into the company more easily.” Plan Concept additionally implements AI for processing invoices and for accounting purposes. However, Ruhrmann also emphasised: “We don’t use AI as a chatbot for customer communications. Here, for us the personal, human interaction is important.”
Retaining this human factor also plays a major role in the implementation of AI for Stefaan de Leenheer from the Belgian Kick and Rush Group. Kick and Rush pursues a human-centred approach: “AI, or what we call ‘Architectural Intelligence’, plays an essential role in our operations, but not in client relationships. Our motto, ‘AI is for operations, not for relations’ highlights this distinction.” De Leenheer emphasises the significance of personal creativity and interpersonal relationships, while at the same time recognising the potential of the technology, when reporting about his experiences: “AI assists us in optimising visuals and client projects, enabling us to work faster and more efficiently. It has also enhanced our capabilities in content creation and reporting.”
“Optimisation” and “efficiency” are terms that are often used in connection with AI. Petersen also uses them when he talks about his AI everyday life in marketing: “We have been able to reduce lengthy briefings down to essential points and thus compile more precise instructions for our teams. This increase in efficiency and ability to formulate contents precisely and target group-specifically, offers us true added value. In the meantime, we implement Chat-GPT regularly to generate or optimise marketing texts.” According to the CMO barometer of the Serviceplan Group, 48% of the respondents consider AI and the automation of marketing to be the top priority for the year 2025.
“Modern AI tools enable significant increases in productivity in almost all marketing processes,” explained Springer. “They automate routine tasks like compiling content and reporting. High-quality marketing copy can be produced on-brand almost non-stop. At the same time, AI opens up totally new possibilities in personalisation and targeting. The real-time analysis of customer data enables a more precise target group address than ever before. AI-supported campaign optimisation leads to measurable performance increases.” Springer also considers AI to be a sparring partner for creative work, which allows new formats and campaign approaches as well as faster testing and the iteration of concepts.
Petersen reported how the new tools in the graphic department of mbw are used: “Photoshop generative fill was a true game changer. Complex image processing that took up a lot of time and resources in the past, can now be carried out in just a few clicks. We have also been able to considerably reduce the efforts for photo shootings. We can shoot the photos wherever we want and simply impose them into the desired scenery using AI. In this way we save time and money on expensive locations for the shootings and reduce the post-processing workload.” mbw also implements the image generation possibilities for the development of prototypes, i.e. to visualise different models of the rubber ducks more easily. But as Petersen said: “The visualisations aren’t created at the push of a button – AI isn’t that advanced yet. Manual effort is still required.” The designer has to refine the AI draft in the Photoshop programme, which is why mbw calculates a nominal fee for the creation of such a visualisation. “This is of course offset against a subsequent order so that no additional costs are incurred for the customer,” commented Petersen.
At the glass manufacturers, Rastal, image generating AI is used in the design process to embellish glassware. The company introduced the AI.Art by Rastal concept – AI image generation – long before the technology was as sophisticated as today. Hence, Rastal enabled its customers to fall back on the technology at an early stage and communicate their innovative spirit visually on glass.
mbw implements the image generation possibilities for the development of prototypes.
According to Springer, the entire promotional products industry can benefit from the technical development. He talks about a host of useful AI tools: “ChatGPT is increasingly establishing itself as a versatile all-rounder. For creative marketing texts and demanding copies, Clause proves to be an excellent choice with its high quality output. On the visual side, Midjourney convinces with its fast creation of drafts and concepts, whilst Adobe Photoshop is revolutionising the professional processing of image files with its integrated Firefly AI. The AI-supported search engine Perplexity provides precise, current and well-prepared information – real added value for the strategic market and trend analysis.”
The French promotional products distributor, Synneo, began integrating AI into the company’s processes in 2023. “The catalyst was an extensive merchandising project for a customer in the E-Commerce sector, which required fast introduction. The project encompassed 20 licenses in the online shop and required the automation of several steps in order to master the challenge,” reported Emma André, AI Project Manager at Synneo. In the meantime, Synneo implements the technology in various business units. Including submitting tenders and the optimisation of the quotation processes, supporting customer service staff with the selection of the best promotional products based on the needs of their customers, the generation of attractive contents for the social media and newsletters for marketing purposes, AI tools in Photoshop and the use of Midjourney to support the product design of custom-made items as well as tailor-made AI-driven supply chain management solutions for the automatic generation of product labels with barcodes.
Challenges and problems
However, the implementation of the AI technology in business processes also presents companies with huge challenges and problems. André listed three important issues here: “First of all, one has to make sure that AI tools can analyse documents and precisely extract certain data. We have to train teams in these skills so that they can systematically check and further refine the results of the AI. Secondly, it is essential that the sensitive company and customer data shared with the AI tools is protected. The solution here lies in the usage of safe AI plans for companies to guarantee the confidentiality of the data and enable a secure cooperation. Thirdly, AI tools have to be accessible to and understood by all employees, regardless of their previous technical knowledge. Here detailed instructions have to be developed and user-friendly tools implemented in order to safeguard a smooth onboarding process and simple handling.” At Plan Concept the fact that the AI tools were integrated into the existing working environments was very helpful for the employees. “That reduces inhibitions to use AI,” said Ruhrmann.
mbw also uses special subscription options of the AI supplier to guarantee the data protection. “The contents we place at the disposal of AI is not allowed to be used for training external users,” reported Petersen. And the mbw executive also sees the need for employee training: “Using the AI tools is often more demanding in practice than one imagines at the first glance. To achieve really good results one has to have a certain understanding of the subject and the ability to formulate precise prompts. To do so one has to be aware of the possibilities and intricacies of the tools. Fortunately, there are many public resources that help one master this learning curve.” According to Petersen, in order to combine the different approaches and results intelligently and attain a consistent result in collaboration with the team, several obstacles have to be overcome: “Since we have the opportunity to configurate our own GPT models, this process has become much easier and more efficient. We can adapt the models more readily to suit our specific needs and thus guarantee a more uniform method of working within the team.”
For Dolezalek from CosmoShop the price structure with settlement by token proved to be a challenge at the start: “It wasn’t clear at the beginning, what counted exactly and thus what costs could be expected.” The hallucinations of the AI model were a further stumbling block. “It could be that AI describes things that don’t correspond to the reality, for example when the product description of a red cup is subsequently a golden vase. The AI has to eliminate such creative inventions in the prompt with precise specifications,” is how Dolezalek summed up his experiences.
Ruhrmann is also of the opinion that the results of the AI have to be examined closely: “AI offers help and support that can save a lot of time, but it is not a sure-fire success. We are accustomed to standard IT system doing their work efficiently and reliably, but AI is not as straight forward. Hence, the workflows always have to be monitored by people, one can’t simply wave everything through without checking it.” This is why Ruhrmann considers the AI hype to be a risk: “Some people think everything is possible with AI. But AI also has its limits and this is why one should always consider what can realistically be done using AI. If one ultimately spends more money on AI than one saves, it is contraproductive.”
Emma André sees the limits of AI to be the quality difference between humans and machines: “AI provides answers based on large quantities of data, it doesn’t invent anything new, it only consolidates, analyses and reformulates. This is incredibly impressive for certain tasks and leads us to think that this has something to do with intelligence. But I don’t think AI will ever replace human creativity, the ability to invent and to come up with innovations.” André considers the uniformity and incredibility of AI-generated contents to be problematic: “It is probable that in a few years’ time when everyone is using AI perfectly, that very similar answers will be provided to everyone. Many scenes from Netflix series are already generated using AI today, they are, nevertheless, more and more frequently recognised as being such. The same is true for many AI-generated texts, that we are gradually able to distinguish from texts that have been written by humans. That is why I believe we need teams, who are not only able to use AI efficiently, but who can also analyse briefings with sensitivity and a fine instinct to compile unique proposals.”
Future outlook
According to Springer, many people underestimate the speed of the changes being brought about by AI. He predicts: “In 2025 we are expecting a much deeper integration of AI into the standard marketing processes, the appearance of specialised AI tools for niche industries and a stronger focus on AI-supported optimisation of the customer experience. Parallel to this the consolidation of the service provider market will continue because classic marketing services will come under pressure because of the AI automation.” There is also increased innovative pressure in the promotional products industry, as Dolezalek confirmed: “AI is not currently the universal remedy, but it is developing exponentially. Established companies have to keep up. It is the operating management’s task to keep an eye on the status quo. It is dangerous to ignore this development. It is a massive disruption, not just hype. It is essential that the topic is taken seriously and that companies occupy themselves with it, otherwise the other firms will simply overtake them.”
Ruhrmann thinks AI should be considered in the overall context of digitalisation and that it is seen as an economic necessity for the technology to be integrated at an early stage: “We try to stay in front of the current status. There is tough competition in our industry and anyone who doesn’t go with the trend, pays dearly. Ultimately, it is about competitiveness. Without AI it is no longer possible to provide the service the customer expects. It is about manifold processes such as budgeting, production, logistics. You can buy a ballpoint pen anywhere, but the decisive thing is involving the customer in this process. We have to find out what the customer needs and eliminate errors using AI. We have to turn our people into employees skilled in AI as quickly as possible. Then we can save working time.”
Petersen also came to the conclusion: “AI will considerably change the promotional products industry.” In addition to the automation of time-intensive work processes and AI-supported data analysis he also sees potential regarding sustainable production: “AI can contribute towards optimising production processes and minimising workflows, which will make the industry more environmentally-friendly and at the same time save resources.” The AI expert, André from Synneo, also rates the changes caused by AI positively: “As in all industries, the efficiency of the companies in the promotional products industry will improve and will in all probability change our value proposition. Placing a logo on a product will soon be completely automated. Issuing recommendations to a customer after a briefing will improve and one day the technology will be more comprehensive, faster and more efficient than a person. The question isn’t whether it will happen or not. It will definitely happen. The question is how we further develop our work and adapt it to suit the implementation of AI.”
Springer calls upon the promotional products industry to take advantage of the huge technological opportunity: “The industry can and should profit from the efficiency and productivity increases AI allows. And use it to optimise its value chain.” For Dolezalek the key to the matter is dispelling the decision-makers’ reservations about AI: “They should simply invest the 20 Euros in the OpenAI subscription, because the fee-based model is capable of much more. Then, one can see all that is possible by simply trying it out. There are hundreds of AI tools for a wide range of fields of application in the meantime. This is a call to occupy oneself with this technology.”
Regarding their products themselves, i.e. haptic advertising media, according to Springer, the industry shouldn’t have any fears in the new, digital AI world – on the contrary: “In an increasingly digital world where AI-generated contents are becoming omnipresent, we are observing growing scepticism about digital advertising. This offers the promotional products industry a unique opportunity: Authentic, physical brand experiences are gaining huge significance. As haptic touchpoints, promotional products create real, trustful connections between brands and target groups.”
De Leenheer is also convinced: “AI will continue to gain significance in our industry, but only as a tool to support operational processes, never as a replacement for the human connection.”
The integration of AI tools is still in its infancy in the promotional products industry, but the dynamics that the theme displays leads us to suspect that AI-supported processes will soon be an indispensable part of everyday life.
// Andreas J. Haller
