TBWA\Melbourne

Client: Melbourne Writers Festival
Product: Melbourne Writers Festival
Title: The Art of Words
Media: Outdoor
Country: Australia
Date Of Campaign: 8/9/2022

Background: The Melbourne Writers Festival has long been positioned as Australia’s boldest literary festival. However, after one of the world’s longest lockdowns, attendance and anticipation for the festival had significantly dropped. Our challenge was to generate excitement for the written word, which is increasingly perceived as a dated medium, to reaffirm the festival’s position as the home for forward thinkers.

Idea: While AI generated imagery sparked a worldwide debate on the future of art, no one was talking about the words needed to create them. In the lead up to the Melbourne Writers Festival, we used AI art to prove the enduring power of the written word. In one of the world’s first commercial uses of AI art, we created a collection of artwork by entering passages from literary icons Mary Shelley, Herman Melville, H.G. Wells, Bram Stoker and George Orwell, word for word, into the AI - Midjourney. Each visual explored the intersection of technology and creativity – creating a collaboration between human and machine that spanned generations – and showing that no matter how far technology advances, great writing will always

Results: ‘The Art of Words’ successfully created debate and discourse in the lead up to the event. The earned coverage reached 33 million people, which is six times the population of Melbourne, helping boost ticket sales dramatically, contributing to the most successful writers festival ever. On top of this, by inserting the Melbourne Writers Festival into the dialogue about the future of creativity, a new generation of creatively minded Melbournians were inspired to take an interest in the power of writing.