Open For Magic sELFie Studio Uses AI Generative Art to Turn You Into a Keebler Elf

Advantage Unified Commerce, an agency specializing in delivering commerce outcomes across all retail channels, came to Groove Jones to help them create an AI-powered experience for their client, Keebler, as part of the Open for Magic campaign for Fudge Stripe Cookies.

This case study highlights the use of AI technology in the innovative customer engagement campaign – Fudge Stripe sELFie Studio.

Advantage Unified Commerce was approached by Ferrero SpA and the Keebler Company to create and engaging digital experience for the Keebler brand. Their idea was to combine the power of AI with the iconic Keebler® Elf character in a fresh and highly socially shareable way by tuning customers into Keebler Elves.

The Keebler sELFie Studio Experience

The Keebler sELFie Studio represents a unique blend of fun and technology, leveraging advanced AI and Machine Learning algorithms to transform customers into delightful Keebler elves. Users access the experience through a QR code printed on the Fudge Stripe Cookies packaging, leading them to the enchanting Open for Magic campaign website.

After passing an age gateway, users upload multiple pictures of themselves, and the AI art generator will produce a whimsical color portrait of you as a fully realized Keebler elf inside or around the iconic Keebler treehouse.

Users can then download and share these photorealistic portraits on their favorite social platforms.

AI Generative Art Technological Implementation by Groove Jones

A primary challenge during the development was striking the right balance between preserving the individuality of the user’s selfies and infusing them with the unique charm of the Keebler elves. We addressed this challenge by training our AI engine to understand and replicate key features that define Ernie, the iconic Keebler mascot. We leveraged archival campaigns, including print and television commercials, to capture Ernie in a variety of different poses and angles.

Our approach involved a detailed study of Ernie’s distinct elf characteristics, which we then incorporated into the AI Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) model types. This enabled us to effectively apply Ernie’s elfin style onto the users’ selfies, resulting in personalized yet recognizable elf avatars, including pointed ears, chubby cheeks, elf headwear, and outfits.

We also sought to emulate the unmistakable Keebler treehouse setting in the portrait backgrounds. To achieve this, we trained the AI on hundreds of Keebler-themed backgrounds, enabling it to learn and reproduce the distinctive visual style. The result was a comprehensive transformation of not just the users into elf characters but also the modification of the surrounding environment into a classic Keebler landscape.

To bring this vision to life, the development team created a Web-based experience. No App is needed.

This involved developing the front-end experience based on the Advantage Unified Commerce team’s designs and crafting scripts for the AI image generation process.

Given the graphics processing unit (GPU) intensive nature of generating images using AI, server scalability was carefully considered. Groove Jones built the AI platform on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

AI unlocks a new level of creative engagement that cannot be achieved through a traditional filter experience. Through this technological implementation, Groove Jones was able to seamlessly integrate AI-driven image generation, delivering uniquely magical and personalized experiences for users.

Visit the Open for Magic campaign website https://openformagic.com and experience the sELFie Studio yourself.

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