Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, AI, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Focus Groups, Research, Technology
One thing I’ve always hated is the arrogance some companies/agencies have towards their customers.
Blindly believing they are so important and clever, that society will do whatever they want them to do.
Maybe that’s why so many of the methodologies companies/agencies adopt to ‘understand audiences’ does not involve directly engaging with them … and even when it does, it’s done in such a false environment, that what they get out of it are viewpoints from a vacuum rather than real life. [More of that in tomorrow’s post]
It’s only getting worse with the advent of AI … where we’re already seeing research companies using bots to interview audiences. That’s right – under the guise of ‘scale’ – they ditching trained moderators and increasingly using tech to understand the needs, motivations, fears, routines of people.
Hello dystopia!
But this is not about that … this is about the rise of AI driven ads.
Now I have no issue with that, when AI is to liberate possibility rather than drive efficiency.
Colenso have 2 famous pieces of work that openly – and publicly – embraced AI:
Our Cannes Grand-Prix winning Adoptable work for Pedigree.
And our work for our Grand-Effie winning client, Skinny.
But what I’m talking about are the rise in AI generated ‘customer endorsement ads’.
I’m seeing soooooo many of these right now … especially in the health and fitness space … where a particularly healthy, attractive and fit individual talks directly to camera about the impact a particular food/routine/supplement has had on them, WHEN THEY OBVIOUSLY DON’T REALLY EXIST.
To be fair, there is always a super on screen that explains the people in the ad are ‘AI generated’ – not that you needed it, as you can tell from how they look, speak and move – but are they doing this because they think people will blindly believe the words of a ‘human’ who has code rather than DNA, or because they just want to do things on the cheap?
Maybe it’s both …
Maybe it will work – after all, there’s people out there that think Andrew Tate is a decent human.
But why would anyone believe a company who needs to use AI generate ‘humans’ to show how good their product is?
As I’ve written many times before, I think AI is incredible.
I use it, experiment with it and explore it all the time.
And while I am a novice compared to many – while acknowledging many of the people in our industry who claim to be AI experts on Linkedin, are the same people who claimed to be experts on the Metaverse when that was ‘a thing’ – I know it has potential and power to make powerful differences to society in a myriad of amazing ways.
I also acknowledge we’ve only just started to see what it can be and become, so what I am about to say is only going to get better – or worse, depending on your perspective.
However, there is increasingly going to be a backlash against any brand or company who are seen to be embracing it to exploit rather than enable … to drive efficiency, rather possibility … to gain profits rather than deliver benefits.
And while that may take some time … both to gather steam and for companies to notice/care … it will happen and that’s when they will finally realise ‘customers have always been smart, you’ve just not done stuff that made them care about you’.
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, AI, Attitude & Aptitude, Business, Comment, Technology
This post kind-of follows on from yesterday’s.
You see, recently I saw this image from the IBM training manual of 1979.
Interesting isn’t it.
That even then, they both saw the power and the potential folly of enabling technology to have ‘too much’ autonomy.
But these days, it’s all the rage … driven far more by a quest for profit than a desire to make life better for all.
As I have written many times, the issue is rarely with the tech, but the people behind it.
Not just in terms of their motivations, but their frames-of-reference.
In many cases, they’re spoilt, little boys all desperate to be seen as the next Edison, Tesla or Newton … conveniently forgetting that Tesla, Edison and Newton were driven by a desire to expand and enable human possibilities rather than neuter it.
Of course, what accelerates this attitude and adoption is a sharemarket that blindly rewards any organsation that spouts those two little letters in all they do … which helps explain why I am seeing the letters ‘AI’ being thrown about in the same way WeWork tried to convince everyone they were a tech company rather than an office leasing company.
Just recently I watched an ad for an air conditioning unit that said it used AI to work out what temperature they needed to be.
Errrrm, excuse me … but hasn’t that option been around for donkey’s years.
Same with the car brand that claimed they used AI to ensure the car would perfectly match the driving conditions.
Give me a fucking break.
It’s Emperor’s New Clothes all over again … except people aren’t buying the bullshit so easily because on top of the snake-oil so many companies are trying to push, the reality is many people are losing their jobs and livelihoods and so see AI more as the enemy than the enabler.
It doesn’t have to be this way because used right … AI can/could liberate and democratize society in ways previously considered impossible.
But to do that requires people who want everyone to win, not just themselves … and that’s why we don’t have a generation of Tesla’s, Edison’s and Newton’s, but Musk’s, Zuck’s and Trump’s.
I’ll say this for AI though …
For all its incredible uses, its real power is its ability to reveal the real motivation behind the companies who embrace it and that’s something no amount of mission statement, purpose campaign or focus group will ever be able to hide.
I’ve written quite a lot about AI – specifically, how the worrying elements of it are less about the tech and more about the people behind it.
But that doesn’t take away it has incredible applications and possibilities – that is, if companies stop using it simply to optimize their profits by reducing headcount, despite the fact they continually bang on about how ‘their staff are their greatest asset’.
That said, this post isn’t going to head into a rant – don’t get me wrong, it could … but it’s Tuesday and we all could do with a bit of calm.
So with that, look at this …
That’s my beloved Rosie, fast asleep with my beloved Bonnie.
Except Rosie has sadly passed and Bonnie wasn’t even alive when that happened.
And yet, AI helped make it true.
Sure, the image could have also been created with photoshop – but I’m crap with that, whereas this just required me to upload some photos and express my dream and ‘voila’ … something I wish could have happened [even though it wouldn’t, even if they were both alive and well] did.
Kinda.
I love it.
And while I know the image isn’t really real, my emotions are …
It blows my mind how we – as an industry – don’t talk about that very much.
Instead we bang on about efficiencies, technologies, images … manifested in recreating what has gone before in an attempt to show how smart we are, without realizing it really shows we’re a bit stupid.
Yes, AI will change many industries.
Yes, AI will allow many efficiencies.
But it also allows us to make impossible, more accessible.
Not simply in terms of what we can see or do … but also, what we can feel.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Content, Context, Craft, Finance, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Technology
One thing I find increasingly interesting is the focus on speed rather than quality.
Oh no one really talks about it directly, instead they use terms like MVP to make it sound like a much more strategic decision … but the fact of the matter is everyone is in a race and the prize goes to whoever starts first, let alone finishes first.
Nothing is this more true than in the modern era of gold rush, known as ‘AI’.
Everywhere you look there’s a new company that has popped up with claims they are the next big thing … reinforced with a market evaluation in the billions, despite the fact they haven’t made a profit and they haven’t even got a significant user base yet.
But that’s the thing with tech and investment … all the rules that we are told to abide by, go right out the window when there’s the belief you can make a quick fortune on the wave of topicality and hype.
I’ve talked about it before, but the book Disrupted by Dan Lyons is a brilliant expose on the flaws and hypocrisy of both the tech and investment community … both of whom love to present themselves as The Masters Of The Universe, but are more similar to Jocks crossed with Scientologists and sheep.
The reason I say this is because I recently read a brilliant article by the Economist Luis Garicano on what he calls ‘the O ring’. No, he’s not talking about some orgasm inducing sex aid, it is an economic theory with a name inspired by the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster that states it does not matter how sophisticated or advanced any new idea/system/technology may be, it’s only as good as its weakest link.
Often we forget this in the quest for fast fame, wealth, success or competitive advantage … however given every single one of us who has used AI will have encountered a flaw with what it produced for you at some point or other, should we really be blindly running ahead thinking those ‘little issues’ will forever remain ‘little flaws?’.
Again, don’t get me wrong, I think AI is incredible.
I also appreciate it is still new technology so what it can already do is amazing.
But …
As the father of a friend of mine [Hello Judd] once said:
“If you haven’t got the time to do it right at the beginning, when will you?”
Filed under: 2026, A Bit Of Inspiration, Art, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Audio Visual, Authenticity, Bands, Comment, Creative Development, Creativity, Music, Technology
A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a very successful musician.
It was a fascinating chat because – quite frankly – their career is fascinating. However, there were 3 things that made the conversation especially interesting to me ..
1. They’d achieved a highly successful career over decades.
2. They’d witnessed change in almost every are of what they do and how they do it.
3. They’d embraced these changes in ways that only made them more successful.
Now I appreciate the music industry is a fucking basket case, but as Paula and I discussed in our talk at Cannes last year for WARC, there are some artists – of which we’re very fortunate to work with a few of them – who have proven to be better at managing the long term value and relevance of their brand than 99% of companies, consultancies and agencies out there. Add to that, they are able to drive greater greater financial returns and true customer loyalty [contextually speaking] from their audience even though they have neither the budgets, marketing theory or media that we’re increasingly told are the only ways to be effective and efficient in today’s commercial landscape.
But I digress.
The reason why my conversation with this musician was especially interesting to me was because of their view on AI.
Put simply, while they recognized it would have a huge impact on how people did things, his view was that it was not as black and white as many like to portray – to which he used the drum machine to reinforce his point.
Back in the 1980’s, technology had evolved to a point where the ‘electronic drum machine’ was a reality.
Suddenly musicians – whether in bands or in their bedrooms – could create music with even greater freedom and control.
Better yet, drum machines always stayed in time, turned up on time, didn’t need loads of space for their equipment, could play at much quieter volumes and didn’t have opinions.
It was a revelation.
In fact it was more than that, it was in many ways, their first experience of ‘artificial intelligence’.
However …
While these machines helped explode the electronic music genre, it did not kill music.
Or drummers.
Sure, there was a period where this technology was ‘flavor of the month’ as artists of all genres experimented and explored what was possible with this new tech – including drummers – but it didn’t kill all drummers, it didn’t stop kids wanting to be a drummer, it didn’t stop new bands starting and it didn’t make every drum manufacturer go out of business.
Yes, some had to evolve.
Yes, some parts of the industry changed.
But it didn’t signify the end of days for drummers, drumming or music as a whole.
If anything, it elevated it, inviting and encouraging more people to come in.
To try.
Explore.
Create.
What’s also interesting is that it also helped some musicians appreciate the human drummer.
Their ability to create new patterns to music.
To play off the beat rather than perfectly to the bar.
Their unique skill in bringing different energy to songs.
Their contribution to the chemistry of the moment and the creation.
In the case of the musician in question, they absolutely use drum machines – both to demo music and when they perform – but they still also have a ‘human drummer’, for all the reasons I’ve just mentioned.
Or as they put it:
“Technology offers musical consistency. Humans offer musical interactivity.”
We are obsessed with looking at everything in binary terms.
One person wins.
One person must lose.
And while there are cases where that can and will happen – the drum machine is proof there’s a whole lot of other possibilities and outcomes that are available. The key is seeing the technology as something that liberates far more than just ‘commercial efficiency’ … and while companies may be unable to see anything but that, humans can.
Not just because our life depends on it. But because our life depends on being able to express who we are and how we feel.
And while AI may be able to execute at levels we could never previously imagine, it doesn’t have a point of view … it doesn’t see, let alone understand, the invisible energy that can lie between people and it doesn’t know how to feel.
So while the tech companies are telling us we need it, the reality is it needs us.
The best of us. And then maybe we’ll all remember life isn’t binary, it’s filled with possibility.
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Please note:
Believe it or not, it’s another holiday tomorrow, so you’re free from me for 3 whole days.
So here’s to you having a great weekend … maybe playing with AI on your terms, rather than using it as seemingly every influencer and Tiktoker is trying to push you into using it, for cheaper holidays, making your first million or signing up for their ‘course’ to learn how to become a business icon. Ahem.