Rye Addis, general sales manager at KOAM, Morgan Murphy’s CBS affiliate in Pittsburg, Kan., remembers the first time he used Waymark’s AI-generated video. “We were trying to get a corporation to do some advertising with us.” Addis says. “We showed them this and their words were basically, when can we get started.”

The “this” that Addis is referring to is a 30-second custom spec spot complete with voice-over, music, text and video that he generated in five minutes through Waymark’s website.

“I was pretty impressed with how easy it was to create a commercial in quite frankly just a matter of minutes,” Addis says.

Being able to show a 30-second spec spot to a new business that maybe hasn’t advertised on TV before allows a TV account executive to get a foot in the door, Addis says.

“They weren’t necessarily expecting a spec spot,” Addis says. “But it was enough to break down that barrier and get going.”

How can you create a 30-second spec commercial complete with voice-over, music, text and video in five minutes?

“It is pretty magical, to be honest,” says Alex Persky-Stern, Waymark’s CEO.

What Waymark’s website says is that its “AI scans the web for local business data and automatically produces a video based on the brand.”

“It goes to your website, your social profiles and grabs any assets like images, footage, a logo,” Persky-Stern says.

Then this is where the artificial intelligence part comes in.

The AI is used to summarize it so that viewers know the main things about your business, he says.

“The entire start-to-finish production process was done completely within Waymark’s website, Addis says.

Some spec spots may not use video, but just pictures and graphics, he says.

“Basically, you just need to know how to use the computer, which all of our sales team knows how to do, and you can create your own spot from scratch,” Addis says. “It’s really been a great tool for us.”

However the spec spot comes out, editing changes is easy and quick, says Hayden Gilmer, Waymark’s VP of sales.

 “You can change anything from switching out images and footage as well as updating text,” Gilmer says.

One can change the announcer from male to female, slow down or speed up the reads or make minor adjustments to the script, Gilmer says.

Hayden says the conversion rate of spec spots ultimately being made into TV campaigns is “around like the 40% mark.”

 Persky-Stern says the pandemic caused a shift in local business. Larger businesses shifted down, while new, small businesses opened up, he says.

 “Broadcasters are trying to figure out, ‘OK, how do I attract this whole new segment, and focus more on those really small guys,’” he says.

Addis says there’s been buy-in to Waymark “across our entire sales team, every one of them has access to it. Some use it more than others, but those that are using it are having real success with it and it’s translating into more clients and ultimately more revenue.”

NOTE:  Market Share went to Waymark’s website to demonstrate the process. All we did was type in ‘TVNewsCheck’ and the spec spot was done in five minutes.

We did it twice without any different input and got two different examples.

 “Our AI system assembles a new video each time, so the results are always different,” says a Waymark rep.

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