🥐 TASTY MORSELS

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Ad agencies are trying to figure out how to best use AI to make stuff for brands. The answer is simple: Don’t. Leave that to everyone else

SO, IS GENERATIVE AI going to put ad agencies out of business?

Or is it going to spark the next creative revolution? That's the question Fast Company magazine tried to answer recently.

They shared some early examples of AI-vertising, like actor Ryan Reynolds’s own agency using it to script up a commercial written in his “voice,” which he later went ahead and performed —or Hendrick’s Gin making a quick and easy AI spoof called “ChatG&T.”

But the real story of AI x advertising is not brands and agencies using it in novel ways…

IT’S THE FACT that the role of “content maker” is becoming democratized

This shift is profound. And it’s only happening because of lucky timing: generative AI is maturing (becoming both better, and easier to use) at the exact same time that social media has evolved from a connection tool to a discovery engine. It all adds up to a society altering moment.

UNPACK THAT WITH me

(1) Anybody can make anything: animations, film scripts, full blown songs, photo realistic art and, soon, full motion, live action video. (2) Now, with the way social media works, that “anything” can now find an audience faster and larger than ever before.

ZOOM OUT: THIS eliminates the need for gatekeepers across huge swathes of the media industry

A Creative Director’s taste becomes way less important if social media can serve up whatever amateurs (using AI tools) can create to the world —which lets us all see, in real time, whether people vibe with the content, or not. 

An A&R exec doesn't matter as much. A “bedroom Rick Rubin” can use AI to both write lyrics and generate a beat —and then immediately have the song’s vocals performed by an AI soundalike of a real life artist.

Social media will quickly tell that bedroom music producer whether or not they’ve cooked up a hit. And if not, they’ll just make another one! What’s the big deal?

The ease of using generative AI, when coupled with the fact that social media is now entertainment media, as well as the fact that our attention spans —this part is crucial— are so short, all means that there is basically an infinite and insatiable appetite out there for bite size entertainment. The kind amateurs using AI can instantly create with relative ease.

ROMAN ROY CALLED all of this in Season 1 of Succession

The character described the future of media to someone by riffing a phrase that I cannot get out of my mind:

“Tasty morsels from groovy hubs.”

The exec he was pitching to wasn't really buying it. But time has proven Roman Roy right. There may always be an appetite for high quality, long form, entertainment —and many of us still love immersing ourselves into stories and worlds and deep character studies— but look around: if you’re not doing so yourself, your friends and family are probably watching Netflix with their phones in their hands, ready to look down at the slightest buzz.

FACE IT: TASTY morsels from groovy hubs is the future of media

Ad agencies, just like record companies and Hollywood studios, are all about to realise that the bulk of —but not all— media is about to be created by amateurs, AI, or amateurs using AI. And social media algorithms will quickly serve it all up to everybody in the world, letting us quickly determine what is “good” and what is not —before moving on to the next. This is what the age of abundance looks like.

ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS AND hit singles are no longer “economic goods”

Until about five minutes ago, ad campaigns and hit songs were products and services that required a real value add from finite human and non-human resources to create. That made them scarce, and therefore very sellable. Now they are about to become abundant.

The sooner ad agencies and record labels recognize this, and realize that their value add is not in the making of stuff, but rather in helping rights-holders (ie., brands, artists) shape, inspire, curate, and amplify what the rest of us are going to be making, the better.

DON’T GET ME wrong: ad agencies and production companies still have a very important role to play

As I’ve previously written, when it comes to high level marketing, I’ve continued to observe a lot of demand for high level human interaction.

Top tier clients like to understand the rationale behind a campaign strategy or idea, and then build consensus within their organizations, usually by truly discussing the risk reward benefit of certain decisions.

All of this kind of stuff has to be talked through, and thoughtfully considered, before any big budget, professional grade campaign is signed off on.

But in a short time, we’re all going to look back and marvel at the fact that ad agencies were trying to figure out how to use AI themselves, when the whole point of generative AI is to disintermediate creation, and allow everyone to make tasty morsels, so that social media can serve it up, and we all can decide what’s good.

More:

How AI could power advertising’s next creative revolution »»

Roman Roy: “Tasty morsels from groovy hubs” »»

Written by Jon Kallus. Any feedback? Simply reply.