Behind the scenes: How Paramount+ used Adobe Firefly generative AI in a social media campaign for the movie IF

The blockbuster movie IF centers around a twelve-year old girl named Bea. While dealing with difficult life circumstances, she begins to see fantastical creatures that are eventually revealed to be imaginary friends (‘IF’) of those around her. Many of the IFs were left behind years ago as their real-life friends grew older, and Bea sets out to reunite them.

To mark the film’s debut on Paramount+, the service wanted to execute a promotional strategy anchored in tapping childhood memories — and the feelings many of us have about our own imaginary friends. The creative marketing team sought to engage their audience by giving them a chance to dream up their own “IF.” The big idea? A social media campaign that encouraged followers to submit a description of their IF and within minutes, receive a custom digital drawing.

To stay true to the movie character (and Bea’s sketchbook), the drawings needed to maintain a consistent style that was on-brand, while also accurately interpreting each personal request. The design team began looking for a solution that could accomplish this task efficiently, knowing the volume of responses that would come through.

The team at Paramount+ turned to Adobe Firefly generative AI to make this social campaign a reality. IF descriptions were collected on social media with the hashtag #BringYourIFtoLife and designers got to work. A custom drawn reference image uploaded into Firefly, and the team was able to standardize a style — which all new images would be based on. The IF description submissions were then used as prompts, and Firefly quickly produced custom images that were ready to be shared back with fans, bringing new IF characters to life.

The social campaign ran for two hours, and over 70 custom images were created in that time. These were sent back to fans within minutes, managed by social media managers. On launch day, fans who typed in descriptions such as “A lightning bug, with eyes and smile, at an easel painting” or “A smiling snowman holding balloons. Has a name tag which just says ‘J’ ⛄️” were presented with digital drawings that brought their imaginations to life. The team paid particular attention to one description that included “my dearly departed Dad in fluffy owl form,” generating an owl sketch holding a heart.

The social campaign was a great success, generating high levels of engagement and conversation for the film’s premiere on the service. The social team also generated images based on descriptions from handles such as @ForrestGump and @Dungeon&DragonsMovie, to create compelling content that resonated with those audiences.

“A lot of big promotional ideas never see the light of day, especially for films where we operate on a tightly defined schedule,” said Matt Hernandez, SVP and head of design, Paramount Streaming. “Adobe Firefly unlocked a great social campaign for IF, helping us drive content creation in a way where images could be personalized on a one-to-one basis and boost fan engagement.”

This story is a great example of bringing a great idea to life — across creatives and marketers — all within a short timeframe. The teams turned to Firefly as the solution, not only for its ability to generate high quality images but also the important element of being designed for safe commercial use. It helped accelerate content creation to delight audiences on social, while maintaining a consistent brand style. This idea has shown the value that generative AI can bring to digital marketing campaigns. By rethinking an existing process, teams were able to activate a creative idea that drew fans closer to the movie.

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