This issue of Social Signals was written to Smash by The Offspring while on a very bumpy flight to Chicago.
Have you watched the Toys“R”Us video created with OpenAI’s Sora A.I. tool? You should take a minute and watch it here:
The creative exercise isn’t airing on TV, streaming, or social. Rather, it was shared at Cannes as a proof of concept and emerging tools publicity stunt. So let’s not get ahead of ourselves on how widely it’s spread beyond consumer buzz and a lot of insider industry conversation. However, regardless of its origin, the video has people talking.
😎 Greg in Digiday talking A.I. video
I did some thinking about the topic this week and shared some thoughts with Digiday’s Marty Swant in his story, Why Toys”R”Us used OpenAI’s Sora to create an AI-generated video.
Here are some key quotes:
Since its release, the video has received mixed reviews, with some citing a more “creepy” aspect while some noticed inconsistencies in the AI-generated versions of Lazarus. Others saw it as an innovative and creative way to tell stories that aren’t possible without AI.
Greg Swan, senior partner at FINN Partners, acknowledged Sora’s challenges with creating life-like videos and its inconsistency with visual styles. But by taking an imaginary approach, Swan said Toys”R”Us invites viewers to suspend reality — not fall into the uncanny valley.
“The fact that the Toys ‘R’Us concept is rooted in a child’s dream leveraged that weakness as a strength — knowing audiences expect ethereal experiences to be more fluid and, well, dreamlike,” Swan said. “Smart. And that’s really what made it tell the story so well, despite the unnatural realism of the main character. If this was a more lifelike concept, it simply wouldn’t have worked. At least not with the tools available today.”
There are still plenty of unresolved issues related to AI-generated content, including ethical standards, legal requirements, training data transparency and AI disclosures. Swan said those are all areas that are a mutual responsibility for brands, tech companies, educators and governments. (He also noted the importance of keeping humans in the loop for editing, ethics and promotion.)
“Toys’R’Us kids don’t have to grow up,” Swan said. “But as the AI industry matures, early examples like this one serve as good fodder for all of these stakeholders to test, practice, and learn from.”
Kudos to the agency using their creative leader’s access to an emerging tool as a reason to test and explore the medium, to create an idea rooted in the tool’s limitations, and to use Cannes and strategic PR to get credit.
So now what? As always, my POV on emerging tools like generative A.I. video creators is that they are just that — tools. And we should find explore ways to test them, push them around, and hold the platforms accountable. But it’s coming. And evolving.
Just as the digital revolution impacted the creative industry, as the technology evolves with A.I. creative production, so will the human roles. Brand leaders and marketers may look to this example as a clever and specific creative exercise that encapsulates where the technology and our understanding of its opportunity lie in 2024. And that POV and how we look back on this moment will also change as the tools, adoption, and pushback evolves.
But the real challenge — especially the week of the Suno A.I. lawsuit filings — is fully understanding how these tools were trained, and as I said to Digiday above, ensuring that their use aligns with ethical standards, indemnification, and legal requirements.
This collaborative effort will be crucial for building a responsible framework that supports innovation in creativity and marketing while safeguarding our consumers’ trust. It’s time for A.I. to grow up.
Now that’s the dream.
🗓️ Mark Your Calendar
Join me and hundreds of creatives, leaders, and innovators at Digital Summit Minneapolis, August 14 - 15. Use my code SPEAKER300 when you register to receive $300 off your pass. See you there!
🥸 Threads’ Adding A.I. Disclosure is a Good Start, But…
⚡️ Social Signals
There’s a whole trending news cycle about people “rawdogging” flights where they don’t watch a movie or listen to music or read and instead just sit there. For the entire flight. And of course, brag about it on social (which I think defeats the point. Anyway, I can tell you right now it’s not a new thing, and I have proof. And also, quit watching my movie and looking at my computer screen, you weirdos. Bring a book!
Marigold and Fuchsia are this summer’s “It” colors.
Attorneys General requests and small claims court have emerged as Meta's customer service hotline: At the heart of these cases is the fact that Meta lacks the necessary volume of human customer service workers to assist those who lose their accounts. The company’s official help pages steer users who have been hacked toward confusing automated tools that often lead users to dead-end links or emails that don’t work if your account information has been changed… Hundreds of thousands of people also turn to their state Attorney General’s office as some state AGs have made requests on users’ behalf — on Reddit, this is known as the “AG method.”
Record labels are suing AI music generators Suno and Udio alleging “unimaginable scales” of copyright infringement, and this is why I’ve been counseling clients and offering at my speaking events NOT TO USE these services in your brand content. It introduces too much risk.
A hobbyhorsing influencer explains the joy of her misunderstood sport.
Nostalgia via Wired this month —> Before Smartphones, an Army of Real People Helped You Find Stuff on Google
Worried about your tween’s screen time? Check your own, new study says: The study, published this month in the journal Pediatric Research, examined the links between parenting strategies involving digital media and early adolescent screen use. Among the most striking findings: Parental screen use was strongly associated with higher adolescent screen time and problematic social media or video game use.
Good quote from this story called, Why Pop Music Is So ‘Meh’ Right Now: But today, with the world awash in content, TikTok rewriting labels’ playbooks and listeners burrowing deeper into their own personalized niches, even avid pop fans don’t recognize what’s in the Billboard top 10. In such a decentralized market, pop stars face fierce competition. Disappointing albums, in turn, can hurt concert sales. It all adds up to music executives across genres seeming to wield less power over the star-making machinery than ever.
Ikea’s "The Co-Worker" has officially launched on Roblox and is generating some good engagement so far, with 120k+ visits, 1k+ concurrent users, 4 free UGC items dropping throughout the week, and selected users can earn up £13.15/€14.80 per hour (source). That’s right, actual money earned in Roblox. I spent some time checking it out (screenshots here), and I have to say this is literally how my kiddo plays with friends, except they run a Chuck E. Cheese. Like, run the store. And that’s what you get get to do at this IKEA within Roblox. I gotta unlock this bucket hat!
Yahoo rebooted my favorite AI-powered news app, Artifact, as Yahoo News. It’s not as great as the original and requires you to use a Yahoo email address (I had to go waaaaay back and dig it out). But the worst part are the push notifications, which are a mixed bag and have a lot of garbage. I’m bummed. Sad to see it Artifact get Quibi’d (reminder, paid subscribers have access to the full Social Signals archive). I’ve also read good things about MatterFact.
Good read: Social Media Broke Slang. Now We All Speak Phone. — “The crisis in American slang is that we grasp what everyone is saying so well that we think we know one another, when in fact we understand less and less.”
Thread of the Week: Podcasts are just millennial AM radio
You of the Week: 10 mins internet growth and marketing masterclass by Mr Beast and here’s a summary.
YouTube of the Week: Why every MrBeast video gets 200M views (interview) (h/t )
Instagram of the Week: This New AI Filter Shows You What You'd Look Like If You Weren't a Boring Loser Who's Always Messing Around with AI
Long Read of the Week: The End of the English Major — Enrollment in the humanities is in free fall at colleges around the country. What happened?
Throwback Meme of the Week: Do you hear Yanny or Laurel? Which do you hear?
See you in the future! 🚀
Greg
P.S. Nobody wants to see your photos and videos of fireworks, but maybe you want to take share them anyway if it makes you happy and not worry so much about what others’ think? That’s what I’m thinking this year.