Amid marketing’s AI obsession, some consumers are ‘excited for reality’

The current cultural obsession with all things AI may have caused a boomerang effect—a true appreciation for something real.

Filmmakers Luke Barnett and Noam Kroll recognized it last month when they rolled out a spec ad for Pepsi. The spot, which they initially shared on X shortly after Coca-Cola released its second AI-generated holiday ad and was reshared this week after McDonald’s Netherlands unveiled its own controversial AI-generated holiday spot. It serves as a meta commentary on the questionable realism of commercials today: The camera slowly pushes in on Barnett, who wonders to someone on the other end of a phone call whether or not he’s real—before taking a sip of a very-real Pepsi. Over the course of 60 seconds, he says the word “real” six times, driving the point home.

“Because AI has dominated so much of the conversation in recent months, for better or worse, it’s definitely made audiences and industry people more excited about anything practical, anything real,” Barnett, whose spec has attracted more than 332,000 views on X, told Marketing Brew. “If anything, the rise in people trying out AI for commercials has just made people more excited for reality.”

While Barnett’s Pepsi ad is just a spec, brands like Apple and A24 are officially leaning into the idea of showing off what’s real, releasing behind-the-scenes videos that give viewers a look into what it takes to make everything from a logo, in the case of Apple TV’s new logo created with practical effects, or a movie promotion, like Timothée Chalamet’s marketing prowess powering the rollout of Josh Safdie’s biopic Marty Supreme.

Behind-the-scenes or meta spots aren’t the only ways realism is showing up in marketing. In July, Polaroid pitched its Flip camera and the real world as an antidote to digital overload with out-of-home ads that earned a spot on AdAge’s best ads of the year list. Meanwhile, some brands are clowning on others that are leaning hard into AI: In October, Heineken released a cheeky billboard response to AI company Friend, whose own consistently defaced out-of-home ads pitching the wearable as a replacement for real-world relationships. (“The best way to make a friend is over a beer,” Heineken’s ad read.) In a somewhat similar vein, the beer brand took New York Knicks guard Josh Hart’s group chat offline and into the real world with a real bar to host the group of friends in an activation that also became a commercial.

However they can, marketers are finding ways to nod to the public’s desire for reality checks, which some experts say could help them stand out with consumers searching for authenticity.

“In an increasingly more digital, artificial world…humans are gravitating more to that human connection,” Eunice Shin, founder and CEO of brand consultancy The Elume Group, told Marketing Brew.

Are you real?

Marketers will likely need to acknowledge what’s real and what’s AI-created as the use of AI in marketing and advertising continues to proliferate. While some marketers use AI imagery proudly and openly, other brands have rolled out AI imagery without much fanfare until eagle-eyed observers catch on. In both cases, a brand’s use of AI can be a point of contention, to say the least; per NIQ research, consumers see AI-made ads as more “boring,” “annoying,” and “confusing” than ads made without AI.

Shin said marketers’ and artists’ efforts to spell out their real-life efforts make sense given the current climate around AI usage combined with brands’ enduring efforts to differentiate themselves from their peers.

“The backlash to AI slop and the fact that it’s become a known term is pretty significant,” she said. “Because of that, and because of how bad some of this stuff is, artists have become even more [dug] into like, how can we do things [differently]?”

While some brands may want to show off the power of their AI tools, using AI in the end product of an ad may be antithetical to other brands whose value propositions are centered on real-life connection and quality.

“We talk about the use of AI in production, for example, and creating things, and we would have a point of view that you would never go all the way to creating a person that doesn’t exist in real life,” Ali Payne, CMO of Heineken USA, said. “Real interaction is important—therefore, who we show in our content has to be real.”

Point of differentiation

How does a brand develop a point of view on when and where to use AI, or how to communicate it? Some professional best practices exist, but there are no set guidelines, and as consumers are increasingly exposed to unlabeled AI slop, some marketers note the value in being upfront about their use of AI or their decision not to use it.

“When people start to question whether something’s real or not, it’s adding even deeper confusion to the whole marketing [community],” Payne said. “So I think it’s going to be important for brands to really reflect what’s real and authentic.”

For marketers and artists, showing not only that they’re making stuff in the real world practically rather than digitally is certainly getting people’s attention.

Take Apple’s “handcrafted” holiday ad, which, since it was released late last month, has attracted more than 15 million views on YouTube. In the spot, puppet animals find a dropped iPhone and record a music video on the device before retreating into the woods. And yes, there’s a behind-the-scenes video showing how the ad was made in all of its human-powered glory.

That handcrafted differentiation may benefit brands even if it isn’t coming directly from the official brand account itself.

“The most surprising part, too, is, I didn’t expect it to actually work [as an ad],” Kroll said of his spec Pepsi ad. “I thought it would work as a funny jokey thing on the internet…[but] I saw multiple people comment after and say, ‘I don’t even like Pepsi, but I actually went out and bought a Pepsi today.’”