Hive3 launches to connect brands with leading AI creatives

By now, brands and individuals know that they can find freelance creatives to work on projects for them on platforms like Fiverr or even major social media sites like Instagram, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter).

But generative AI has changed the rules of the game. The technology is quickly becoming a standard creative tool thanks to text-to-image generators like OpenAI’s DALL-E 3, Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, Ideogram, and text-to-video and image-to-video products like Runway’s Gen2 and Pika Labs. .

With all of these new tools already powering innovative and widely viewed creative projects on the web, brands can be left wondering who and where to turn when looking for a GenAI-fluent creative.

That’s the problem Forum3 hopes to solve. The two-year-old digital technology startup based in Seattle, Washington, was co-founded by Adam Brotman, former chief digital officer at Starbucks (and creator of the popular Starbucks Rewards mobile app) along with Andy Sack, former innovation consultant at Microsoft. . CEO Satya Nadella, who serve as co-CEOs of the new company.

Gamification of AI-created brand assets with cash prizes

The forum’s new online platform, Hive3, was previewed in summer 2023. It was essentially created to gamify the process of connecting brands with dynamic and experienced AI creatives, offering different time-limited challenges in which creatives would compete to create the best assets. for a certain brand in exchange for cash prizes. Winners are chosen by the Hive3 community and/or a panel of judges.

Since then, Hive3 has hosted 10 “community-driven challenges” for brands. Today, the platform launches to the public and with it comes “Season One,” a series of “approximately 30 consecutive competitions” for different brands that take place weekly, according to the site. “To qualify for the playoffs, you only need to place 1st, 2nd or 3rd in one of these.”

AI creatives who place first, second or third in each brand challenge will receive a share of a $5,000 jackpot, while playoff winners will receive grand prizes between $10,000 and $50,000, according to the Hive 3 site.

While GenAI clearly shows enormous potential and promise as a creative tool, some brands may be wary of pursuing it given the unresolved legal issues surrounding the data used to train the AI ​​models that power the technology, as well as the fact that the rights The US Copyright Office has repeatedly ruled that GenAI artwork cannot be copyrighted.

The first challenge for Crumbl Cookies will be released on November 3, 2023

The first challenge is for hot dessert brand Crumbl Cookies, and begins later this week on Friday, November 3, 2023, with a deadline of Tuesday, November 7, 2023 and a total prize of $5,000.

The actual task of the challenge is pretty open-ended so far: simply “Create an innovative advertising campaign for a fast-growing cookie company.”

“The new digital transformation playbook begins with brands understanding how to use AI, and the Forum3 team is uniquely positioned to guide brands as they navigate this technology, often for the first time,” Brotman said in a statement. of press. “We look forward to partnering with forward-thinking brands like Crumbl Cookies to generate new types of creative outcomes, activate a community of customers, and enhance brand marketing using AI.”

The Hive3 community has already hired a roster of influential AI artists and designers to offer tutorials and further evangelize the platform, including Heather Cooper, Tatiana Tsiguleva, Nicolas Neubertand Ben Myhre.

“Platforms like Hive3 give creators the opportunity to use new skills powered by generative AI to produce entire projects with different toolsets that mimic real-world activities in a competitive spirit,” Cooper said. “I’m excited to join Hive3 as a brand ambassador and look forward to helping more creators improve their skills using generative AI.”