- Partnership: Pencil’s AI-powered creative advertising platform to help Clearbanc’s portfolio companies create video ads in minutes to boost revenues
- Revenue: Machine Generated Creative ads, exclusively made by Pencil, are already doubling returns on ad spend for ecommerce brands
- Technology: Pencil uses OpenAI’s API which provides access to GPT-3, one of the world’s most powerful language models, and also connects with Facebook’s API to learn from historic ads and improve performance week-on-week
Singapore and Toronto, March 19, 2021 — Creative AI company Pencil has partnered with the world’s largest ecommerce investor Clearbanc to provide their customers with the latest innovation in online video advertising, Machine Generated Creative (MGC). These ads can be created in minutes and consistently double return on ad spend for brands. It is anticipated that companies using the Pencil platform will be able to unlock new audiences on Facebook and Instagram and grow revenue faster.
MGC online video ads are generated by artificial intelligence (AI), while learning what resonates with audiences, in order to systematically deliver better results for brands. Using historic ad performance data, Pencil is able to understand what in the ad is resonating with customers. It can then generate new batches of ad ideas which are new and distinct, but which share winning characteristics with past winners. In this way Pencil learns what works while continuously exploring new ideas that could resonate with audiences.
Pencil analysed over 100 campaigns that used MGC video ads and found the best MGC ads delivered an average return on ad spend (ROAS) 2x that of other ads the brands were running. One brand’s MGC campaign delivered 7x higher ROAS.
“This partnership with Clearbanc underlines the success we’ve had with our Machine Generated Creative ads for brands around the world,” said Will Hanschell, CEO and co-founder of Pencil. “These ads are helping ecommerce brands and agencies grow, and I am confident we can help them scale further.”
This partnership announcement comes hot on the heels of Pencil joining as a creative partner in Facebook Marketing Partners, a program that connects businesses to an ecosystem of specialists. More than 200 million businesses worldwide use Facebook’s apps to connect with customers and grow, and over 10 million of them run advertising campaigns each month.
“Pencil gives us the ability to generate ads quickly and more importantly, come up with ideas we might not have otherwise. It’s been a massive win for us essentially,” said Pencil customer James Harding, Head of Growth at Lyka Pet Food.
Pencil leverages proprietary technology to generate ad video, derive insights and make predictions, as well as integrating the OpenAI API to generate ad copy. The OpenAI API provides access to GPT-3, one of the world’s most powerful language models. Pencil is among the first companies approved to use it commercially. This approval requires strict criteria in AI safety and ethics.
“Clearbanc was created to help founders grow their businesses by using our non-dilutive capital to invest in predictable and repeatable expenses like marketing spend,” said Daniel Rodic, Head of Market Development at Clearbanc. “Pencil’s technology offers a simple solution for brands in our portfolio to improve their return on ad spend and ultimately maximize the effectiveness of the capital they deploy.”
Clearbanc has deployed over US$1.6b to more than 4,000 ecommerce and SaaS businesses.
For further information please contact the Pencil press office on [email protected] or Bilal Mahmood on [email protected] or +44 (0) 20 3640 7759 and +44 (0) 771 400 7257.
About Pencil
Pencil is a Creative AI company on a mission to generate unexpected ideas that get results. Pencil generates ads that learn to perform, delivering the return on ad spend that helps brands scale their businesses.
Pencil invented Machine Generated Creative (MGC), a new way of making ads that algorithmically optimises for creative novelty, brand relevance and return on advertising spend. It always starts from a human brief and it always involves total human editorial control. Pencil’s MGC platform generates ads in minutes and has been shown to generate ads that double returns for brands.
Pencil was founded in 2018 with a team from Google, Facebook and Uber and is backed by Sequoia Capital India, Wavemaker Partners, Singapore Innovate and Entrepreneur First. Further information visit: https://www.trypencil.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram
About Clearbanc
Founded in 2015 by Michele Romanow (Canada’s Shark Tank), Andrew D’Souza, Ivan Gritsiniak, Charlie Feng, and Tanay Delima, Clearbanc is changing the way companies raise money by providing fast, affordable capital to online brands and B2B SaaS companies.
Clearbanc’s data-driven algorithm has invested in 4,000+ companies across 50 states and backed 8x more female-founders than traditional VC. Clearbanc customers span small businesses across the United States, Canada, and the UK to some of the fastest-growing consumer brands today, like Le Tote, Leesa Sleep, Farmgirl Flowers, and Public Goods.
For more information visit Clearbanc.com