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Around this time of year, The Salvation Army logo is a familiar sight: From toy drives to meal assistance, the charitable organization has become a mainstay of the holiday season.
Last fall, its goals were much the same as any retailer’s. The brand aimed to drive store visits at scale across key U.S. regions. To do so effectively, it turned to its agency of record, BarkleyOKRP.
As a Google Creative AI Lighthouse program participant, BarkleyOKRP was already looking to use AI to create an “impossible ad.” The Salvation Army’s need for relevance at scale provided the perfect opportunity. Using the latest versions of Gemini and image generator Nano Banana available, the team built a system that turned a counterintuitive idea into a premium, personalized, nationwide retail campaign in just 30 days. Here’s how.
Developing the creative concept
The Salvation Army and BarkleyOKRP campaign focused on a straightforward goal: translating the emotional connection people have with thrifting into real foot traffic. “Our insight was simple: FOMO is real, and in thrift, every product in our inventory is one of one,” said Tim McCracken, SVP, creative and AI at BarkleyOKRP.
The retail campaign did not promote available stock. Instead, it showed potential customers recently sold, rare items. As McCracken noted, “It turned absence into attraction and created a new kind of retail storytelling, where every ad reminded people to act fast or their next great find might be gone.”
Given that the products shown would no longer be in stock, the team needed AI for more than just efficiency. It was the only way to tell the story.
Hyperlocal execution in weeks, powered by AI
Having aligned on a creative concept and an ambitious goal, BarkleyOKRP’s team of creatives, developers, and technologists asked themselves how AI could speed up the process. With thousands of product photos from The Salvation Army’s extensive nationwide inventory to review, analyzing everything was simply impossible. They decided to use Gemini to build a system that could evaluate all the images for them.
By integrating Nano Banana into the software Gemini built, the team accelerated product curation and creative production. They generated hundreds of highly stylized editorial images from basic stock photos, which Nano Banana then resized for seamless distribution in seconds. To get these assets in front of the right shoppers, the team leveraged Demand Gen, a discovery-focused campaign solution built for visual storytelling.
While Gemini synthesized logistic data, including sale locations and store coordinates, Demand Gen powered the campaign’s localized execution. By targeting specific ZIP codes near stores, the platform ensured every ad featured the custom-generated imagery relevant to that area. This allowed the brand to reach audiences across YouTube, Discover, Gmail, and the Google Display Network before they even started a search.
Above all, McCracken was impressed by the premium look and feel of the AI campaign art. “[Nano Banana] transformed the raw inventory photos into beautifully art-directed images that felt like high-end fashion editorials,” McCracken said. “We produced some of the most polished, high-craft imagery and ads we’ve ever made for the brand.” Most impressive was Nano Banana’s accuracy in replicating each product, capturing not just color but texture, fabric, and movement.
“It raised the bar for what AI-assisted creative can look like,” said McCracken. “It showed that AI isn’t just a production tool. It’s a creative enabler.”
Driving ROI, one click at a time
The first 30 days of the retail campaign proved that a strong emotional insight, combined with imagery made possible by generative AI, can move sales. Since its launch, the campaign achieved an $11 cost per store visit, outperforming the industry benchmark by 138%. Its click-through rate outperformed Google Display Network benchmarks by nearly 2.6X. Most telling, more than 58% of those clicks led to in-store searches, demonstrating a clear path to action.
“The campaign turned a counterintuitive idea, advertising items that are already gone, into a performance success story,” said McCracken.
McCracken expects the test to be only the beginning as AI tools rapidly advance. Made today, he speculates that the AI campaign would be even more personalized.
His advice for other creatives? Treat AI as a creative multiplier, not a shortcut, and make sure your teams are owning all decisions.
“Start by identifying the data and assets you already have, then look for ways AI can unlock hidden stories within them,” he said. “The strongest AI-powered work evolves with data and insight, not just speed.”
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