We chose an unexpected and fickle industry for IBM Watson to work in: fashion. Using visual recognition, Watson analyzed over 500,000 images from fashion archives and photos from prominent Instagram users to forecast next season's popular colours and styles. His insights helped Jason Grech, an Australian fashion designer to design the world’s first cognitive couture collection. The dresses were launched at the opening gala of Melbourne Spring Fashion Week, showcasing how an A.I. could help design a collection of couture dresses. ‘The Cognitive Collection’, brings together the artistic vision of a fashion designer and the power of IBM Watson, under pressure, to create the world’s first AI-enhanced couture collection.

We created print ads, display advertising, and content was seeded across digital and social platforms to create awareness of the successful application of IBM Watson to the fashion industry. Melbourne Spring Fashion Week launched the campaign, where we showcased Watson’s capabilities on the runway. We also held an exclusive dinner for industry decision makers where Jason explained how he utilised IBM Watson in developing his collection. Followers were kept up to date with videos and images documenting the process from conception to runway, and an immersive 360° video showcased Watson’s contribution across each piece of the collection. A website housed all the content we generated around the partnership, including educational content on the Watson tools Jason applied to his business. The website also provided further content on cognitive technologies and a link to trial IBM Watson’s APIs to demonstrate ease of use and capture new business leads.

The campaign made IBM Watson top-of-mind with our audience. The pre-roll video outperformed industry completion rates by 34%. Digital display drove a 0.054% CTR, exceeding industry benchmarks by 8%. A combined engagement of 1,133,357 across paid channels, with total video views of 874,936. And, an increase in social reaches YoY by 382%. From the numerous new leads that were created, many came from industries outside of IBM’s traditional clients from fashion sellers to jewelry retailers to luxury goods businesses and of course new interest from traditional sectors too. We achieved an incredible expense-to-revenue of 3%. And an ROI of over 3,235% on media. Also celebrities across Australia are lining up to wear dresses designed by Jason Grech + IBM Watson. See below in confidential information for the jury for full unprecedented sales results.