Imperial College Business School Taps into The Brandtech Group’s Generative AI Capabilities

The Brandtech Group is announcing a new pilot programme with Imperial College Business School to enable MSc Strategic Marketing Online students to be trained on how to use its Gen AI marketing platform, Pencil, for a hands-on Gen AI learning experience.

The pilot programme will be part of the university’s MSc Strategic Marketing Online on-campus week and has been designed to bridge the gap between theory and practice, offering the next generation of marketing leaders real-world experience in AI-driven content creation - from market insights and ideation, text, image and video generation, to predictive performance, media launch and impact measurement in real-time.

After students have been trained on how to use Brandtech’s market-leading Gen AI marketing platform Pencil and received keynote talks about the ‘Future of AI in Marketing’, ‘Sustainability in AI in Marketing’ and ‘Bias and Responsible Use of AI in Marketing,’ they will have the opportunity to try Pencil to replicate real-life marketing scenarios for the Unilever brand, Knorr. Pencil aggregates all the latest and best Gen AI models and enables marketers to make ad campaigns from end-to-end, from testing concepts right through to launching into digital channels, with a one-click connection to a brand’s ad accounts, from TikTok to YouTube to Instagram.

The students will showcase their new expertise in a live presentation delivering a proposal for Knorr using Pencil for insight generation, strategy development, and ad creation.

After students have completed their Pencil training and live presentation, they will receive a Pencil accreditation badge on LinkedIn, to evidence the knowledge and skills they have gained through the pilot programme and to help improve their employability.

This initiative goes beyond traditional curricula and is a strategic move to upskill the next generation of talent. A recent study found that 72% of companies are lacking the necessary talent in key areas like AI, underscoring the necessity for this programme.

The pilot programme between Brandtech and Imperial College Business School is not only the first step to transform marketing academia, but also preparing the marketing industry with a new wave of AI-literate professionals ready to redefine digital storytelling.

Brandtech Group partner and head of emerging technologies, Rebecca Sykes, says, “Gen AI is dramatically changing the way brands create content and engage with their audiences. Understanding and being able to operate the key tools is a vital skill that all marketers now need. We’re thrilled to partner with Imperial College Business School to play a pivotal role in the upskilling of students to equip them with new skills and help them stand out in the industry.”

Imperial College Business School, senior teaching fellow in marketing, Dr Julie Lewis, says, “We’re very excited to be working with the Brandtech Group, Pencil and Unilever on this innovative and experiential teaching and learning pilot. Hearing from expert industry speakers will enable our students to develop their understanding of important issues, including sustainability, bias and responsible use of AI in Marketing, and it will help them to create AI marketing campaigns in an ethical way. In addition, being trained on how to use the Pencil platform to use AI to create marketing campaigns and to respond to a brief and pitch their ideas to Unilever helps our students to develop sought after skills in Marketing and AI, as well as how to work as a team and communicate effectively.

Unilever digital and PR strategy head, Olivia Kirby, adds, “We’re delighted to be supporting The Brandtech Group and Imperial College Business School with this immersive programme. We’re already seeing how generative AI is rapidly changing the industry - the speed of change is extraordinary. The entire marketing industry is looking for people who can leverage this ever-evolving technology to transform their marketing. This is a great initiative that will help equip these students with invaluable skills.”

Pencil, which came to market in 2018, has already transformed marketing ecosystems, having created more than two million ads for 5,000+ brands including Unilever and Diageo, with $2.5bn+ of media spend having flowed through the platform enabling performance prediction as well as generation.

Pencil is unique as it aggregates the latest and most advanced Gen AI models from Google AI, OpenAI, Adobe Firefly, Runway, StabilityAI and more, positioning the participating students at the forefront of digital storytelling.

The programme will immerse and educate students in leading AI tools including GPT-4o, Google Veo 2 and Imagen, Stable Diffusion, Bria, Getty Images Adobe Firefly, Runway Gen3, and DALL-E 3 among others, taking them through the entire process of creating an ad using Gen AI. It will equip them with essential skills in AI-driven content creation and campaign analysis.