Case study · AI · CTV · Film · Campaign · 2026
AI-Native CTV
Generative spots that beat the human-made control
- Year
- 2026
- Discipline
- AI video production
- Role
- Creative direction, AI pipeline, partner negotiation, team training
CTV is the most expensive place a brand can be wrong. Traditional production meant one concept, one shoot, one market and a six-figure bet placed months before anyone saw a result.
I brought Runway in-house, negotiated the partnership, ran the creative training for the team, and rebuilt the pipeline around it. Then I put the output into paid media against conventionally produced control creative — because an AI workflow that cannot win an auction is a demo, not a capability.
It won. On Meta, the AI spot was handed 84% of the Reels budget by the delivery algorithm and held 41.2% of viewers to the three-quarter mark against a 25–35% industry benchmark. On CTV, the Spanish-language hospitality cut posted the highest visit rate in the account.
The shift
Stop buying one perfect spot. Start building a system that can make ten.
Results
- Of Reels budget won by the AI spot
- 84%Allocated by Meta’s delivery algorithm
- Held to 75% view-through
- 41.2%Benchmark for strong Reels is 25–35%
- Best CTV cost per conversion
- $4.45
- Concept to finished broadcast cut
- Days
Measured
Meta placement test, May 2026 · MNTN CTV, 1 Jul – 24 Aug 2026
- Full completion rate, AI Reels creative
- 33.5%Lowest CPM of any creative in the test at $6.22
- Visit rate — Spanish hospitality CTV
- 6.05%Highest in the account; $4.85 cost per conversion
- Visit rate — English hospitality CTV
- 5.54%$0.68 cost per visit · $4.45 cost per conversion
- Blended visit-to-conversion rate
- 16.6%207,827 impressions · 134,084 households · 511 conversions
- Blended CTV cost per conversion
- $9.13
How it was built
The algorithm picked it, not us
In a Meta test running four videos against each other, the delivery system concentrated 84% of the Reels budget on the AI-generated spot within days. That is the cleanest read available on creative quality — the auction does not care how something was made.
Retention, not novelty
Pattern-interrupt gets the first second. Retention proves the creative actually works: 41.2% still watching at three-quarters and 33.5% completing, against a 25–35% benchmark for good Reels content.
Spanish-first, not Spanish-translated
Spanish versions were conceived and generated as their own cuts rather than dubbed afterwards. The Spanish hospitality spot then posted the single highest visit rate on CTV — 6.05% against 5.54% for its English counterpart.
Sector-specific, not one-size-fits-all
Hospitality and warehouse recruit completely different people with completely different motivations, and an English-speaking audience and a Spanish-speaking one are not the same brief either. Generative production made it economical to speak to each one properly rather than averaging them into a single compromise spot.
Capability, not a one-off
The real deliverable was the team. I ran the Runway creative training internally so the pipeline outlived any single campaign and became part of how the brand studio operates.