When Experience Abu Dhabi prepared to open the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi, it faced a familiar challenge for cultural institutions: how to introduce a landmark attraction to a generation that consumes culture through feeds, formats and fleeting attention spans.
At the centre of the museum sits one of the world’s most recognisable fossils – a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton dating back 67 million years. The question wasn’t how to showcase it, but how to make it feel relevant in a digital environment shaped by personality, participation and pace.
Rather than positioning the fossil as a static exhibit, the team behind the launch explored whether it could exist as a character – one capable of engaging audiences on their own terms.
The idea
Developed by Experience Abu Dhabi in collaboration with Ogilvy Paris’ AI.Lab and Memac Ogilvy UAE, the idea centred on reframing the T. rex as an AI-influencer that can be engaged with.
Social listening revealed an active online community already invested in dinosaur culture – from memes and trivia to pop science and fandom. The insight was simple: audiences were already talking about dinosaurs; the opportunity lay in giving one the ability to talk back.
“The T. rex is one of the most recognisable fossils in the world and bringing him to life as The AI-ncient Influencer has been an incredible opportunity. Our social listening showed three things clearly: people drive dinosaur conversations online, STAN the T. rex already has an active digital footprint and there is huge appetite for short, engaging content that makes complex topics feel effortless,” said, Ghadeer El Khub, Creative, Social & Digital Department Director at the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi.
The concept of the “AI-ncient Influencer” emerged from this insight. Rather than inventing a fictional mascot, the team built a personality rooted in the existing cultural behaviour around dinosaurs – curious, slightly playful and grounded in science. The aim was to create content that felt native to social platforms rather than promotional in tone.
The execution
Generative AI was used to bring this concept to life. Using Google’s Veo 3.1 through WPP’s partnership, the team developed a digital version of the T. rex that could move, react and express emotion with a level of realism suited to short-form social content.
The technology allowed for consistency in character, scale and environment, while giving the flexibility needed to produce episodic content at speed. Each piece was designed to feel platform-native – informed by meme culture, short-form pacing and informal storytelling – without losing scientific credibility.
The content rolled out as a series of short episodes across the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi’s social channels, supported by teaser content on Visit Abu Dhabi platforms. Rather than explaining the museum, the content clips invited audiences into its world, using humour and curiosity as entry points.
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The results
Since launch, the campaign has generated more than 50 million video views and 83.8K engagements, with sentiment tracking at nearly 96 per cent positive or neutral. Contributing to the total, top performing posts generated 23 million views and 40.7K engagements.
