An AI poster experiment that became a real campaign

I’m not usually a fan of AI designed posters.

I would rather companies engage actual designers to create posters for them. Spend the time to think through a concept, refine it through trial and error, and produce something that is worth people’s time and attention.

However, for someone who has a clear idea of what a good poster design is. Someone who has a sense of taste, who understands the power of simple copy, who appreciates a powerful visual that tells a story… could technically, write the right kind of prompt for AI to generate something beautiful and useful.

That was the aim of Danish AI creative consultant, Nikolaj Lykke Viborg. In 2025, when ChatGPT first announced that they could now include text properly in their generated images, he decided to experiment by coming up with an ad poster series.

He wanted the ads to be done completely on ChatGPT, from prompt to finish. And he wanted the output to not look like an AI generated poster. The focus was going to be about the harmful effects on tropical rainforests caused by Palm Oil production.

He first set out by asking ChatGPT to suggest common items that contained palm oil, that most people weren’t even aware of. And the first idea ChatGPT came back with was lipstick. It suggested that the face of an orangutan could be portrayed within the stick itself. And upon seeing the first unfinished picture generated, Nikolaj discovered that the idea could lead to a bigger theme for a full campaign — that some animal somewhere was paying a price for almost anything we put into our shopping basket. A price that wasn’t shown in the shopper’s receipt.

He then proceeded to research about which animals, which locations and which messages would make the strongest visual and emotional impact. Once he had a list made up of mammals, primates and big cats… he went about creating a series of posters which he felt most people could resonate with.

He posted the series on LinkedIn, explaining that he had done it all using ChatGPT and even offered to send his prompts to anyone who was keen on trying it out themselves. Of course, that started a its own viral storm online. But more importantly, it caught the attention of WWF itself, who were very impressed with it. So impressed, that they engaged Nikolaj to do an actual campaign for them called “Den Usynlige Regning” which translates to “The Hidden Cost”.

To me, what makes these posters work is the simplicity of the idea and the simplicity of the design.

• One constant headline.
• Short, but clear copy — explaining the headline.
• Simple CTA.
• One visual that tells the whole story.

The interesting part, then, isn’t simply that AI made the images. It’s that someone still had to recognise a strong idea, know what to leave out, and make a series of choices about what would make the communication work.

You don’t need much else.