🦙 This AI Alpaca Makes 6 Figures

When Slack jokes make it out of the group chat.

Author

Daniel Toft
February 23, 2024

The Deep Dive by DTCo

An innovative-fiber apparel brand named PAKA had vertigo inducing Q4 goals. As a brand new client, we really wanted to wow them. Based on our projections and planning, we laid out two goals:

  • Preliminary Goal: Stop the scroll during the most expensive, cluttered inventory period of the year. [KPI: Thumb Stop Rate]

  • Primary Goal: Sell alpaca fiber sweaters, lots of them. [KPI: QoQ/YoY Growth, ROI]

Half joking, a Growth Manager on our team, David prompted an AI rendering of an alpaca wearing a coat on a snowy city street. 

The DTCo pod that works with PAKA, Heather and Kyla, finessed and pitched the concept, securing client buy-in. 

We kept the concepts simple:

  • Put an anthropomorphized alpaca in an PAKA hoodie.

  • Plop him in scenic environments as all top historical top performing ads featured scenic backdrops.

  • Overlay hero value prop messaging, but downplay so the visual takes precedent.

The test was to answer “does an absurd product first ad, stop scrolling and drive purchases?”. We had a Content Strategist, Bonnie, who was in her second week take on the challenge.

The ads launched. The campaigns were optimized and analyzed.

Two months later, the champ iteration - an AI generated alpaca against a muted mountain background, sporting a PAKA hoodie - has generated high six figures in revenue.

Big takeaways:

  • Hear out weird ideas and leave room for play. Don’t back down from a big swing.

  • Bake in data-backed opinions along the way. Off the wall concepts are great, but as growth marketers, we need to be able to learn from them.

Technical learnings:

  • AI is awesome at creating fantastical images, such as an alpaca wearing a parka on a city street. It's not conducive to multiple feedback rounds where only specific objects need to be edited.

  • We faced time limitations when it came to actually putting the right hoodie on the alpaca. If moving quick is the goal, contrary to belief, AI may be a hindrance rather than a propeller.

Want to know if we smashed those aforementioned sky high Q4 goals? 

Spoiler alert: we did.

Spoiler alert 2x: we’re going to tell you how soon.

Finding this help or just fluff? Let us know at [email protected].