The AI Ad Backlash Is the Best Thing to Happen to Real Creatives
Two years of soulless holiday ads taught consumers a new word for cheap. Here is why the AI advertising backlash is quietly the best news creative teams have had in a while.
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Long-form writing on AI, creative culture, and how agencies stay ahead of the next wave.
Two years of soulless holiday ads taught consumers a new word for cheap. Here is why the AI advertising backlash is quietly the best news creative teams have had in a while.
The PR industry formally condemned advertising value equivalency in 2010, published a guide on why it is invalid, and kept using it anyway. Here is why the zombie metric refuses to die, and why AI is about to make it worse.

In 2026, generative AI stopped being a threat to creative agencies and became the plumbing. It gutted the timesheet, halved headcounts, and flooded the world with slop — which is exactly why human judgment suddenly costs more.
Two years of soulless holiday ads taught consumers a new word for cheap. Here is why the AI advertising backlash is quietly the best news creative teams have had in a while.
The PR industry formally condemned advertising value equivalency in 2010, published a guide on why it is invalid, and kept using it anyway. Here is why the zombie metric refuses to die, and why AI is about to make it worse.

In 2026, generative AI stopped being a threat to creative agencies and became the plumbing. It gutted the timesheet, halved headcounts, and flooded the world with slop — which is exactly why human judgment suddenly costs more.

A neuroscience lab scraped millions of videos to find exactly what makes human skin prickle. Carl Sagan made the list. So did Mister Rogers. So did Thai commercials — and there's a reason every creative should care.

Liquid Death sells mountain water in a beer can stamped with a melting skull and the words 'Murder Your Thirst.' It's worth $1.4 billion, and almost none of that is about the water. Here's what agencies should actually steal from it.
Creative teams are frustrated with AI output. They're blaming the tools. The real problem is upstream -- in the brief. And fixing it changes everything.

Explore the phenomenal rise of the George Foreman Grill, a kitchen appliance that transformed celebrity endorsement and became a household staple, generating billions in sales.
AI agents can execute tasks autonomously. But the real question for creative teams isn't what agents can do—it's what they should change about how humans work together.

Thai commercials either make you cry in 30 seconds or laugh until you choke. How decades of media restriction, training agencies, and a 'feeling over thinking' philosophy made Thailand a creative powerhouse.
See how leading agencies are using Multiply to run their AI workflows.