AI advertising may repel as well as attract

Companies hope AI branding makes them look ready for the future, but that leaves opportunities for "human-focused" marketing.

How do you revive a diminished but once mighty brand in 2024? Two letters: AI.

Toys R Us — which, after going bankrupt in the late 2010s, is now mostly a shop-inside-a-shop in Macy’s department stores — released what it called the first-ever brand film using OpenAI’s text to video tool, Sora.

Using generative artificial intelligence in advertising is still in its novelty phase. But that doesn’t mean it’s not risky for a brand.

The Toys R Us ad is pretty obviously AI — it’s got that whole surreally smooth, this-is-kinda-creepy-but-I-don’t-know-why aesthetic to it.

Even if you don’t lay awake at night pondering the Toys R Us origin story, that’s not really the point. The point is, “Hey, we made this with AI!”

“This ad will get publicity. Whether it will really compel people to return to Toys R Us I think is an open question,” said Christine Moorman, a marketing professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Moorman said when a brand dips its toes in AI ads, it’s betting that its target consumer will find it cool and interesting — not scary and a threat to their livelihood.

“If you’re an older consumer, you may have more of that ick factor, that fear factor. If you’re younger, you may be more in awe of it,” she said. 

It’s not just Toys R Us. Companies like Under Armour and Levi’s have also hyped their use of AI in marketing materials, from short commercials to digital fashion models.

Right now, companies are using AI to help brand themselves to consumers and investors as ready for the future, which presents an opportunity for other brands to counterprogram: Hey, those guys are with the robots. We’re 100% certified organic human.

“Dove recently did that. They sort of like came out and said, we’re not using AI to create various things in our marketing. We’re sort of human-focused,” said Asa Hiken, a technology reporter at Ad Age.

While AI ads are pretty easy to spot now, with their rough-around-the-edges fingers and faces and transitions, he said, they will get better.

Although he doesn’t see the controversy around them going away, he also doesn’t think there will ever be a time when everyone’s on board.

“Even with some pretty awesome technology, like cellphones, there’s a lot of people that are like, ‘This is causing a lot of harm,'” he said.

Although it is hard to find any ad these days that’s not optimized for your phone.