Parasol Island – Integrated Digital Studio

Renault pushes the imagination of its fans.

Leading experts in the communications industry agree that AI will profoundly transform various processes in advertising and marketing. However, there is currently no consensus on the extent to which AI tools can sustainably establish themselves in the creation of visual imagery in advertising. This divergence was also evident in a survey conducted by Parasol Island at the A/Imagine Event in 2023.

Renault contributes its own perspective on this topic. The brand is among the first major automotive OEMs to prominently feature AI-generated images in a campaign. The occasion is the 30th anniversary of the iconic compact car, the Twingo. The twist is that the designs do not come from the Renault Design Center in Guyancourt, but from the vibrant Twingo community.

Under the title “Reinvent Twingo,” fans were encouraged to redesign the Twingo and share their designs on social media channels. Their imagination had no limits: flying or underwater Twingos, even a Twingo made of chocolate, were submitted by hobby designers. The use of generative AI tools like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Dall-E aimed to enable people without design experience to create original designs.

“We wanted to pay tribute to the iconic Twingo by giving everyone the opportunity to participate in the creative process,” says Arnaud Belloni, CMO of Renault. “Thanks to today’s technology, anyone can unleash the power of their imagination.”

In the next step, Renault plans to merge the submitted designs into a physical show car based on the different participants’ concepts. “We present the first show car created by artificial and human intelligence,” says Belloni, adding, “By combining human and artificial intelligence, we have created an innovative campaign that blurs the boundaries between the digital and real world.”

Behind the campaign concept is The Arsenale Agency in Paris. User engagement has been solid but not groundbreaking. By the time of editorial deadline, under the hashtag #ReinventTwingo, nearly 3,800 fans have submitted their designs. For comparison, two years ago, Porsche reached 39,564 entries with a similar campaign mechanic where fans could showcase their own photos from their garages under the hashtag #DreamsAreMadeAtHome, all without the use of AI.