Enterprises are racing to create and deploy new AI capabilities that will propel them ahead of their competitors, but often turn to their primary cloud provider for their first AI pilots and experiments. Because IBM is not a cloud "hyperscaler," we were at a disadvantage. And on top of that, IBM was seen as a "walled garden," meaning a technology provider whose technology didn’t work well with that of other providers. But in reality, that wasn’t true. IBM has a robust ecosystem of partners they work with to offer businesses incredible solutions. Our partnership with AWS, the cloud leader, was crucial for IBM’s AI growth. We needed to compel our audience to understand that IBM and AWS can help them stay ahead of the curve by accelerating their AI journeys.

Fusion: The Art of Partnership is a generative art series that visualizes the impact of the AWS and IBM partnership, leading to a harmonious, best-of-both-worlds state. To bring

it to life, we turned the city of Las Vegas into an AI-generated art gallery. Digital out-of-home boards filled with GenAI art stopped our audience in its tracks, and brought the values of our partnership to life. The art showed the rich potential that can be unleashed when two iconic partners — IBM watsonx and AWS— come together, proving that these two technologies can propel your AI breakthroughs and serve as a powerful multiplier for your business.

We needed to reach industry leaders who were looking to expand their AI capabilities but might not be thinking of IBM yet. In order to connect with them in place with maximum impact, we landed on a media buy entirely in Las Vegas during AWS's flagship conference, AWS re:Invent, knowing the high concentration of priority business decision-makers. During the conference, we secured high-impact placements across the Las Vegas strip to intercept them at and in transit to the event. With breakthrough OOH assets during a high-reach moment, we created the perfect opportunity to dispel our audience’s current perceptions of IBM and demonstrate to them that IBM and AWS are hard at work together creating solutions that are seamless, accessible, and easy.

During re:Invent, AWS’s flagship conference, we turned the city of Vegas into an AI-generated art gallery. Transforming OOH boards into representations of the fusion of our two iconic brands, IBM and AWS, we utilized procedural simulations and particle physics to influence color and design.

We developed three generative art pieces inspired by the key elements of IBM’s partnership with AWS. We visually demonstrated:

--The scalability of the partnership by representing two nebulous bodies that move independently but in perfect sync with each other.

--The power of accessible data by creating rigid structures that imply the rational power of the upscaled AI through data.

--The human benefit of IBM Consulting with painterly impressions – softness and blurs that remind audiences that these tools are made by humans, for humans.

Additionally, we ran a paid post on LinkedIn to expand our reach beyond the conference.

To evaluate success, we looked at two key measurements.

First, we measured social engagement on paid and organic LinkedIn. Our organic social post garnered far more attention than we were expecting with:

-- Our organic social post garnered far more attention than we were expecting, with 3,200+ engagements, 220% above IBM benchmarks

-- Our paid social drove deeper excitement with a CTR 60% above our expectations, set by IBM benchmarks and an engagement rate 84% above benchmarks.

Second, we tested our assets in an online survey of IT and line-of-business decision-makers to ensure that our key message was coming through. We found that:

-- 95% correctly associated the campaign with IBM or watsonx.

-- Over 2/3 of respondents were inspired to seek more information about the partnership

-- After being exposed to the assets, 85% agreed that IBM integrates well with other technology partners like AWS