The other problem with Google's AI ad

Google will stop running an ad for its AI platform after people complained that it was soulless and dystopian.

‘Dear Sydney’ tells the story of a father who wants to encourage his daughter’s love of running, so he uses Google’s Gemini chatbot to help her write a fan letter to Olympic athlete Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone.

The minute-long spot, which was created by Google’s in-house team, aired frequently during coverage of The Olympic Games in the US but demonstrated a remarkable resistance to the benefits of the mere exposure effect.

‘This ad makes me want to throw a sledgehammer into the television every time I see it,’ wrote Washington Post journalist Alexandra Petri, echoing the hordes of people (and journalists) who baulked at Google’s vision of a future where people delegate moments of human connection to algorithms.

And after days of sustained criticism, Google got the message, telling Ad Age at the end of last week, ‘While the ad tested well before airing, given the feedback, we've decided to phase the ad out of our Olympics rotation.’

Given the pasting that Apple’s Crush ad received earlier this year, Google’s marketers probably feel like they got away with a relatively mild backlash. I agree that there are lots of ways this could have been worse for the brand. For one, critics could have latched onto the ad’s flimsy use case instead.

Was ‘Dear Sydney’ really the most persuasive story that Google could muster to sell generative AI? If that’s the case, then investors are right to be getting jittery about how much the company is spending on the technology.

My own pet theory is that Dear Sydney was a kind of dog whistle message that didn’t quite register with its intended audience. I imagine what Google really wanted was something similar to this 2010 ad for Microsoft, which spun a tale about using private browsing to shop for anniversary gifts as a subtle way to tell people that Internet Explorer would keep their secret when they fancied watching a bit of grumble. Except, in this case, Google wanted to plant the seed that Gemini could really ‘help’ kids with their homework. Hook ’em young and all that.

The only problem with this theory — apart from being convoluted and unsubstantiated — is that becoming an indispensable study buddy to students isn’t exactly a high-margin use case for AI, either. But then, what is?

In December 2023, journalist Cory Doctorow wrote: ‘All the big, exciting uses for AI are either low-dollar (helping kids cheat on their homework, generating stock art for bottom-feeding publications) or high-stakes and fault-intolerant (self-driving cars, radiology, hiring, etc.).’

And there’s little incentive for corporations to inject AI into high-stakes processes, writes Doctorow, because they still need humans to check the algorithm’s work, which means that introducing AI into a product or service usually makes it more expensive, and that’s not what most brands need — especially not now that consumers are finally pushing back against price hikes.

The exception to Doctorow’s AI dyad, of course, is advertising, which is neither low-dollar nor fault intolerant.

Investor confidence is a complicated and emotional thing that enjoys spitting in the face of simplistic narratives, but…Meta was one of the few big companies whose stock price rose on the news that it was going to spend more on AI, and it’s tempting to believe that was because?CEO Mark Zuckerberg had a good story to tell about using AI to improve ad targeting and automation on its platforms.

‘Over the long term, advertisers will basically just be able to tell us a business objective and a budget, and we're going to go do the rest for them,’ said Zuckerberg during Meta’s Q2 earnings call last week.

Sure, Zuckerberg's prediction might be a little hubristic, but it’s a better message than Google’s ‘our AI will take the backache out of helicopter parenting’.

James Swift, insights editor

Campaign of the Week /

French ride-hailing app Heetch is urging tourists to choose its competitor, Uber, during the Paris Olympics.

Positioned as a local brand for local people, Heetch has made it clear — through a social, out of home and print campaign — that it is prioritising Parisians over visitors this summer. The campaign assets, which have been translated into 12 languages, carry the message: ‘Dear tourists, this summer, for all your travels in Paris, Choose Uber!’ The ads even include a QR code that links directly to the Uber app download page in the App Store and Google Play.

Employing the in-group bias, where people show favouritism towards others they perceive as part of a shared group, the Choose Uber campaign targets suburban residents, who will likely experience disruption due to the influx of tourism.

'This summer's sporting events represent [...] an opportunity worth tens of millions of euros for the ride-sharing market,' said Renaud Berthe, CMO of Heetch, in a statement. 'We’ve chosen to sit this one out, because serving this population would degrade the quality of service for Parisians, who are an absolute priority for us.'

The campaign, created by BETC Paris, also taps into the anti-tourism movement currently sweeping through parts of Europe — with Paris under extra scrutiny during the Games, Heetch's expression of loyalty to locals is well-timed. Read our full analysis of the campaign here. Contagious.

AI don't want to hear about it /

People are put off by product descriptions that mention AI, according to an experimental survey of more than 1,000 adults in the US.

In the study, which was published in the Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, participants were asked to read descriptions of products from eight categories. The participants were shown descriptions that were identical except in one respect — some of them mentioned AI.

The researchers found that mentioning AI in a product description lowered emotional trust among customers and this had a negative impact on purchase intent. The results showed that the effect applied to all the product categories included in the study, but was especially pronounced with high-risk goods and services, meaning those which people are usually more anxious about buying because of the consequences of getting it wrong. Washington State University.

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