Monday.com reflects the ‘pressure to implement AI’ in new ad campaign for AI tools

The proliferation of AI tools—and the advertising pitching said tools—can be overwhelming. Companies are pivoting to become “AI-first” (only to roll that back shortly after), offering new AI tools, cutting headcount because of AI, or finding some other way to communicate that their company won’t be left behind in the AI race.

That overwhelm was something Robbie Ferrara, global creative director at Monday.com, wanted to reflect in the software company’s latest campaign.

“There’s a lot of employees in large corporations that are feeling the pressure to implement AI,” Ferrara told Marketing Brew. “I think we’re all clear that AI is gonna have value, but none of us know how to implement it yet.”

Does Monday.com’s new campaign also pitch a new AI tool? Yes, of course, it does. The 70-second hero spot introduces the tool, Monday Sidekick, by showing its offering as the one that finally soothes workers who are dealing with the pressure to implement AI tools by being the tool that’s actually useful and easy to understand. The company uses humor and an on-the-nose music cue, a cover of Dirty Dancing’s theme song, “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life,” to do so.

“We’re trying to be different,” Ferrara said. “We’re coming from a place of value, of love, and the fact that we kind of try and build products people love to use. I think it kind of feels right for us, then [to] speak about all the emotional turmoil that comes from adoption and rolling out a new product.”

The ad, created by Monday.com’s in-house creative team, is just one aspect of the new campaign. Aside from the long-form spot, shorter cuts will be used on streaming channels, and there will be out-of-home ad placements in six major airports, including JFK, LAX, and SFO.

Speaking to the company’s target audience of professionals flooded with these pitches and pressure allowed the creative to reflect the stress and humor of being inundated with all things AI.

“I feel like there is an overwhelm going on, and people are just—you’ve seen the memes, right?” Ferrara said. “There’s the Wolf of Wall Street [scene] which is, ‘Sell me this pen,’ and [the meme] just says, ‘It’s got AI.’ There’s just so many funny comedic moments.”