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June 4, 2025 | 8 min read
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The turbo-charged sprint with seven partners, from synthetic research pioneers to AI video makers and programmatic planners, developed full campaigns for B2B giants EY and Plante Moran.
The ANA’s Debbie Kestin Schildkraut and Bill Zengel
AI was the word on everyone’s lips at this year’s ANA Masters of B2B Marketing Conference – and not just in the keynotes. For the first time, the ANA staged a live challenge: two full campaigns, for two B2B giants, developed in just 72 hours using a dream team of AI-first collaborators. If “lab-grown marketing” wasn’t a thing before, it is now.
“Could we actually do it? we asked ourselves. Could we go from insight to air in the time it takes most marketers to book a kickoff call?” said Bill Zengel, EVP at the ANA, who helped mastermind the experiment. “This wasn’t theoretical. We wanted something practical, something applicable.”
The brands in question? EY and Plante Moran – two firms not typically associated with rapid, high-risk innovation. But that was part of the point. “We wanted to show B2B marketers you don’t have to be afraid,” said Debbie Kestin Schildkraut, SVP and B2B practice leader at the ANA. “EY and Plante Moran were the brave souls that stepped forward.”
The process? A turbo-charged sprint with seven partners, from synthetic research pioneers to AI video makers and programmatic planners. First up, research.
Peter Weinberg, co-founder of Evidenza, said of the project: “It’s the first end-to-end lab-grown campaign we’ve been a part of. Synthetic research, synthetic strategy, synthetic brief, synthetic creative, tested on synthetic panels. All in a few days.”
Weinberg, who previously co-founded LinkedIn’s B2B Institute, explained: “Most market research is too slow and expensive to scale. We use AI to impersonate buyers – CFOs, CIOs, procurement leads – building what we call synthetic samples. They’re scarily accurate and they don’t get survey fatigue.”
His team ran a full research cycle for EY and Plante Moran before the conference even began. The resulting briefs informed creative development by Waymark (AI video), media planning by Spectrum Reach, testing by Epidemic and AI visibility diagnostics by Brandlight.
Once the briefs were locked in, Waymark, the AI video company, was tasked with turning insights into fully formed B2B ads – at speed. “It’s a mission to go from nothing to a live B2B ad in really, two days – from Monday to Wednesday morning,” said Waymark CEO Alex Persky-Stern. “We take brand assets, plug in the brief and AI spins through it all to create a complete ad that’s ready to air.” The team generated multiple variations in minutes, allowing clients to mix and match preferred scripts and visuals before iterating again. “It’s a far more collaborative and fluid process than traditional production. We’ll make five versions, get client feedback, tweak it instantly and keep going until it’s right.”
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Imri Marcus, CEO of Brandlight, warned marketers that ignoring AI search is like “being blind at the top of a cliff.” His platform helps brands understand – and influence – how they appear across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google’s AI Overview and more.
“AI search isn’t an experiment any more,” said Marcus. “Google confirmed that 60% of its users now see an AI answer before the familiar blue links. It has decided for everyone else. If you’re a CMO and still waiting it out, you’re already behind.”
According to Marcus, we’re entering a world where your website might never be seen by a human, but needs to be loved by bots. “By next year, every enterprise will have a budget line for AI visibility. The smart ones are acting now.”
EY played it cautiously, building iterations on an existing campaign but using synthetic research to tailor messaging for tightly defined audience segments. Plante Moran had more leeway, with CMO Marten Van Pelt giving the team free rein to develop a campaign from scratch, creative, targeting and all.
Zengel described the project as “not just a gimmick, but a blueprint.” The ANA will track the performance of the campaigns post-conference and share learnings with its members.
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The ANA has officially declared AI its Word of the Year for the second year running and this project made the case. “We wanted to show people what’s possible,” said Keaton. “AI isn’t just for automation, it’s for creation, insight, measurement, even media.”
Still, not everything moved at machine pace. “Creative can be generated instantly,” said Weinberg. “But legal and compliance still run on human time.”
The ANA also used the project as a teaching moment. Delegates were given cards to answer how they were using AI and whether they were more ostrich or wolf. Marcus was blunt: “Ostriches wait it out. Wolves act.”
The future of B2B marketing? If this conference is anything to go by, it’s leaner, faster and driven by machines, but led by the marketers brave enough to embrace them.
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