Electric Twin uses AI, machine learning, social science research and brands’ existing audience data to simulate how real audiences behave.

In the first work of the partnership, Scary Robots paired with Electric Twin to develop and refine the creative for a TV advertising campaign for dog GPS tracker brand PitPat using synthetic audience quantitative testing.

Work for the campaign involved a synthetic audience panel of 1,141 ‘UK dog owners’ across six demographics, who ‘answered’ over 150 questions about attitudes to dog trackers, adoption barriers and PitPat brand perceptions.

Scary Robots used this audience to test seven pieces of creative: six 10-second spots and the 40-second long-form TV commercial. The audience spanned current PitPat customers, lapsed customers, category sceptics and key prospective buyers.

During the production process, the research asked different user profiles if they understood what the ads were selling, what the product is, whether they would buy it, the need it would fulfil, and which messaging they found most impactful.

The companies said the use of the synthetic panel was quicker than traditional research and meant continuous insight running alongside the production process.

The campaign features AI-generated talking dogs (campaign still pictured) talking about their love of wandering off and exploring, across a 40-second television commercial and shorter sponsorship ads. It is being aired on UK channels including Dave, Gold, Alibi and Drama.

Daniel Wimborne, executive producer and AI products at Scary Robots, said the synthetic audience platform offered “always-on access to a highly tailored PitPat audience”, which allowed the agency to “test the creative with dog owners, gather instant feedback and add another layer of audience insight to the creative process”.  

Alex Cooper, chief executive and co-founder at Electric Twin, said: “In an industry as fast-moving and competitive as advertising, such technology has real potential to become a critical step in the workflow.”

London-based Electric Twin was founded in 2023 by Cooper, former director of UK Covid-19 testing at 10 Downing Street, and Ben Warner, former chief data adviser to the prime minister.

Pictured: Still from PitPat ‘The Wanderers’ campaign