Brands are using generative AI to make fun of generative AI

Have your slop and eat it, too. At least, that seems to be the strategy for some brands using generative AI.

In recent months, brands like Dollar Shave Club, Almond Breeze, and Equinox have all used AI-generated content while also making fun of AI “slop” in creative campaigns. Almond Breeze and Equinox specifically took aim at the often outrageous results of AI image generation, showing everything from boy bands in space to Justin Trudeau pole dancing as a way to contrast with their products’ real ingredients and results.

While “slop” ads may seem like the latest iteration of anti-AI advertising, marketers behind the campaigns told us they’re not actually against the technology. Instead, the ads seem to tap into growing consumer sentiment about the technology, while still taking advantage of the benefits that AI tools can sometimes deliver.

“AI is a cultural touchpoint and something that’s very topical right now,” Quinn Gawronski, senior director of content at marketing platform Props, told Marketing Brew. “A lot of these companies are aware of the backlash that brands have been receiving who used it unironically.”

To outsiders, however, the satirical use of the technology may not always be clear, and some experts warned that the approach could stand to alienate both pro- and anti-AI crowds as debates around generative AI in creative campaigns continue.

Question everything

Last fall, an out-of-home campaign for the wearable AI tech Friend went viral for all the wrong reasons when consumers and brands like Heineken pushed back on the campaign’s message that a piece of technology could replace real relationships. Brands like Coca-Cola, McDonald’s Netherlands, and Meta have also dealt with blowback to their AI-generated campaigns.

Almond Breeze’s “The Pitch” ad tangentially acknowledges the reality of AI-supported advertising, depicting the Jonas Brothers’s brand partnership agents pitching them on a series of AI-generated campaign videos that include the brothers floating in space, being shirtless in a villa, and riding an almond while dressed as milkmen.

Omid Amidi, chief creative officer at McKinney, the creative agency behind the campaign, told us the creative was inspired by a Sora video that Kevin Jonas sent during the ideation process, as well as the Jonas Brothers’s personal experience of fielding ridiculous ideas. The idea of AI-generated slop, he said, was “a great way to poke fun at” their experiences while highlighting the brand message that “when something’s good, you don’t need to add additives and artificialness to it.”

The campaign isn’t meant to be an insult or criticism of generative AI, Amidi said, but is instead designed to be a commentary on how it’s currently being used in the marketing industry as a quick-fix, low-cost way to generate creative work.

“When it’s done intentionally and not as a tool of efficiency,” he said, “then it becomes valuable.”

Almond Breeze isn’t the only brand to embrace the slop; earlier this month, Equinox released a campaign called “Question Everything But Yourself,” where various sometimes-disturbing AI-generated videos and images contrast with the reality of one’s body and health. Amidi said he felt Equinox’s ad more directly criticized AI slop than Almond Breeze’s campaign. Equinox declined Marketing Brew’s request for comment, but the brand’s chief marketing and digital officer, Bindu Shah, told the Wall Street Journal that the campaign wasn’t aimed at taking a stance on the tech.

“I want to clarify that this campaign is not anti-AI,” Shah told the Journal. “We’re not making any political commentary. We’re not making any technology commentary.”

Last month, Dollar Shave Club released its own AI-generated ad depicting executives at a generic razor corporation debating where to cut costs and opting to “replace everybody with AI” instead of cutting, say, the corporate jet. CEO Larry Bodner told us that he played a big role in the decision to use generative AI to create the ad, which was designed to make the campaign more impactful and memorable to its target audience of Gen Z and millennials.

“Part of why we pushed absurdity so far is [so] it’s clear it’s all AI,” Bodner said. “There was no misconstruing, ‘Is it fake or is it real?’”

Bodner said he views generative AI as a “once in a lifetime” technology, one that everyone needs to accept and use, though he understands that some people are reluctant and may fear the technology taking over their lives. Bodner said he researched the backlash on other generative AI campaigns but felt comfortable using it for Dollar Shave Club, a brand he described as a “the rebel and the jester and the disruptor” in a largely legacy brand category.

“It’s not that I’m heartless and I want people to lose their jobs,” he said. “It’s a way to be absurd and bring humor to everyday routines. Grooming is an everyday routine, and you can have fun with your life.”

Can you have it both ways?

It’s perhaps no surprise that brands want to jump in on generative AI, whether to prop it up or make fun of it. Both use cases show an early adoption of new technology, Adam Singer, VP of marketing at ad platform AdQuick, told us.

“Because marketers are rewarded outsize for following trends early…the whole sector is conditioned to be early to things, whether that’s good or bad,” he said, citing the metaverse as an example of an early tech trend that resulted in “dollars lit on fire.”

But how are these generative AI ads being received at large? Amidi acknowledged that Almond Breeze has received some criticism for using generative AI in its ad, but said for the most part, “AI slop” comments are met with people pointing out that the brand is “actually making fun of it.” According to social media data from intelligence platform Meltwater, Almond Breeze’s campaign has driven “overwhelmingly positive” sentiment and brand affinity, with 43% of responses expressing positive feelings about the campaign and only 3.5% expressing negative ones in January.

“The brand is getting the halo effect of…doing AI in a way that felt entertaining but also restrained,” Amidi said.

For Dollar Shave Club and Equinox, Meltwater data shows that responses to both campaigns have been largely neutral, neither boosting nor damaging brand perception. Bodner said the campaign has led to a lift in Dollar Shave Club’s site traffic and is overall exceeding expectations.

“I went into this knowing I was going to be unapologetic that I used AI,” he said, “and it’s worked out great.”