Why did an ad about artificial intelligence rescuing a little girl make people uncomfortable? Research from Ipsos, Kantar and YouGov suggests that while advertisers may love AI, to the general public it's not the hero of the story. In fact, it's rarely the focus of their attention.
Google tried to strike a chord with a touching story about a young girl who uses AI to find her voice and write letters to her favorite Olympians. It was a cliché, but it probably worked.
Instead, we saw lazy parents outsourcing educational opportunities to untested technology.
When it comes to AI, surveys have proven that the majority of the public have issues with it, certainly more so than technical clients and advertising creators. What's happening here is businesses are floundering because they can't respond to where the public actually stands on AI. This is a problem that has plagued big tech companies through NFTs, cryptocurrencies, and the metaverse. It's happening again, and it could hinder the biggest technological leap in a generation.
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Why “Dear Sydney” was a disappointment
According to a Publicis Groupe and Yahoo study, advertisers are twice as likely to have positive feelings toward AI as the consumers they target, and this huge disconnect is what causes many misguided campaigns to fail, including this one.
The first research firm I worked with was Kantar.
The company's senior vice president of creative, Amanda Carell, ran a process to understand how the ad resonated with real people.
“It's hard to strike the right tone in an ad with an AI-related storyline,” she said. “Industry pundits and keyboard warriors are on high alert and will attack even the smallest missteps.” And she's right: The Drum has plenty of industry pundits and a few keyboard warriors.
There are many reasons why a campaign can fail, but the most unforgivable, and perhaps the most avoidable, is failing to understand your audience. When telling an AI story in a campaign that is supposed to evoke positive emotions, even the slightest misstep can lead to complete failure.
First, the goal is to identify if anyone understands what you’re showing them. According to Kantar’s Global Monitor, 62% of U.S. consumers over the age of 18 have never used Gen AI (as of 2024).
“Consumers, on average, don't know much about technology, so negative opinions take hold quickly and if brands don't solicit feedback from real people about their ads, they can easily miss the mark,” Carell said.
The ad was likely designed to highlight an emotive subject and a high-profile world event to educate people on what genAI can do. It should have been a success, but AI is still young, and not as old as LinkedIn's saturated feeds and business pages would have you believe.
As part of his research, Carell tested a number of ads in which AI was a key character or element of the story: “So far,[the ads]have struggled to convey meaning or make a strong brand statement. Our data also shows that the public is not yet used to emotional messaging in AI-related ads.”
In testing, the longer Microsoft Co-pilot spots performed slightly better because they had more time to tell their story and educate viewers about the complex product.
Not a recipe for disaster…
Samira Brophy, senior director of creative excellence at Ipsos UK, believes making AI the hero of a story isn't necessarily a recipe for disaster: “In our experience, ads that put AI in the lead role don't fail, but ads that mislead people about what role AI plays in their lives do.”
She believes the main problem with Dear Sydney is its lack of empathy.
Those who know how genAI works know that it can improve some people's writing abilities. For the layman, genAI replaces humans. And there are plenty of laymen. It's thought that only 11% of the entire UK internet population have ever visited Open AI. This comes from Ipsos research into people's attitudes towards genAI, including a large-scale survey for the BBC.
Some of the most anxiety-inducing aspects of AI are the sense of loss of creativity, humanity, and control. This campaign generated “anxiety,” but perhaps would not have generated anxiety had it been published several years later, when we were further along the genAI adoption curve.
Not all AI-focused ads are a failure.
People are curious to see what it can do. At least, that was the case in 2018 when the Lexus ES' “Driven by Intuition” ad was “written by AI and directed by an award-winning human.” It was tested in the US and received a high brand attention score and a “highly respectable” creative effectiveness score (CEI).
While it wasn't a heartwarming story packed with AI, it shows that viewers aren't turning down ads that play to AI's strengths. “Without Consent” by Deutsche Telekom and Nachricht von Eller, which was tested in Germany, also received high marks.
Brophy advises that it would be better to explain the value of genAI to consumers, put people first, show that it is a complement and not a replacement, and demonstrate transparency by demonstrating the use of genAI where possible.
While these insights have come from work done to develop the BBC's content strategy, Brophy believes they are also highly applicable to advertising.
What people really think about AI
The YouGov survey adds a new dimension to this debate. The qualitative survey of 5,000 UK adults conducted in January 2024 divided people into three groups: AI opponents, AI optimists, and AI ignorant. Across these groups, only three in ten believe that the benefits of AI (which is broader than genAI) outweigh the disadvantages. People who use AI are more likely to see it as helpful in everyday life and using AI may evoke warmer feelings.
But don't think about how individuals might use it. What about nation states, big corporations, bad actors? It may not be surprising that 39% don't trust how AI is being used today. But it may raise eyebrows that 54% don't trust how AI will be used in the future. This is a trajectory that's hard to counter or refute. This could be changed with a ton of marketing capital from big tech companies, but it's also conclusive evidence. At this point, few people believe that the AI in an emotional movie would actually help the little girl.
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It's a bit broader in scope, but still worth covering: A YouGov survey of 17 markets found that almost half of international consumers say they are “not very comfortable” or “not at all comfortable” with brands using AI to create brand ambassadors.
The following use cases tend to be less annoying:
“AI can edit product images (instead of a graphic designer)” (48%)
AI-generated advertising product images (instead of product photography) (47%)
Writing product descriptions and taglines (instead of a copywriter) (42%)
Deciding on the placement of advertisements in media channels (on behalf of advertising professionals) (41%)
There is more nuance: some markets are more open to AI than others. Below we combine only the “not very comfortable” and “not at all comfortable” responses.
Magic or mayhem?
In 1962, famous science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke published the following statement: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” I'm sure you've seen this quote before, but I don't think it applies anymore.
A lot has changed since 1962. We are now immersed in powerful technology every day. AI is a big step forward. Some say it's a step forward, others say it's a step backwards. There is an undercurrent of fear, some see it as a looming threat to human agency and usefulness. Years of science fiction movies inspired by Clarke's work have probably got us here, rightly or wrongly.
Before advertisers can tell us inspiring stories about genAI, marketers have to understand where we stand. First, they have to be honest about the demand for their product. And that might be harder than making us cry when a girl decides to create an email to spam Olympic athletes.
