The Thing About AI Advertising

Nothing is more appealing to humanity than itself. That’s why we tend to anthropomorphize the world around us—attributing human characteristics or behaviors to nonhuman things, like animals, objects, and events—because we crave human connection.

The same thing goes for brands; we want brands that sound human, act human, and reflect our values back to us so that we know the brand is “for us,” and, dare I say, “one of us.”

So let’s get real about embracing real people vs. AI, and using real ingredients vs. artificial.

We’ve seen brands dip their toes in the world of AI for ad-making to little celebration from the market. I don’t need to name names; we know who they are. Simultaneously, we’ve seen brands embrace the moment and go the other way.

Dove and Aerie have declared that they will never use AI to depict images of beauty, rejecting the technology in their marketing communications. This, of course, is quite on-brand for these companies, which have embraced “real beauty” and eschewed other aesthetic-enhancing technologies, such as Photoshop, in the past. They chose to embrace “real” some time ago, so, of course, this is a natural step in that same vein.

Likewise, Lay's and Domino's are rolling out brand refreshes that go beyond aesthetics – reminding us that people crave connection in a world that’s feeling more and more automated and artificial.

Lay’s is going “farm to bag,” centering real potatoes and cleaner ingredients front and center to tell a story of authenticity and simplicity.

Domino’s is introducing its first-ever sonic logo, voiced by Shaboozey himself, to give its brand a literal human voice—one that feels warm, craveable, and real.

Brands like Polaroid have pushed back against the rise of AI-usage and the artificiality of contemporary living as a champion of real-world, tangible experiences—encouraging folks to touch grass. Real grass. Even OpenAI chose to use real people in its recent ad campaign because, despite being the market leaders in this groundbreaking technology, they, too, know the power of humanity—regardless of how much they seem to want to subvert it.

As marketers, our challenge is to create brand experiences that truly resonate on a human level, across all touchpoints, in an effort to connect with humanity. It’s not just about looking good on Instagram or the production efficiencies (though that matters too!), but about embodying a perspective about the world that addresses the evolving needs of our culture. While the technology will surely continue to evolve and achieve unprecedented feats, the tools' ability to engage people is only as good as our understanding of human engagement. The tools will definitely get better. The question I wonder is: will we?

For real, for real.