They had no budget, no client, and no creative director to guide them. But they decided to use this to their advantage and turn it into a hook that will generate buzz. The team came up with the idea of actually building their own creative director using artificial intelligence.

AI-CD ß officially joined McCann Tokyo as creative director on April 1, 2016 along with 11 employees newly graduated from university. News of the hiring was intentionally released right before April Fool’s Day. AI-CD ß will actually be assigned clients and will work with a creative team as creative director.

Through data and technology, the McCann Millennials team was successful in creating this year’s most talked about and anticipated new employee in Japan. The news of AI-CD ß was covered by some 60 media outlets in over 30 countries around the world and created big news and publicity both in Japan and overseas. The news also piqued the interest of a client, who then assigned the A.I. as a creative director to its ad campaign.