AI Slop is the name given to low-quality generative content. With the sudden rise of AI it’s flooding the world of marketing. In just moments a whole email’s worth of content can be spewed into a template. This bland gruel fills a spot but isn’t very satisfying and can even contain stomach-churning cringe. Although incredibly useful, AI is still just a tool. And, like all tools, the skill is in how you handle it. I use it all the time to speed-up creating first drafts. BUT the pinch of salt with which I take each ChatGPT response would turn tap water tidal.
Big Brand AI Fails
Big brands aren’t immune to the pitfalls of AI-generated content.
1. Poison Apple
Summaries of BBC content generated by Apple Intelligence created misleading headlines and has lead to pressure to remove the service.
2. Tesco’s Thirsty Cucumber
Tesco used AI to generate product descriptions for a campaign. For a cucumber it came up with "very thirsty" which was widely mocked online.
3. Mind the GAP
Gap sent out personalised emails, but an AI-driven system got its chips in a twist and sent out jumbled and irrelevant content.
4. McDonald’s Social Media Campaign
One post intended to promote the McRib sandwich included the phrase, "Get your McRib with a side of AI excitement!". Backlash for inauthentic tone lead McDonald’s to reconsider the extent of AI involvement in their social media strategy.
5. Figma’s Branding Campaign
Design platform Figma launched a branding campaign featuring AI-generated slogans and imagery. The generic and uninspired content failed to resonate with their target audience. Figma reaffirmed its commitment to human-centred design.
6. Mother Clucker
KFC used an AI program to help name new recipes. Some of the results didn't quite match the Colonel's brand — there was "The Delicious Sandwich of Extravagance" and the not-so-family-friendly "Mother Clucker".
Sure, most AI Chop is just a bit bland, a bit off — just doesn’t sound quite right. Not too bad. But "Not too bad" fails miserably. Your marketing has to cut through all the noise to get heard. Using a noise-generator isn’t ideal.
Before the advice, let’s kill the talking lion
Just a quick note on how ‘AI’ works. These are large language models that analyse huge datasets and plot words in on multiple contextual dimensions and look for patterns. So, ‘Eggs' and ‘Bacon’ might be close together in the context of ‘Breakfast’ but it means you shouldn’t get ‘Easter Bacon’ or a 'Bacon and Chocolate Butty’. That’s it. No magic, just clever mathematical modelling. Close the wardrobe door, put the Turkish Delight down… Aslan’s dead.
What does this mean? It means whatever links between words people who use AI build, they’re the ones AI reinforces. Think about that.
I coined it the "Nanny McPhee AI Problem". The vast majority of people who rely on AI are looking for answers — not able to spot and correct mistakes — so there's a negative feedback loop that magnifies inaccuracies. Rubbish in, rubbish out.My advice for using AI to speed-up generating quality content
Don’t trust anything — check every source and find more, especially if they conflict.
Seek guidance not certainty — AI is excellent at providing the broad strokes but truisms are stable over time. Generative content tends not to be accurate the more contemporary it is.
Know AI limitations — generative language models are only analysing the interrelationships between words. That’s what they 'learn', not actual answers. What they tell you isn’t learnt knowledge it’s pattern-matched scraping.
Rewrite everything — even when AI manages to produce accurate info it doesn’t quite manage to always sound trustworthy, natural and interesting.
The UK is not the US — it’s not just the spelling. The ubiquitous optimism and insistence on using sesquipedalia (if I wasn’t making this ironic joke I’d just say ‘fancy long words’) to sound smart comes across as arrogant and abrasive waffle to a British audience. It’s the first thing you need to instruct ChatGPT on. Not only will you save yourself a million patronising "Good job’s" but you won’t have to see tortuous responses getting all tied-up and bent out of shape trying not to offend.
Your audience probably aren’t at school — related to the above. But if you don’t specifically instruct your AI tool then it will treat your audience as if they’re American school kids. It will assume you don’t know anything, have never met a culture outside of North America/ Mexico and that you will be triggered and offended by everything.
Use your voice — marketing should be you speaking to your audience in your own voice. That’s the definition of what works and what a brand is. Don’t let AI turn your ideas into inauthentic babbling business-speak.
Having spent many years both in marketing and as a copywriter I know that AI-generated content isn't a silver bullet. But with a bit of careful handling it is a powerful weapon you need in your arsenal.
