Advertisers love to talk about AI, but they face a major problem: Consumers are wary of the technology and don’t want to be bombarded with messages about it.
This issue was highlighted at the Olympics, where Google caused a stir with an ad for its Gemini AI tool. The “Dear Sydney” ad, which showed a father using AI to help his daughter write a letter to her sports idol, sparked a public backlash, leading Google to pull the ad. In a statement, Google said it was trying to show AI’s ability to enhance human creativity rather than replace it, but Critics called him deaf.
“There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding about what we should be using AI for,” said Iain Thomas, co-author of a book on AI, “What Makes Us Human?” and founder of This looks like funan agency that helps marketers harness AI. “We shouldn’t use it to write poetry or books, but rather take care of the groundwork so we can develop our creativity in different ways.”
The AI messaging problem extends far beyond Google. A Toys “R” Us ad from June, touted as being made by Sora, OpenAI’s text-to-video tool, received mixed reviews, with some saying it sent the message that filmmakers can be replaced by AI. An “AI-powered” Under Armour ad in March was accused by some members of the creative community who use the work of others without giving credit.
These high-profile missteps speak to a fundamental problem facing advertisers: Consumers don’t yet trust AI and are less likely to buy AI-powered products. study A study by Washington State University researchers published in the Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management earlier this year found that U.S. consumers were less likely to purchase products such as televisions, medical devices or financial services products if “artificial intelligence” was included in the product description.
It’s easy to understand the unease surrounding growing fears about AI’s potential to disrupt jobs and rob us of our humanity. Bench A study showed growing concern about AI, with 52% of Americans more worried than enthusiastic about it, up from 37% two years earlier.
But advertisers could be vulnerable to their own positive views of AI. A Yahoo survey published in February with Publicis Media showed that advertisers were twice as likely as the general public to view AI positively.
Toys “R” Us used OpenAI’s Sora to create this ad. YouTube
Companies are investing heavily in AI and spending millions on marketing
Marketers cannot ignore AI, however.
Companies are expected to spending over $40 billion on generative AI This year, many companies are relying on their marketing departments to help promote these investment decisions.
According to MediaRadar data, companies spent more than $107 million on advertising to market AI-related products and services in the first half of 2024, compared to $5.6 million in total spent during the same period last year. To date, In 2024, 575 companies purchased ads to market AI products, compared to 186 for all of 2023.
“There’s a dilemma because they have to differentiate themselves, and they’re using AI to do that,” Josh Campo, CEO of ad agency Razorfish, said of advertisers, adding that it’s particularly tricky for companies like financial services and health care companies that share sensitive personal data.
“You can talk about AI, but you shouldn’t talk about it as much as you do. It’s not a strategy, it’s a tool,” he said. “We advise them to focus on the benefits they bring in terms of the human experience.”
Matt Rebeiro, executive director of strategy at creative agency Iris, said B2B brands are also embracing AI in their advertising, using it as a marketing shorthand to demonstrate how it can help their clients become more efficient. But he added that “AI” itself is not a unique selling point and marketers need to focus on benefits and outcomes.
“It doesn’t matter if AI makes the sausage, as long as it tastes good,” Rebeiro said. “Similarly, I wouldn’t brag about how my new product was designed with Photoshop, so why should I talk about how my product was designed with AI? It may be new, but in most cases it’s irrelevant to the customer.”
Data shows the best AI ads have a human-led narrative
System1, which evaluates TV ads based on their potential to drive long-term growth for brands, found that the AI-powered ads that perform best with consumers are those that focus on a human-driven narrative. The research firm asks a panel of consumers from multiple countries to indicate how they feel about the ad they’re watching from a list of emotions ranging from contempt and disgust to happiness and surprise.
One of the best-performing US ads of 2023 came from Adobe, which aired a spot featuring a girl using AI to create a birthday card. The ad scored 5.2 out of a maximum of 5.9. In System1’s testing, the ad drew some negative reactions from viewers in its early moments when the AI element was introduced, but this dissipated when the ad showed the tool helping rather than sapping the girl’s creativity.
Dove’s “The Code” ad also scored highest, in fourth place. When AI-generated beauty images were shown, the ad generated a wave of negative reactions from System1 testers, but the reaction diminished when Dove showed examples of realistic beauty and images of everyday women. The ad ends with a promise that the brand will “never use AI to create or distort images of women.”
On the negative side, Microsoft’s Olympics ad, “They Say,” which showed how people could overcome doubts and achieve their ambitions with the help of Microsoft’s Copilot chatbot, scored a modest 2.9. System1 blamed its poor performance on an overemphasis on the negative instead of the feats that AI technology can help people achieve.
Thomas said some consumer companies have struck the right tone when they use AI to personalize an experience or do something new. Advertisement with JLo humorously showed people using AI to mimic the star while inviting people to send a personalized invitation to book a cruise, for example. Another was a Cadbury tool which allow people to upload their photos onto classic Cadbury posters.
“Trying to do everything with AI is in bad taste,” Thomas said of AI. “People are becoming more sensitive about how things are done.”
