“See You There” from Black & Abroad and McCann Canada Tackles Widespread AI Bias While Welcoming Black Travelers to Their Next Tourism Adventure
The team behind the award-winning “Go Back to Africa” and “Black Elevation Map” campaigns debuts a powerful AI-driven commerce activation that puts customers at the center of a bold new experience while addressing deep technological bias
Today, Black & Abroad, the brand dedicated to redefining world experiences for the modern Black traveler, announced the launch of “See You There,” a new initiative that leverages AI to help its customers imagine their next tourism adventure, showcasing the beauty and luxury of international travel for the Black community.
Created in partnership with agency McCann Canada, “See You There” activates Black and Abroad’s prolific archive of content featuring photos of guest from its previous trips and turns it into a powerful 1:1 experience. The campaign, based on the idea that every trip starts by picturing yourself there, uses generative AI to create personalized landing pages trained on selections from the brand’s catalog of more than 11,000 photos of guests from previous trips. The landing pages, filled with hyperreal images of each guest at Black & Abroad’s upcoming 2024 destinations (such as Senegal, Ghana, and France) paint a new picture of the future of travel.
An alarming path to finding the joy
The campaign presents past Black & Abroad travelers with joyous, inspirational images depicting them in exciting places they have yet to visit. The process of developing the work, however, uncovered a darker truth: a world of bias encoded in AI models. Outputs from the generative platforms used tended to lighten guests skin, straighten their hair, and even generate them into scenes of poverty, suggesting that the base generative models used have been trained on incomplete and biased photographic data. They also struggled to generate accurate images of Black & Abroad guests at specific destinations, such as Macchu Pichu in Peru and tapas bars in Barcelona.
In addition to the consumer campaign, Black & Abroad is releasing its findings on AI biases as a way to advance the conversation around bias and AI to the larger travel industry. In asking “Where is the Black traveler?” the campaign aims to authentically celebrate Black joy in travel – and overcome AI biases that may stand in the way.
The findings are presenting in a powerful editorial package at seeyouthere.ai.
“It's pretty crazy that what started off as an innocent email campaign to reengage our past clients ended up being a crash course on the baked-in algorithmic biases plaguing Al's perceived objectivity,” said Eric Martin, Chief Creative Officer, Black & Abroad. “Yes, we're a luxury travel brand – but there’s a responsibility for us to shed light on an oversight of this magnitude, inciting a call to action to mitigate the potential of the more serious consequences that can arise in other industries as a result of these inherent prejudices.”
“As AI begins to ingrain itself in our everyday lives, our duty to make it accessible to everyone becomes even more apparent. While AI can often feel like a space for endless opportunities, we can’t be afraid to test its abilities and hold it to a higher standard,” said Kent Johnson, Chief Strategy Officer, Black & Abroad. “This campaign is a timely reminder that the path to representation is a journey worth exploring.”
“We started this project with an earnest desire to visualize Black & Abroad’s guests at its upcoming destinations and are proud of having pushed through to achieving that goal. Generative AI tools are giving us ways to personalize our campaigns to degrees that were not possible or realistic even a year ago,” said Ian Mackenzie, Chief Creative Officer, McCann Worldgroup Canada. “However we believe the process was much harder than it would have been had we been training our models on white travelers. And while we won’t solve bias in AI overnight, ‘See you there’ provides powerful breadcrumbs for us to follow as we push into an exciting, inclusive, AI-powered future.”
Since 2015, Black & Abroad has been a global leader in redefining representation in the travel industry, reframing the way the industry sees the Black community and vice versa. The brand has worked with the team behind “See you there” on previous campaigns, including “Go Back To Africa” (2019) and “Black Elevation Map” (2022).
Initiative Canada is leading the media strategy behind the campaign, which leverages an advanced multi-vendor audience solution to reach Black travelers. This audience approach will be activated across a massive pool of donated media inventory both online and offline including placements in Time Square. Digital media will leverage image recognition software and data partners such as GumGum and Zefr to target the overwhelming amount of online content featuring white travelers and juxtapose it with the campaign message of “where is the Black traveler?” for the greatest impact.
To learn more, visit seeyouthere.ai.
About Black and Abroad
Black & Abroad is a multi-platform travel & lifestyle company. Since 2015, our digital campaigns, international events and travel experiences have redefined exploration for the modern Black traveler. We pride ourselves on working together to connect people all over the world through culturally conscious & thought driven initiatives centered around exploration while providing crowd-sourced information hubs for urban travelers. Seeing a need to elevate the community through world exploration, our company was created to expose the world to nuanced, diverse narratives within the travel community. blackandabroad.com
About McCann Worldgroup
McCann Worldgroup, part of the Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG), is a leading global creative solutions company. The company is united across 100+ countries by a mission to help brands earn a meaningful role in people's lives. McCann Worldgroup was named the world's most creatively effective marketing services company by The Effie Awards for 2022 for the fourth consecutive year. The core Worldgroup network is comprised of McCann, MRM, CRAFT, and FutureBrand, and partners with Momentum Worldwide, Weber Shandwick and UM to deliver solutions across the entire marketing spectrum.
Contact:
Meredith Luerssen
Associate Director, Communications
McCann Worldgroup
1 929-691-0526
meredith.luerssen@mccann.com
Credits
Agency: McCann Canada
Chief Creative Officer: Ian Mackenzie
Creative Director: Pedro Izzo
Art Director: Sydney Gittens
Copywriter: Leo Ding
Group Director, Product Development: Arnaud Icard
Senior Product Designer: Thiago Santarem
Executive Creative Director: Colin Craig
Associate Creative Director: Elijah Di Gangi
Designer: Pedro Izzo
SVP, Director of Production: Stef Fabich
Project Manager: Nikhil Bijlani
Director of Production: Gary Gimelfarb
Senior Analyst: Abdul Dau
Associate Strategy Director: Mitch Wong
Senior Manager, Platforms: Luis Pinto
Senior Email Developer: David Imbrogno
Developer: Anthony Pilger
Motion Designer: Jason Kan
Photo Retoucher: Jean-Pierre Goulet
Production: Dan Dragicevic
Production Lead: Bradley Hodgkinson
Global EVP Chief Diversity Equity and Inclusion Officer: Singleton Beato
President: Ryan Timms
EVP, Managing Director: Stefanie Kubanka
Chief Operating Officer: Elizabeth Sellors
Media: Initiative Canada
Chief Strategy Officer: Sammy Rifai
VP, Head of Creative Partnerships: Chris Gairdner
Group Strategy Director: Christian Kern
Project Manager: Ramzi Thabit
Senior Communications Designer: Hawie Kenea
Senior Communications Designer: Bethany Coke
Manager, Creative Partnerships: Samantha Rosenberg
Vice President, Head of Social, Kinesso: Tyler Dmytrow
Senior Vice President, Client Strategy and Growth, Kinesso: Olivier Leblond
Production: The Den Editorial
Editor: Tania Mesta
Colorist: Gabe Sanchez
Managing Director: Laura Macauley
Executive Producer: Jennifer Mersis
Sr. Producer: Kortney Rubottom
Production: School Editorial
Editor: Lauren Horn
Producer: Steve Villeseche
Executive Producer: Yumi Suyama
Audio: Grayson Music Group
Senior Producer: Nicholas Shaw
Voice/Session Director: Mark Domitric
Engineer: Vlad Nikolic