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Why early generative AI ads aren’t working and how creatives will shift to integrate the tech into their work


Marketers are faithfully obsessed with the new thing when it comes to activating their brand. So it’s no surprise that in the second year that generative AI has been available, marketers have rushed to use it in their advertising.

So far, however, consumers aren’t as excited about AI-generated generative ads as marketers have been. During 2024, marketers who apparently used generative artificial intelligence to create their ads (Toys R Us, Under Armour, Coca-Cola) or offered the possibilities of generative artificial intelligence in their advertisements (like the Google ad for the Olympics, which they pulled after the backlash) had their ads seen by the general public, especially the creative community.

Despite this, marketers and agency directors are expected to continue (and likely increase) the use of generative AI in 2025. Marketers regularly ask how creative agencies use generative artificial intelligence and how they can integrate it into the creative process. for their brands. Creative agency directors believe that generative AI is simply a new tool that they will continue to experiment with in various ways—even if most don’t see their experiments being fully powered by generative AI, at least not yet.

“We’re not looking or hoping AI will replace everything or everyone, just give us access to more information about our ideas and speed our ideas to market,” said John Cornette, creative director of creative business EP+Co.

As marketers continue to embrace this technology, creatives need to take a hard look at why people have reacted so negatively to the few ads they’ve seen so far, and learn from that. The problem with early iterations of marketers’ work with generative AI wasn’t that they used generative AI, but that the human element seemed to be missing from the creative process, according to eight creatives and agency executives.

“When you tell a really great story, you’re really authentic, you create a real connection,” said Eva Neveau, chief creative officer of Omnicom Production. “What we see in [AI infused] the work is that they are not authentic and that there is no real emotion in them. There is nothing that takes you into a world that creates magic. So then you start saying, ‘Wait a minute, you’ve lost focus of my emotions — and now I’m distracted by the fact that that hand has seven fingers.'”

And these weird generative AI ad bugs aren’t the only problem marketers and agency heads may encounter. Another, of course, is the backlash from creative communities and online consumers for using technology to create robotic and off-putting advertising. And there’s a hype cycle where brands using generative AI for their marketing are getting some industry attention. While all marketers want headlines for their work, noted Bill Oberlander, co-founder and creative chairman of full-service agency Oberland, doing so with work that’s forgettable at best won’t help them in the long run.

“All these AIs. [ads]they’re not memorable to me because there’s just no human spirit in them,” Oberlander said. “They have no spark.

Still, it’s easy to see why the idea of ​​using AI to create ads faster and cheaper at a time when they’re under enormous pressure to do more with less is so appealing. “There’s a seductive nature to being able to create things quickly, without shooting, without spending millions of dollars and this and that and whatnot,” said Paul Malmstrom, founding partner of US creative store Mother. “It’s a race against time.”

But when it’s a focus, it’s also “a genericism race,” Malmstrom said. “For as long as we’ve been doing this, our work has always been about resolution. How do you create something that has a distinctive voice? How do you create a distinctive brand voice? It seems to be going a bit sideways.’

In their quest to be on top of the latest trend, marketers can forget that the most important thing for their brands is not using the technology everyone is talking about, but creating great ads that resonate with the people they’re trying to reach.

“Brands shouldn’t feel like they’re ‘innovative’ just because they’re using technology,” said Dave Snyder, partner and head of design at Siberia. But in many ways, that train has already left the station. “There will be no shortage of ads and other experiences created with gen AI,” Snyder said. “And if they’re great, you’d be none the wiser.



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