Category: Concepts

NotCo: AI-Powered Fragrance With Purpose

Back in 2014, Oscar Mayer showed how powerful scent becomes when it stops behaving like a message and starts behaving like a mechanic. Its bacon alarm let people wake up to the sound of sizzling bacon on the stove, while the brand inserted itself into a daily habit instead of a one-off impression.

Fast forward to 2026, and NotCo is pushing scent from playful activation into AI-enabled product development. With Giuseppe AI and its fragrance formulation work with Cramer, a Latin American multinational in flavors and fragrances, NotCo is showing how a sensory cue can become a personalized product proposition. Giuseppe is positioned as an end-to-end product development platform, meaning it helps move from idea to formulation to scalable output within one workflow.

How Aroma Best Friend makes Giuseppe easy to understand

Aroma Best Friend does not try to explain AI through dashboards, technical architecture, or speed claims. It explains the platform through a very human tension point: a dog struggling when its owner leaves home. The story is simple, emotional, and commercially useful at the same time.

The mechanism is easy to retell. The campaign presents a personalized fragrance generated from the owner’s scent profile so a dog is left with an olfactory stand-in for presence. An olfactory profile is the identifiable mix of volatile compounds associated with a person’s scent signature.

In consumer goods, this is the kind of AI story that travels fastest because it links formulation capability to a sensory outcome people can instantly understand.

The film frames the idea around making your dog happier, which keeps the promise focused on an outcome instead of a technology demo.

Why this lands harder than most AI demos

Most AI campaigns still make the same mistake. They tell you the model is powerful and then expect the audience to infer the commercial value. Aroma Best Friend works better because the technology claim is attached to a felt problem and a tangible output, which makes the platform easier to understand and easier to remember.

Extractable takeaway: AI becomes more persuasive when it is shown solving a problem people can emotionally grasp, not when it is described as a capability stack. The sharper the human tension and the clearer the output, the stronger the commercial story.

Scent is not decorative here. It is the proof. That turns Giuseppe from a backstage R&D engine into the source of a new kind of product experience. NotCo is not just advertising AI. It is advertising the kinds of product experiences AI can now help create.

The business play behind the emotion

The real question is whether an AI platform can turn an invisible R&D capability into a story that brand teams, partners, and future buyers instantly understand.

The official waitlist for the product makes clear that joining does not guarantee access to or availability of the product. That suggests this is as much about validating demand and capturing interest as it is about launching a ready-to-scale offer.

That is the smarter move. Aroma Best Friend works as a campaign, a proof-of-capability demo, and a demand signal test at the same time. Instead of saying that Giuseppe enables personalization and creativity, NotCo dramatizes a specific version of personalization that people can picture, repeat, and remember.

What FMCG and CPG teams should borrow now

  • Turn capability into consequence. Do not market the model first. Market the human outcome the model makes possible.
  • Use one emotionally legible use case to explain a broader platform. Aroma Best Friend is about dogs on the surface, but the deeper message is that Giuseppe can work where formulation and personalization matter.
  • Make the demo do double duty. The strongest AI campaigns are not just communications assets. They also test demand, capture leads, and reposition the company.
  • Choose outputs people can feel, not just read about. Text is easy. Fragrance is harder. That is exactly why this idea carries more weight.
  • Prove customization through specificity. Personalized fragrance is stronger than generic AI-powered personalization because it gives the claim an object, a use case, and a memory.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Aroma Best Friend really marketing?

Aroma Best Friend markets a personalized scent concept for pet separation anxiety on the surface, but at a deeper level it markets Giuseppe AI as a product-development engine that can move into formulation-led use cases.

Why does this explain Giuseppe better than a typical AI demo?

It explains Giuseppe better because it connects the technology to a human problem and a sensory output. That makes the platform easier to understand than abstract claims about intelligence, speed, or creativity.

Is Aroma Best Friend already a scaled product launch?

Not yet in any proven commercial sense. The waitlist language makes clear that joining does not guarantee access to or availability of the product, so the initiative still functions as a signal test as much as a launch story.

Why is scent such a strong choice for this idea?

Scent carries memory, comfort, and presence more directly than most brand cues. That gives the campaign emotional force and turns formulation technology into something people can instantly imagine in use.

What should marketers and innovation teams steal from this?

They should steal the structure. Start with a real human tension, let the technology solve it in a tangible way, and make the output specific enough that people can retell the story in one sentence.

InVideo AI: Future of Ads, or Slop at Scale?

InVideo just dropped a campaign that might be one of the sharpest AI ads to date. Or one of the most controversial.

Not because the ad itself is “good” or “bad.” But because of what it demonstrates.

The premise is simple. A local business wants awareness and local footfall. A single prompt arrives. Then a “creative team” appears on screen. A writer, director, producer, and sound designer. They brainstorm, storyboard, pull assets, debate tone, change direction midstream, swap narrators, land a punchline, and ship a finished promo.

The twist is that the “team” is not human. It is AI agents collaborating in real time. Here, “AI agents” means role-based AI workers that each own part of the task and iterate toward a shared output.

Some people will see this and think: finally, creativity at the speed of thought. Others will see it and think: here comes manufactured content. At industrial scale.

So let’s unpack what’s actually happening here. Not the hype. Not the fear. The shift.

What this campaign is really showing

On the surface, it’s a product story.

Under the surface, it’s a proof-of-concept for a new production model. Prompt-to-video (turning a single intent into a finished video in one workflow), orchestrated by role-based agents, pulling from your assets, and iterating like a team would.

That matters because we are crossing a line:

  • Yesterday: AI helped you edit.
  • Today: AI can generate components.
  • Now: AI attempts to run the full production loop. Brief to concept to execution to polish.

If that sounds incremental, it isn’t. The bottleneck in content has never been “ideas.” It has been translation. Turning intent into something shippable, on brand, on time, and fit for a channel.

This is what changes. The translation cost collapses.

Because the work is split into roles that can iterate through decisions, the system can converge on a shippable cut faster than a single prompt that produces one draft.

The “agents” idea. Why it clicks so hard

Most AI video tooling gets described as features: text-to-video, voiceover, stock replacement, templates.

Agents are a different mental model. They mimic how work gets done.

Instead of one tool trying to be everything, you have multiple role-based systems that divide the labor:

  • Writer: Hook, script, narrative beats
  • Director: Framing, pacing, scene intent
  • Producer: Assets, structure, feasibility, assembly
  • Sound designer: Voice, music cues, timing, emphasis

The output is not just “a video.” It’s a workflow that looks like collaboration.

And that’s why the campaign is sticky. It doesn’t just show a capability. It shows an operating model.

Fast definition. What “AI agents” means in this context

AI agents are role-based AI workers that take responsibility for a portion of the task, coordinate with other roles, and iteratively refine toward a shared goal.

In practical terms, this is orchestration. Task decomposition. Decision loops. And multi-step iteration that feels closer to a real production process than a single prompt and a single output.

In enterprise marketing teams, agentic video tools compress production time while making governance, briefing quality, and brand standards the real constraints.

Why the bakery storyline matters. It’s not about video

The reason this lands is the bakery.

Extractable takeaway: When production becomes cheap and fast, advantage shifts from making assets to owning the constraints. Brief clarity, brand standards, and POV become the bottleneck.

A small business is a stand-in for every team that has historically been excluded from “premium” creative production. Not because they lacked ideas, but because they lacked:

  • Budget
  • Time
  • Specialist talent
  • Access to production infrastructure

If AI production becomes cheap and fast, a new baseline emerges.

Customer expectations tend to move in one direction. Up.

We’ve seen this pattern repeatedly elsewhere:

  • Shipping went from weeks to days. Then days to “why isn’t it here tomorrow?”
  • Support went from office hours to 24/7 chat.
  • Information went from gatekept to instant.

Content is heading the same way.

When a local business can generate credible, channel-ready creative quickly, the competitive advantage shifts away from “who can produce” and toward “who can differentiate.”

So is this the future of content. Or a shortcut that kills creativity?

Both outcomes are plausible, because the tool is not the strategy.

Here are the three trajectories I think matter.

1) Creativity gets unlocked for more people

AI reduces the friction between an idea and a first draft. That can empower founders, small teams, educators, non-profits, internal comms teams, and marketers who have always had the brief but not the bandwidth.

If you’ve ever had a good concept die in a doc because production was too heavy, you know how big this is.

The upside version of the future looks like:

  • More experimentation
  • More niche creativity
  • More localized storytelling
  • Faster learning cycles

2) The internet floods with “content wallpaper”

When production becomes cheap, volume spikes. When volume spikes, attention gets harder. When attention gets harder, teams chase what performs. When teams chase what performs, sameness creeps in.

The downside version of the future looks like:

  • Infinite mediocre ads
  • Homogenized pacing and tone
  • Interchangeable visual language
  • “Good enough” content dominating feeds

That’s the fear behind “slop at scale.” Not that content exists. That it becomes meaningless.

3) Premium creative becomes more premium

There is a third outcome that’s often missed.

When baseline production becomes abundant, true differentiation becomes rarer.

Human advantages do not disappear. They concentrate around the things AI struggles with reliably:

  • Strategy and intent. What are we trying to change in the market?
  • Cultural nuance. What does this mean here, with these people?
  • Original point of view. What do we stand for that others don’t?
  • Brand taste. What is “on brand” beyond templates?
  • Ethical judgment. What should we not do even if we can?
  • Lived insight. What’s the human truth behind the message?

In that world, AI does not replace creative leaders. It raises the bar on them.

The practical question every marketing leader needs to answer

People debate whether AI can “replace creatives.” That’s not the operational question.

The real question is: Where do you want humans to be irreplaceable, and where do you want machines to be fast?

Because if AI handles production, your competitive edge moves to:

  • The quality of your briefs
  • The clarity of your brand system
  • The strength of your POV
  • The governance of your outputs
  • The measurement of creative impact
  • The speed of iteration without brand drift

A simple maturity test you can run this week

If AI can produce at scale, the risk is not “bad videos.” It’s unmanaged systems.

Ask this:

Who owns the continuous loop of prompting, testing, learning, scaling, and deprecating AI-driven creative workflows in your organization?

If the answer is “no one,” you don’t have an AI capability. You have scattered experiments.

My take

Production is getting cheaper. Differentiation is getting harder.

So the real decision is not whether you can generate more content. It’s whether you can scale output without losing taste, brand truth, and accountability.

Is this the future of content. Or a shortcut that kills creativity? It depends on who owns the brief, who owns the guardrails, and who is willing to say no.

Operating rules for agentic video ads

  • Make ownership explicit. Assign a named owner for the prompting, testing, scaling, and deprecating loop.
  • Brief before volume. Treat brief quality as the lever, not output quantity.
  • Lock the brand system first. Define templates, tone rules, and claim constraints before you automate.
  • Measure drift, not just speed. Track time saved alongside brand drift and performance deltas.
  • Use “no” as a control. Write down what should not ship, and enforce it with review gates.

A few fast answers before you act

Can AI agents replace a creative team?

They can replicate parts of the production workflow and speed up iteration. They do not replace strategy, taste, accountability, and cultural judgment, which still need named human owners.

What does “prompt-to-video” actually mean?

It’s the ability to turn a single intent into a finished video. Script, scenes, voice, music, edit, and formatting produced in one workflow without traditional filming or manual timeline work.

Does this inevitably create “slop at scale”?

It can if teams optimize for speed and volume over differentiation. The practical antidote is stronger briefs, sharper constraints, and explicit review gates for brand and claims.

Where should humans stay irreplaceable?

Brief quality, brand standards, and the decision-making layer. What to say, what not to say, what is true, what is appropriate, and what is distinctive.

What is the first governance step before scaling AI video?

Assign ownership for the continuous loop. Prompting, testing, learning, scaling, and deprecating workflows, plus a clear approval policy for what can ship.

What is a safe pilot to run in the next 2 weeks?

Pick one repetitive internal format, lock a brand template, and run A to B tests with human review. Measure time saved, brand drift, and performance deltas before expanding to paid ads.

WestJet Flight Light

WestJet creates a small device with a big emotional job. WestJet Flight Light is a nightlight that uses live flight data to project a parent’s WestJet flight path onto a child’s bedroom ceiling, turning the wait into a visual, interactive countdown of hours and minutes until the parent returns.

In airlines and other service businesses, more brands move beyond selling a product and start designing convenience services that drive repeat usage and loyalty by solving real-life friction.

By convenience services, I mean a branded layer that uses operational data to make a recurring job easier for the customer.

Here, the friction is business travel. WestJet wants frequent travellers to pursue work opportunities without losing connection with the people waiting at home. Flight Light makes the journey feel present. Not abstract.

Why the concept works

The power is not the hardware. It is the experience design. A child’s instinct is to count down. Flight Light makes that countdown tangible and playful by projecting the route in the place where bedtime routines already happen, which turns waiting into anticipation.

Extractable takeaway: If you can turn operational data into a repeatable ritual in the customer’s real environment, you create loyalty that feels like care, not marketing.

The service logic

This is a brand service that behaves like a product. A brand service is a repeatable utility that makes the brand part of a real-life routine. Live flight data becomes a family connection layer. The airline becomes part of the at-home story, not just the transport provider.

The real question is whether your operational data can earn a role in the customer’s routines, not just inside your app.

Brands should treat data as experience material when it reduces anxiety or effort in a moment that already exists in the customer’s life.

Beta-testing and what it signals

WestJet says a prototype of Flight Light exists, with beta testing scheduled to begin later this year. That is the bridge between a cute concept and something that can be operated, supported, and scaled.

Borrowable moves from Flight Light

  • Start with a real-life routine. Bedtime already has attention and emotion. Place the experience there.
  • Use operational data as story material. Flight status becomes a shared narrative the family can follow.
  • Make the countdown visible. Turn “when are you home?” into a simple, comforting visual progression.
  • Design for repeat trips. The value compounds when the service works the same way every time the parent travels.

A few fast answers before you act

What is WestJet Flight Light?

A nightlight concept that uses live WestJet flight data to project a parent’s flight path onto a child’s bedroom ceiling as an interactive countdown to their return.

Who is it designed for?

Business travellers and frequent flyers with families, especially parents who travel regularly for work.

What is the core experience design move?

It turns live flight status data into a comforting, visible bedtime ritual that makes the trip home feel real and close.

What problem is it solving?

It reduces the emotional friction of business travel by making a parent’s trip home visible and countable during a child’s bedtime routine, instead of feeling distant and abstract.

Why is it a brand service, not just a gadget?

The value comes from turning live flight data into an at-home experience a family can reuse on every trip. The nightlight is the interface. The service is the connection layer.