How AI Content Creation Is Transforming Hospitality Marketing for Bars, Restaurants, and Brands

AI just opens up so many new opportunities to storytell, not just for the liquor brands that we traditionally serve, but for any brand out there.

There's no limits anymore to, you know, creativity, being able to tell your story.

What's up? Thank you for checking out the hospitality strategy lab. My name is Jason Latrell. I'm here with Rachel and

Jason Latrell. I'm here with Rachel and Kyle Ford from Ford Media Lab who are doing some astonishing things with brands and AI. Rachel and Ford, welcome to the show. Rachel and Kyle, welcome.

Thank you for having Thank you for coming on.

>> Thank you. Thanks for having us. All

right. Uh, tell me about Ford Media Media Lab.

>> Well, Ford Media Lab is a visual intelligence agency h that started almost 10 years ago as a traditional photo studio catering to cocktail and spirits. And with the innovations in AI

spirits. And with the innovations in AI a couple of years ago, we realized that there was a very interesting way to integrate that into the content we were

creating. And now in the end of 2025,

creating. And now in the end of 2025, our mostly AI generated with some hybrid traditional content blended in. And we

think it's the future of of where content is going.

>> Yeah. What are your clients asking for?

What's uh what's keeping them up at night? What are what are they curious

night? What are what are they curious about right now?

>> Depends on the client. A lot of our clients are still following an old playbook. Our preferred clients at this

playbook. Our preferred clients at this point, I think, are dipping their toes into AI. We primarily serve the spirits

into AI. We primarily serve the spirits industry, which I think has been kind of slowm moving. I mean, there's a lot of

slowm moving. I mean, there's a lot of regulation around it, too. So, I think there's concern over how things are portrayed, you know, that can be a problem just even with traditional photography. Simple as like making sure

photography. Simple as like making sure that, you know, somebody's not actually looking like they're enjoying a beverage is [laughter] a necessary regulation and in that

field, but AI just opens up so many new opportunities to storytell, not just for the liquor brands that we traditionally serve, but for any brand out there.

There's no limits anymore to, you know, creativity, being able to tell your story.

>> Just to clear this up real quick, am I talking to an AI right now?

>> No. No. We are real.

>> We're the real version. But in terms of what keeps our clients up at night, I think budgets and the ability to tell their authentic story with a limited budget has been the biggest honestly the

the reason why we started integrating AI in the first place. Almost two years ago, we had a luxury startup whiskey brand approach us and their content was

sufficient, but it wasn't sufficient for their vibe, which was Hollywood Hills mansions and EMS chairs and um you know,

private jets and watches. So, we saw a way to create that luxury lifestyle for them, integrating their product using AI. And it's really been a tremendous

AI. And it's really been a tremendous solve for brands with budgets of all sizes. So

sizes. So >> that's what's really cool because it's enabled us to work with brands that maybe we traditionally couldn't because they didn't have the budget for, you know, larger content production. They

get better content now and we're able to be more nimble ourselves and actually create solves for, you know, exciting startups that want to be disruptors in their category. And for the first time

their category. And for the first time ever, perhaps they can actually create content that can compete, you know, with the mega brands of any industry. So,

it's exciting time. You can be as creative as you want. You can really create like cinematic commercials for your product now kind of like regardless. You don't need some $100,000

regardless. You don't need some $100,000 production budget to create something very interesting. And we've done some

very interesting. And we've done some really cool work recently that has showcased that entirely. You can have voiceovers, people talking to you on the

screen. It looks realistic. It requires

screen. It looks realistic. It requires

a lot of different tools, but I think this is also, you know, eventually the tech every week it changes at this point, improves, gets better, uh, you're able to do new things. uh as far as tie

over into like hospitality what you're more interested in. I think it's a natural evolution beyond kind of our marketing world because, you know, for hospitality brands, it's making sure

more people see what makes you special, right? That's what we're doing for, you

right? That's what we're doing for, you know, brands and products. And I think every restaurant, bar, hotel has a story we're telling, right? That's what gets

people in the door. And I think AI really just unlocks being able to tell that in like a thousand different ways.

>> You use the word better in terms of content. Now, my my curiosity right now

content. Now, my my curiosity right now is that how prepared is the consumer or the guest to consume this kind of media knowing that it's AI?

>> Oh, I think they're incredibly primed and they may not even know it. I mean,

if you're if you're a user of Tik Tok, you're used to being absolutely bombarded with energy and things that cater to a shorter attention span. Um, I

don't know if you or your listeners have played around with the Sora app, but it is I mean, I think Kyle described it as an absolute fever dream and it's so it

bombards you.

>> Have you seen Sora? I haven't played with it. It's not there's no Android

with it. It's not there's no Android app, I don't think. I I haven't played with it yet, but I get all the newsletters and saying like, "Oh my god, what are you doing? Stop what you're doing. Use Start using Sora."

doing. Use Start using Sora."

>> Well, if you need an invite to it, I can send you an invite. But it I mean, >> yeah. No, if it's not too much trouble.

>> yeah. No, if it's not too much trouble.

Yeah. No, that'd be great. Thank you.

>> I think I have one left, so I'll send it for you after.

>> But it's uh it it it produces basically you just scroll through the feed. It

looks like you're on TikTok. Like the

quality of the video looks like that. It

looks like it's shot on somebody's cell phone. It can produce stuff a higher

phone. It can produce stuff a higher production level than that, too. But

that's kind of what everyone in the app is using it for. and you have a hard time discerning if it's real or fake unless it's completely like fantasy land

of whatever is going on in the video, but it you're also able to resurrect people from the dead like old celebrities making cameos now.

>> I mean, I'm seeing like Tupac talking to Mr. Rogers and stuff. Yes.

>> Yeah.

>> And >> again, fever dream stuff that like maybe would only happen in your your head.

We're able to make real real. I mean,

what is real?

>> All right. So, all right. So no, so we know what we can do. Now what should we do? Like let's let's say that you're

do? Like let's let's say that you're like let's say you're an independent bar restaurant and you're like I just cannot keep up with content right now. Like

like they know the content drives awareness which in turn drives sales, right? So how like what what is a what

right? So how like what what is a what is a relevant and I dare use the word authentic use of this to if not automate but strong like heavily enhance it for

>> authentic is a perfect word to be honest with you because when we talk about Sora and the chaos of that like that's not how we are at least at this time

integrating AI for our clients we are still using a hybrid approach where if there's a product involved we're actually photographing that product and

integrating it into an AI generated world. I think there is an even larger

world. I think there is an even larger opportunity for hospitality because there are actual venues, actual

locations in place and with the use of some great photography of your location of your bar, of a table in your restaurant, of your hotel lobby, and

even some simple cell phone photo of your newest cocktail, your special of the night for the kitchen. There are

tools, basic tools that a social media manager in hospitality can be using to take that real dish, that real cocktail and integrate it into your real setting.

And that is authentic content. I mean,

any photo shoot we've ever done involves so much smoke and mirrors and lighting and, you know, tech before, during, and after that I think the line is really

getting blurred with AI and authenticity. Product photography has

authenticity. Product photography has never been about being real, right? Like

what we do in studios and, you know, it's always about creating fake sets, hiring in, you know, models, but they're technically fake people in a scene that aren't necessarily actually enjoying or

a consumer of the actual product. You're

able to just create all of these things now digitally. I think with the AI

now digitally. I think with the AI content though, the goal shouldn't be to deceive people. I think if you're just

deceive people. I think if you're just creating something that is effective for whatever your brand is, that's what's important. As far as like hospitality is

important. As far as like hospitality is concerned, what comes to mind to me, something that would be fun to for somebody to pursue out there is like, you know, a cocktail menu. A cocktail

menu, it doesn't just need to be a list of drinks anymore. And I tried to think of like some of the top bars out there.

And this may be a bit dated because we don't go out to any mixology places anymore, but something that came to mind right before this podcast was like Dead Rabbit's old like graphic comic book

type menu. I could only imagine what

type menu. I could only imagine what they could do with something like that on like social media to drive even more interest around a menu item or the drop

of a new menu by literally like you can take artwork or generate new artwork for stuff like that and run it through several different AI programs and animate it and bring it to life. That's

just one example. Maybe you run a, you know, an Irish pub and you want a leprechaun telling people the specials of the day. Like you could also do that.

So this episode is for you, Jack.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> For both for both concepts, right?

>> It really is interesting like like I mean just using Dead Rabbit as an example like how they the narrative that they created through the medium of a comic book and the story of John Moresy was like is like kind of like led to the

mythology of creating what is now the dead rabbit largely considered one of the best bars in the world 10 years running.

>> Sure.

>> And it's that storytelling that I think that a lot of people are missing, you know. What are your thoughts on

know. What are your thoughts on automating like the ever loving out of this stuff? Like using like I played around this with this for like one second like I spent a day just like I'm going to learn nad today. I'm going to

learn key. I'm going to learn like FI.

learn key. I'm going to learn like FI.

I'm going to learn all these technologies and start making a workflow where it's like this this one this node generates the story. This one sends it out to this thing for 8 seconds and then

it stitches it together. And like you can automate that so that it comes out every single day or or multiple times a

day. I automation has not been our main

day. I automation has not been our main focus with what we've been using AI for.

We are very much still involved.

Honestly, it's taken our >> It's hard with visuals.

>> It's hard with visuals.

>> You need to almost verify with more like human accuracy, I guess, or human to see if it makes sense. Um, although I I have to look this up, but I saw

something in a feed somewhere today that Apple had actually been Apple of all people. It seems like they've kind of

people. It seems like they've kind of behind the AI revolution at the moment, but who knows what they're working on that they haven't told us about. But

they had taken Google's nano banana model and used it on itself to like train photo generation over and over again and then using the model it was just feeding back into itself improving

upon certain image generation and created like a vast library of images. I

don't know to what end, but that sounds like something at some point where there's just going to be this kind of feedback AI feedback loop between maybe different AI. Well, there's Well,

different AI. Well, there's Well, there's a famous there's a famous example of a couple years ago when they had two AIs kind of conversing with each other.

>> Yeah.

>> And they rapidly moved past English.

They're like, "This is too inefficient."

>> Yeah.

>> And like they had to unplug them because they were going to take over the world.

>> Why not?

>> So, you know, remember to say please in your prompts, guys.

>> Yes. Well, at least they still rely upon electricity to be plugged in, right? So,

>> yeah. for now until they get their own matrix until they start, you know, harvesting our heat.

>> We go >> if we're not there.

>> So, go going back to the storytelling part, like how would you advise your clients to um to to get their story across? Like how do you how do you go

across? Like how do you how do you go about like extracting what is important and relevant that people want to know that would impact their buying decision?

Uh, well, I think for any passionate bar, restaurant owner, manager, it should be probably a very heartfelt, easy kind of process because there's

already I mean, you should have a why, right? Like, why do people come to your

right? Like, why do people come to your venue? What is it that makes you

venue? What is it that makes you special? And I know years ago when we

special? And I know years ago when we were working with marketing clients before these tools, we'd always come up with like a target target consumer, target demographic, and we'd actually

create characters and we'd give them names and we would give them passions and hobbies and places where they went just personify them so that we could then think like them to market the

product. And I think something really

product. And I think something really exciting that AI offers which I know you had asked about like AR AI avatars brand ambassadors which we have a really

interesting example we can share on that but the the venues can actually kind of create what I'm talking about these like

personifications of their consumer in a digital form with consistency across assets. So I think what they need to

assets. So I think what they need to really examine is is the who, what, when, where, and why of it all. What

makes them special, what they want to share. Develop a really easy like

share. Develop a really easy like playbook of their content strategy. And then the job should just be filling in those blanks

with really impactful, as authentic as it can be content.

>> I don't think >> um Do you have any Kyle? Do you want to go?

>> Oh, yeah. Well, I think there's just a way to elevate to even just basic content now that people may be unaware of and it's as simple as having like a a Gemini subscription that gives you

access to their latest image generation which has really changed the game because of iteration. So, you can take a photo of anything and it will replicate

objects with like I mean over 90% accuracy I would say. But this could be helpful like if you have an image of say your bar your bar top and you have a new

cocktail, but you don't have those two things together and you're maybe not the most talented photographer yourself. You

could probably get away, I haven't tried this, but you could get away with taking a cell phone image of the cocktail against kind of a neutral background and then dropping the photo of your bar top

and that cocktail into Google Gemini and asking it to put it put the two together in the style of professional photography, maintaining all of the pertinent details, and boom, you might

have something that otherwise I mean, I don't want to take away work from photographers that go in and take photos for cocktails and restaurants and stuff, But they should be learning these tools too. So if the restaurant themselves

too. So if the restaurant themselves doesn't want to automate it, I think there's advantages to hiring in people that can create that content in that way for you too because it can scale. You

can produce more of it. Uh it can be more reactive.

Some of our clients, you know, drag their feet on getting uh digital assets they need for campaigns until the last moment. Like, oh, it's Halloween this

moment. Like, oh, it's Halloween this week. Maybe we should have a Halloween

week. Maybe we should have a Halloween post for Instagram. Oh crap. Like we

don't have time to have a full-blown shoot to do this. So AI gives you the capability of being able to, you know, create more timely content too, kind of on the fly.

>> I I think it's mo with this type of application, it truly democratizes content. Like how many bars,

content. Like how many bars, restaurants, venues can't afford to bring in a photographer or can't afford to find other solutions to like, oh my goodness, it's National Margarita Day.

We have a margarita special. Well, how

do we get this out on the Instagram story so that we can try to attract people into the venue? I think it offers a real opportunity for hospitality

brands of all sizes with all budgets to compete in a very saturated marketplace.

So for the the brands that can afford to put more behind it, like there are ways to do content even with our AI approach at a larger scale, but if they've got a

social media manager in house already or someone tasked with that who can just learn a few basic tools, they can really change the game for how they're showing up.

>> Well, most places do. They have somebody that's running the social media. I can

tell you that if they're posting on Tik Tok or creating reels, like the amount of effort sometimes that it takes to create that, like that's just as difficult as if not more difficult than

utilizing some of these new nextgen tools that have come out. So, it's just a matter of transitioning over to that to see what they can do. I mean, I've only just recently started dabbling with

some of the making reels in the apps and stuff, and while it's like easier, like it's very time consuming. you could sit there for an hour trying to put together, you know, something on your phone.

>> It's it's not so much the time required to to complete a task. It's the the amount of switching that happens while you're completing the task. So, it's

like you're like like if you're like a bar owner, you're you have like a plunger in one hand, a stack of bills in the other. You're like, "Okay, well, I

the other. You're like, "Okay, well, I got to make a TikTok now, so I got to sit down and focus for 30 minutes and actually do this." And that can be done in 30 minutes, no problem. But if you have to pay a bill in between, somebody

knocks on your door, somebody quits or gets fired, whatever. I'm you I'm keenly interested in the the character building capabilities. And I'm keenly interested

capabilities. And I'm keenly interested in I've seen a couple of the ads that you guys produced for I think it was a tequila brand. It looked beautiful. It

tequila brand. It looked beautiful. It

was AI for sure. I mean, it looked like AI, but it was not pretending to be anything else. But like what what are

anything else. But like what what are your thoughts on like Jaw Monkey and like the aliens telling dad jokes and like Mr. Rogers talking to 50 Cent? So

that had so there's a time and a place for that and it's purely entertaining and it can be very innovative and I'm sure that it can be employed to to sell products and we may you know that may be

in some time like something we specialize in. I can't rule that out.

specialize in. I can't rule that out.

But for the time being our our content philosophy has always been to try to be best-in-class, incredibly polished cinematic. I mean we we've always used

cinematic. I mean we we've always used the top tier equipment. Kyle shoots on a Hasselblad camera. Like our our entire

Hasselblad camera. Like our our entire brand ethos has been on a very specific kind of premium elevated type of content. Not that you can't do that with

content. Not that you can't do that with John, but that hasn't been that hasn't been our focus yet. And something that we recently executed and these tools

Kyle mentioned, they're coming out daily, weekly. like we might give a

daily, weekly. like we might give a proposal to a client on a Monday and by Friday have an even better, faster, more effective way to do something than what we had proposed. Um, but we had a a call

with a client that was asking about brand ambassadors and avatars and they happened to have a sketched logo that was a a woman kind of pinup style but in

like it was a pinup style kind of Midwest retro character and it was for an oat milk cream lure. And the question was I wonder what we could insert the

character into. So, Nano Banana had just

character into. So, Nano Banana had just come out and I thought, let's see what we can do. We were able to feed the logo

into our tools, generate first a very realistic looking version. So, still

very penippy, very characterized, but then when we started applying more of a marketing brain and where does this woman live? Who is this woman? kind of

woman live? Who is this woman? kind of

that like that brand character we were talking about. We ended up putting her

talking about. We ended up putting her in a Brooklyn on a Brooklyn stoop because it was an oat milk leure. When

we lived in Brooklyn, it was oatmeal was oat milk was the thing. Probably still

is. But we were able to bring her to life. And then Kyle used animation tools

life. And then Kyle used animation tools to to have her moving and laughing in a very realistic way. And the thing that's really interesting about this is I

actually try to test as we were prepping for your podcast. I wonder if I could put her like in an actual hotel bar. And

so I found a photo online of the Ace Hotel lobby bar in New York. And sure

enough, through Nano Banana was able to put her sitting at that bar. So I think this is a really interesting thing for for venues for places with location

specificity is that if you have great photos of your interior, you can have character consistency. You can create

character consistency. You can create characters, people, and and have them tell a story throughout your venue >> and then and also throughout content pieces as well. Like there's there's continuity between story lines where if

you give this character a huge backstory, like it can it can reinforce the story and like have a consistent call to action or like like product placement or whatever it is.

>> Completely >> totally insane. And that's that's relatively new. That's only a few weeks

relatively new. That's only a few weeks old where they like where they were able to do that. Well, and I mean, I would personally use it for myself if I decided I wanted to start giving like AI tutorials instead of having to hop in

front of a camera. If I can just type in what I want to have myself say on a screen, why would I not do that? It's a

lot easier and less time consuming, >> right?

>> I don't have to worry. I don't have to worry if my hair looks good. Like, AI

will take for me.

>> Like, I created this car this brand called Banana Marorrow.

>> Yeah.

>> Just like >> only be only because I could get the domain name. I was like, "This is

domain name. I was like, "This is insane." I was like playing with Nano

insane." I was like playing with Nano Banana. I was like, "Okay, let's call

Banana. I was like, "Okay, let's call Banana tomorrow." And I I was like, "Tot

Banana tomorrow." And I I was like, "Tot banana banana.com. See you there." And

banana banana.com. See you there." And

and it's like in a day of learning how to do not only the automation, but also the uh the content, the prompting for the story and then repeating it like I think it was syndicated through potato

or blot is is the is the syndication behind it. But it created a new post

behind it. But it created a new post every day about this character of him of this guy, this awkward man on the street. He was he was Austral from New

street. He was he was Austral from New Zealand. He was like socially awkward

Zealand. He was like socially awkward wearing a banana costume and a sash that says banana and just doing man on the street interviews of people saying, "What's your favorite drink?" And then just being weird.

>> How did it work? And and it's just like like I feel like every brand is going to be doing this. Like every brand is going to have their own jaw monkey. Every

brand is going to have their own blogging blogging yeti stuff like that.

So, I don't know. I especially if it's cheeky or funny, people aren't less inclined to care if it's real. If it's

kind of cartoony or or fun, does that matter? We've certainly gotten into some

matter? We've certainly gotten into some conversations with people as of late about like we can't use anything AI because it's not real. I'm like, well, what is real to you like previously?

Also, like does it matter if it's real if it's effective? Like to me in our world it it matters more if a piece of content is effective versus if it's real. As long as you're not trying to

real. As long as you're not trying to lie to people. Like the efficacy of whether or not it gets engagement and drives conversions gets people buying a product or you know checking out a a

venue. You know if a bar was posting

venue. You know if a bar was posting funny stuff or a brand was posting something with some guy in a banana costume all the time. It's consistent.

It's clever marketing. It's

eye-catching. It gives people a reason to follow the social channel. Like I

would much rather follow that than some page that's posting the same boring bottle shots or cocktail photos over and over and over again. So it's new. It's

fresh. And I think it's necessary. Like

the amount of noise that's about to happen out there. When you go to Sora and you see the absurdity of what we're getting bombarded with, like as if our attention spans weren't already whittleled down to a toothpick already

where we're at. In order to rise above the noise, you almost need to match it.

and then exceed it, but in clever ways that can still stay true to your brand or your business.

>> Well, I think that's an interesting uh that's an interesting point. Uh and like a lot of my obsession lately is about search engine optimization and SEO. And

so like you'll see me making a lot of content towards the the the information stream that is already happening, what people are already curious about. Like

you use tools like answer the public for instance and and people are saying like what is when they're asking questions about what you're thinking and then you make content to that. So, how do you like what's it like are you are you guys thinking about this kind of SEO element

where where you're joining an existing stream versus creating a new stream around your clients as brands?

>> Oh gosh. Well, SEO more like GEO now, right? So, uh I mean I don't know about

right? So, uh I mean I don't know about you, but I pretty much use perplexity instead of like Google search anymore.

>> GEO, I'm not Yeah, generative engine optimization. So, AI basically AI. So

optimization. So, AI basically AI. So

obviously SEO is still important but as an overwhelmingly a a growing level of people are shifting towards using AI platforms or chat evbt

or perplexity or whatever it may be to research things versus traditional web search and obviously that leans upon and leverages existing web search and what's out there on the web. But you know

something like perplexity synthesizes the data for you. Google's starting to implement that by like rolling out Gemini into your search results, but it hasn't been as robust as like some some

other platforms. So, it's also about optimizing for that. Like how does an AI read what you're doing and searching out there because that's also dictating trends and perhaps I think going a

little bit further, you know, as marketers are growingly concerned about what Gen Z thinks about things and some of the cornerstones and values of that generation. You know, authenticity is

generation. You know, authenticity is certainly one of them. Brand story is certainly one of them. What like a beyond a search engine, what an AI search engine thinks about your product,

thinks about your your brand is really important. And I don't think enough

important. And I don't think enough people are thinking about that because it does kind of go a step further than just basic web search and web optimization. There needs to actually be

optimization. There needs to actually be some meat there for, you know, the AI to like pick your business or your product over another when you're asking for recommendation. And whether or not

recommendation. And whether or not that's pure and true or that's being guided by, you know, corporate interests running, >> there may be some agendas there. Yeah.

>> Yeah. I think there's probably some agendas there, but like at the moment, it's kind of the wild west. So, it's,

you know, worth thinking about, but that is really interesting. Like I think we could probably ourselves spend more time looking at those trends and trying to be reactive to them. We do do that to some

degree for our clients because it's always about what's, you know, popular on social media and stuff, but you can also create those trends or maybe even predict where they're going. And in this regard, I I think AI can actually help

you do that.

>> Yeah, for sure. I just posted something last week in the in my workshop. I kind

of anytime I find something interesting, I I put an SOP around it, put in the workshop, and um the and it's the thrust of this is so simple, it's ridiculous, but it's like Bing is owned by Microsoft. Sure.

Microsoft. Sure.

>> Microsoft is a major investor in OpenAI, the the people who make ChatGBT. And so

if you go to bing.com/webmaster

and register your site, then OpenAI will be able to crawl your website. So if

you're not registered on that site, then it doesn't know that you exist and so it can't recommend you. So that's just like a quick little hack there.

>> So it's already happening. Yeah, that's

cool thought. [laughter]

>> So um so what's what's the future of the Ford Media Lab? Well, I mean, we've made quite a few changes uh this last year.

It's tough cuz we we we came from traditional photography. Honestly,

traditional photography. Honestly, didn't do a whole lot of video work because I preferred still work is what our sweet spot was. But that was honest a huge pain point for us over the last

10 years as social media kind of dictated that the algorithms prefer video and we didn't have much of a solve for that until recently. for that. I'm

very thankful for the AI tools and we can actually achieve content that never existed before because we're able to have the precision of photography. So, we can take, you

of photography. So, we can take, you know, still a studio photo but now be able to animate it after the fact and turn it into a real or just an animation in a way that actual videography can't

achieve because it's not usually sitting there retouching a video. You can't get it down to that level of precision before animating it. you know, a video is capturing what's going on live in,

you know, hundreds of thousands of frames.

So, it kind of actually pushes the visual of something that's now moving with like photographic precision. That's

what we've been dabbling with. But like

I'm almost wondering because I'm just I'm very much a futurist myself like how long until we're post camera because we're generating a lot of ca uh content

now just by clever prompting and being able to composite things in using some traditional methods like Photoshop, the original of like faking visuals, right?

But they have a lot of great AI tools built in there now too. But it's about kind of recycling and being clever even with existing assets. You don't

necessarily need to have new photo shoots over and over again for products.

You have a great hero product image that you use for ecom that's shot on a neutral background. You can now drop

neutral background. You can now drop that into so many different visuals. If

you have someone who knows how to leverage the tools. So we've kind of alongside our move. We just recently moved down to Miami, which seems like a

great place for this because it's kind of a growing tech hub with where we are now. Very forward thinking. Seems like a

now. Very forward thinking. Seems like a relatively new city, too. Everything's

getting built up around like new ideas.

So, >> I hear that I hear I hear there's traffic enough to back that up.

>> Yeah. Oh gosh. Especially in our neighborhood. Don't come to Winwood on a

neighborhood. Don't come to Winwood on a drive down.

>> I got a client there, Barulios. Barulio

and Winwoods I work with now. Yeah.

Yeah, they're right up the street.

That's great.

>> You got to get in there.

>> Very frustrating to find parking around here though.

>> Yeah. Um, all right. Well, so I mean, you guys started in the bar world. You

guys are bartenders 150 years ago when when we when we first met. If you own a bar now, what would you advise them to do to tell their story >> right now with with the tool like with their cell phone?

>> Oh my goodness. Well,

>> uh, I would just for fun, I'd recommend people check out uh, Luma Dream Machine, Luma AI, Lu Ma. I think that's been one

of my go-to uh video generation AI tools and it's gotten they just like again every AI tool every week is upgrading but their most recent video generative

platform is like really light years ahead of where it started. It used to be that you try to animate like a still a key frame any photo that you take and it would produce 5 seconds of video maybe

if you're lucky one second of it was usable before the AI started to hallucinate. Now you can get 5 to 10

hallucinate. Now you can get 5 to 10 seconds of like greatl looking usable video. So not too long ago, Rachel and I

video. So not too long ago, Rachel and I checked out a bar in South Beach and I just took a cell phone photo of I think it was a Tom Collins I was enjoying there. Just brought it over to the

there. Just brought it over to the window, made sure there was good lighting. Still following photographic

lighting. Still following photographic practices, but then was able to drop that photo into Luma Dream Machine. They

have an app on at least on iPhone. I

don't know if they do on uh Android.

probably not.

>> But if not, you could navigate there through the web and still use the service as well. Drop it in there. I

didn't even have to type a prompt into this thing. This is how smart the

this thing. This is how smart the systems are getting. It'll still

generate something pretty. Obviously, it

helps if you tell it what you want it to do. Mhm.

do. Mhm.

>> But it just created a nice kind of cinematic dolly type motion on the camera that you wouldn't have been able to achieve with a cell phone. Unless you

actually had a bunch of physical gear set up in your bar or restaurant and were sliding. Even if it was a cell

were sliding. Even if it was a cell phone, you'd still need specialty gear that you know most people don't have on hand. And you can create a look and feel

hand. And you can create a look and feel all of a sudden that draws you in. So

like even if it's just your cocktail special for the day, you could drop it into this tool. I don't know. Oh, I

think there is like a free they let you do a certain amount of videos for free.

You probably have to pay a subscription to get rid of a watermark, I'm sure. I

don't know. But of all the tools, that's one I would certainly be leveraging if I were still working in a bar and just wanted to kind of promote like a daily cocktail or some kind of feature because

you're able to take a singular photo and turn it into a beautiful video asset pretty easily. Well, and I think that

pretty easily. Well, and I think that there's a few things that I would recommend. I think the first starting

recommend. I think the first starting point would be to be creative and be true to yourself first and foremost.

Like going back to the dead rabbit and the graphic menu. I remember I think Jason when we first met you, we were at Amore and you were at Death and Company

and we had Sundays where we would get to do the Fords night and create our own cocktail menu. And I remember I would

cocktail menu. And I remember I would handdraw a comic strip of our specials menu. And this was this was pre-dead

menu. And this was this was pre-dead rabbit. I have to say this was probably

rabbit. I have to say this was probably 20 2011.

>> Hardly the profession level of their graphic novel.

>> Hardly. But if we were to try to implement that today, if that was our brand and we were trying to do that, like we'd be able to create it even better without having to go through

those motions. And I think that's been

those motions. And I think that's been the biggest gift for me as our creative director is that AI lets me take what's in my brain and put it out there for our clients to see and approve and people to

experience. But first and foremost, I

experience. But first and foremost, I think find your thing. Have that be what's authentic and you can use the tools to create that's just like your paintbrush, right? But be authentic to

paintbrush, right? But be authentic to yourself. I think having some great

yourself. I think having some great photos of your space can be very effective for using tools like Nano Banana. If you want to play around with

Banana. If you want to play around with characters, if you want to have, you know, kind of a template where you can pop in that cell phone photo into something like have some great photos of

your venue because you can't create that with AI, right? That's a physical place.

I think having >> authenticity. So,

>> authenticity. So, >> yeah. Exactly.

>> yeah. Exactly.

>> Probably don't want to be posting in a bar that doesn't look like your bar.

>> No. So have that have that be real. And

you know obviously your food dishes and your menu items, you want those to look authentic, which is where that hybrid approach really comes in. If you're the owner of the venue, the manager of the

venue, invest in just some basic tools for whoever is tasked with doing this to utilize. And then make sure that the

utilize. And then make sure that the person that you have on your team that's tasked with social media or content creation is interested in in some learning and utilizing them and

innovative and kind of sees this as an endless creative opportunity as opposed as opposed to some kind of like new thing they have to learn or inconvenience, right? Like I think

inconvenience, right? Like I think that's kind of the secret sauce. And it

doesn't have to be perfect content. Like

I've learned that people talking about you, people hearing about you, people thinking about you is way more powerful sometimes than having it be like, "Oh, we don't have the right piece of content

to to share right now." Um, but play around and I think as long as you're not trying to deceive anyone and you're utilizing it to either enhance or be

creative or bring a vision to life, I think it is the future and it's really valuable. And whatever tool you do end

valuable. And whatever tool you do end up using, like it helps you tell your story before people even walk in the door. So like, as long as you're just

door. So like, as long as you're just using it creatively to do that, I don't think you can go wrong.

>> All right. Well, we're going to use AI to edit the out of this. I promise

you that.

>> All right.

>> All right. So, if you got if you haven't already 10 10 20 years younger, that would be great.

>> Yes. Yes. 100%.

>> You tried that earlier.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right.

Um, if you haven't signed up for my free free accelerator, it's 30 minutes and uh, get your reviews on autopilot by connecting your Google My Business with your Instagram. Rachel and Kyle Ford

your Instagram. Rachel and Kyle Ford from Ford Media Lab, thank you so much for joining me today. Um, it's been a pleasure to catch up with you. All

right. Likewise. Great to see you, Jason.

>> Great to see you.