The world of marketing visuals is changing dramatically. What once required professional photographers and designers can now be done by artificial intelligence. A groundbreaking new study published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing titled "The power of generative marketing: Can generative AI create superhuman visual marketing content?" (Hartmann, Exner & Domdey, 2024) reveals that computer-generated marketing images aren't just matching human-created ones—they're actually performing better in terms of visual appeal, marketing effectiveness, and cost savings.

For brands and marketing teams, this represents both an exciting opportunity and a strategic turning point. Let's look at the compelling evidence that suggests we've entered a new era in how marketing visuals are created.

The Quality Comparison: AI vs. Professional Photography

A comprehensive study comparing 2,400 professionally-created images against 10,320 AI-generated alternatives revealed surprising results. Based on over 250,000 human evaluations measuring different aspects of image quality, the findings challenge what we thought we knew about visual content creation.

Better Quality & Visual Appeal

The research shows that top AI systems now consistently produce images that people rate higher than those created by professional photographers and designers:

• The best AI tools produced images rated 15.6% higher in quality than professional photos
• Some AI systems created images that people perceived as 7.1% more realistic than actual photographs
• In every measure of visual appeal, the AI-created images outperformed human-created ones

This quality difference isn't small—it's immediately noticeable to viewers, even when they don't know which images were made by AI and which by professionals.

Not All AI Tools Are Equal

An important finding from the research: there are significant differences between various AI image generators. While the best AI tools consistently outperformed professional creators, there was considerable variation in quality between different AI systems. Choosing the right AI tool for your specific visual needs remains crucial.

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Creative Performance: AI vs. Professional Designers

The second study went beyond basic quality assessments to directly compare AI systems against professional designers. Both were given identical Red Bull campaign briefs and asked to create compelling marketing visuals.

Following the Creative Brief

When 1,575 participants evaluated the resulting images across ten key marketing metrics, advanced AI systems stood out:

• Leading AI tools outperformed professional designers in 5 of 10 marketing metrics
• Most notably, AI showed significant advantages in advertisement quality (42% better) and following the creative brief (56% better)
• Professional designers made more errors in following the campaign instructions

These findings suggest that AI not only matches human creativity but also brings better consistency to creative brief execution.

The Cost Advantage

Perhaps most impressive was the cost difference:

• Professional designer: About $100 per image
• AI-generated image: About $0.04 per image (4 cents)

This represents a cost reduction of more than 99%—allowing brands to create thousands of visual options for the same budget as a single professionally-designed image.

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Real-World Marketing Results

Beyond theory and laboratory tests, the third study examined what ultimately matters most: actual marketing performance. Seven AI-generated advertisements were tested against a professional stock photograph in real Facebook and Instagram campaigns, generating over 173,000 impressions.

Better Click Rates and Lower Costs

The results were clear:

• The best AI-generated image achieved a click-through rate of 0.80% compared to 0.53% for the professional image—50% better performance
• Cost-per-click for the top AI image was $0.38 vs. $0.51 for the professional image—25% lower cost
• Not all AI tools performed equally, with some producing images that had lower click rates (as low as 0.40%)

These numbers represent real business outcomes—more website visitors, leads, and potential sales at a significantly lower cost.

What This Means for Brands

The evidence from these three studies suggests we've reached a turning point in how marketing visuals are created. For marketing teams, this creates several strategic considerations:

1. Cost-Efficiency at Scale

The dramatic cost savings allows for testing many more visual concepts with the same budget. Brands can now:

• Run more A/B testing of visual campaigns
• Create personalized visuals for different customer groups
• Quickly test and improve based on performance data

2. Choosing the Right AI Tools Matters

Not all AI image creators performed equally. The research clearly shows that selecting the right AI tool for specific marketing needs significantly impacts results. Marketing teams should learn which tools work best for their specific needs.

3. Clear Instructions Become More Important

With AI showing better adherence to creative briefs, the quality and clarity of those briefs become even more vital. Marketing teams should invest in developing precise, detailed instructions to get the best results from AI tools.

4. The Designer's Role Evolves

Rather than replacing human creativity, these findings suggest a shift in how it's applied. Creative professionals become more valuable in developing unique concepts, writing effective instructions for AI, and providing strategic direction—while AI handles the actual image creation faster and at a larger scale.

The Future of Visual Marketing

The research points to an accelerating trend: AI's visual capabilities will continue to improve while costs decrease further. Brands that learn to use these tools effectively will gain significant advantages through:

• Faster campaign launches
• More extensive visual testing
• Lower production costs
• Better-performing marketing visuals

Forward-thinking marketing leaders are already shifting from asking "Should we use AI-generated visuals?" to "How can we best integrate AI visual creation into our marketing process?"

Conclusion: Embrace the Visual AI Revolution

The evidence is clear: we've reached a point where AI-created marketing visuals not only match but often exceed professionally-created imagery in quality, effectiveness, and cost-efficiency. For brands seeking competitive advantage, developing expertise with these tools is no longer optional—it's essential.

The brands that will succeed in this new reality will be those that thoughtfully integrate AI visual creation into their workflows, developing processes that combine human strategic creativity with AI's execution capabilities.

What matters most isn't just using new technology, but the measurable improvements these visuals deliver. With 50% better click rates and 25% lower costs, these advances translate directly to business results—more leads, more sales, and stronger marketing ROI.

Ready to explore how your brand can leverage AI-generated visuals to boost conversions and maximize impact? Partner with Pupila Brand Studio to create compelling visual strategies that transform engagement into measurable business results.

Schedule a demo →

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Font: SSRN

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