Objective

Farfetch set out to dramatically increase creative variety within Dynamic Product Ads (DPAs) by going beyond white-background product imagery. The goal was to enhance relevance, improve visual diversity, and unlock new creative possibilities, ultimately driving stronger performance without increasing design costs or internal production workload.

Solution

Farfetch partnered with Smartly to transform its approach to Dynamic Product Ads by bringing AI-powered background removal and scene generation into its creative workflow through Smartly’s AI Studio. This collaboration unlocked a new level of visual sophistication, turning simple white-background product shots into immersive lifestyle-inspired visuals designed to drive performance.

A creative breakthrough powered by Smartly’s AI Studio

Using Smartly’s AI Studio, the Farfetch team began to:

• Generate rich, visually compelling backgrounds using natural-language prompts and style-matching, recreating editorial-quality settings at scale.
• Remove backgrounds instantly from product images, eliminating the single biggest blocker in their design process: the lack of creative-ready assets.
• Transform static images into contextual lifestyle scenes, turning each product into a story rather than a standalone item on a white background.
  

Curated product set to maximize creative impact

To validate the approach, the team curated a vacation-themed product assortment, swimwear, sandals, summer accessories, resortwear, and used these as the foundation for new AI-generated creative concepts. This ensured the visuals felt cohesive, aspirational, and seasonally relevant.

Dynamic templates enriched with AI-generated scenes

Smartly’s dynamic image templates became the vehicle for scale.
Instead of a single white-background layout, templates were rebuilt with:

• Background removal across an entire catalog
• AI-generated backgrounds
• Style variations that matched Farfetch’s brand aesthetic
  
  

This allowed Farfetch to produce hundreds of visually diverse ad variations, all powered by the same catalog feed, without relying on manual design work.

‍From one-dimensional to elevated storytelling at scale

The outcome was transformative: Farfetch shifted from a single, restrictive creative direction to a visually rich, highly personalized creative ecosystem. The new assets gave algorithms more variety to test and match shopper intent, resulting in dramatic performance uplift and proving that creative diversification is a true performance lever.