With 5,100+ locations across 73+ countries, the Swiss-based travel retailer, Avolta, operates duty-paid shops, restaurants and convenience stores, duty-paid shops and convenience stores in airports, cruise lines, seaports, railway stations and central tourist areas.

Founded in 1865 as Weitnauer, the Swiss-based retailer brands includes Dufry, Hudson, Autogrill and HMSHost.

Avolta is committed to providing an exceptional experience to travelers worldwide, and as such demands exceptional brand and product imagery that supports drives that mission forward.  

In 2024, the travel retailer partnered with THG Studios to create a series of artificial intelligence (AI)-influenced visual assets to use across its online channels.

The challenges

For the THG Studios team, delivering a visual campaign for a brand dedicated to exceptionality, the aim was simple: elegance in simplicity.  

Eschewing busy, cluttered imagery in favor of clean, simple aesthetics to deliver a luxuriant, premium feel, the team sought to visually express a modern, minimalist oasis – the perfect showcase for the premium brands in Avolta’s product portfolio.

The solution

Creating AI-generated backgrounds and settings, THG Studios’ creatives focused on blending architectural elegance with natural elements to deliver a serene and luxurious – yet modern and minimalist – aesthetic.  

For the team, this meant considering the right background elements to support the products, leveraging sophisticated interiors with curved furnishings and tranquil outdoor spaces to create a premium feel.  

To emphasize these elements, the team focused on clean lines, soft shadows and neutral tones across the various scenes. In this way, they created a visual synchronicity between the content and the composition that showcased the products in a visually pleasing setting.  

The results

The resulting images combine AI-generated backgrounds and models with product imagery to deliver a stunning range of visual assets.  

Luxury items are placed in clean, minimalist settings. Designer sunglasses, perfumes and other beauty and cosmetic products are set against a variety of textured surfaces such as stone and sand to evoke a sense of refined simplicity.  

The composition is enhanced by a delicate interplay between light and shadow, adding depth and character to the products and AI-generated models and background elements in each scene.  

Organic materials such as sand and stone are particularly effective mediums for this use of chiaroscuro, further enhancing the tranquil and sophisticated ambience.