Airline Malaysia Airlines is sparking mixed feelings after its recent AI-generated Chinese New Year message raised questions about authenticity and ethics in marketing.
The post aimed to promote the airline’s domestic and international flights during the holiday season and showed a family laughing together as they celebrated the new year. It read: “Embrace the joy of family reunions this Chinese New Year” with flight prices included. However, netizens were quick to point out that the image appeared to have been created using AI.
One user said “using AI-generated images made them look cheap,” while another wondered if it was difficult to find a photographer. Meanwhile, some users showed their support, commenting “wow, nice AI picture” and defended the company against users whose comments struck a negative tone.
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According to media intelligence firm CARMA, the brand’s decision to use AI did not impact its brand sentiment. As of publication day, Malaysia Airlines sentiments were positive at 37.1% and negative at 28.8%.
A week before publication, Malaysia Airlines brand image was positive at 5.8% and negative at 17.2%.
MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has contacted Malaysia Airlines for more information.
While this did not have a major impact on brand sentiments, Casey Loh, chief creative officer at The Clan, said disgruntled consumers may be disappointed to see a true Malaysian brand with the culture and the talent of a nation at its disposal use AI for its creation. expressions.
“I think it’s because the holidays are deeply personal for some, rather than seeing genuinely happy faces celebrating the festivities in advertising, they were shown a machine-imagined image,” Loh added.
Loh went on to say that Malaysia Airlines is a beloved Malaysian brand and the fact that generative AI represents its communications may be daunting for some.
That said, Loh added that Generation AI can be a great companion in marketing. Specifically, AI generation can help verify information, concepts, and ideas. This is despite the belief that “AI in marketing is still a gray area at the moment”.
Generation AI has truly disrupted the way marketing is done, with organizations already investing in Generation AI for marketing and devoting a huge amount of money to it. 62% of their total marketing technology budget towards this.
However, these sentiments are not true in Malaysia, where half of Malaysian CEOs admit to not having adopted Generation AI in their business in the last 12 months, according to PwC 27th Annual Global CEO Survey (Malaysia).
The study also reveals that almost half (43%) of Malaysia-based CEOs do not believe their organization will be economically viable in a decade if they continue on the current path.
As for AI adoption, Loh said it can be used to enable a little more personalization with customers without losing sight of the human touch.
Additionally, it can be used to help brands monitor past learning pitfalls and provide deeper context by going through research notes in minutes rather than weeks, or even to provide simple finishing touches to a tedious work that can take too long, Loh said. .
“If creative work is to be generated from AI, then there must also be a significant amount of human thought and insight to guide the prompt,” he added.
Even though AI is a good starting and ending point for completing a mission, humans must always be at the heart of the work.
Christyna Fong, creative director of Chariot Agency, agrees with Loh’s sentiments, noting that there are still many sensitivities around the use of AI and that the lack of Malaysian representation could make the ad unpalatable for some. She added that AI is still in its early stages and trial and error will come with it.
“We should ask ourselves questions like: Are we encouraging or stifling creativity? Will it help or hurt the brand? Is AI the best tool to express the idea?” Fong said. “We must always exercise human judgment as much as we can before getting carried away with execution.”
When it comes to executing with AI, the creative director cited Jen AI from cruise line Virgin Voyages as an example. In June last year, Virgin Voyages used deepfake technology to generate a robot in the likeness and voice of singer Jennifer Lopez called Jen AI. As part of the campaign, consumers could create their own personalized invitations using the Jen AI tool and invite friends and family to the site. cruise.
Such a campaign works because it is the central idea of the campaign and has been integrated in a way that is still new but clearly designed for people, she said. Fong added that a better way to adopt AI in marketing is also to be very transparent about the use of AI.
Lean into it. Better yet, make it a central part of the idea.
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