The advertising industry presents several major awards, such as the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and the CLIO Awards. Now, a new awards show honors the best AI-generated ads.
The Generated Awards took place on May 27 in New York City, where the Generated Group presented 9 awards to AI video creators and products. Many of the classified ads were “specific ads,” created illegally by AI enthusiasts and creators. However, ads from Google and the Gorilla Glue Company were also considered.
For example, “Pac-Man Reimagined,” which won the “Best Visual Effects” award, is not an ad from Bandai Namco Entertainment, which owns Pac-Man.
Still, the event shows how quickly advertising agencies are adapting to new AI technologies. Last year at Google I/O, the company dropped its AI video model Veo 3 like a bombshell, and since then, we’ve had to question every viral video we’ve seen. Since then, we’ve seen rapid growth in text-to-video models. AI video creators often use multiple video models, including Seeddance 2.0, Kling 3.0, and Luma Ray2, as well as tools to improve resolution to 4K.
Google has clearly positioned Veo as a tool to quickly create ads at scale, and many ad agencies now specialize in creating low-cost AI ads. Coca-Cola’s recent holiday campaign focused on a controversial AI video, and Jeep has several AI-generated commercials on air now.
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As I’ve said before, whether you like it or not, I think that marketing innovation is an unstoppable train.
By email, I asked Tanya Porquez, Generated Group CEO, whether AI-generated ads should have mandatory disclosure requirements. He said, “I don’t think disclosure is necessary unless there is a legal requirement.”
“We will have a crawl-walk-run situation where the disclosure of ‘AI’ is there to build public trust. There is a problem of transparency when people want to know that they are not being fooled by AI tools. For example, in New York they passed a law requiring the disclosure of AI-created people, something we welcome. I can understand why they are now asking in the first place.”
Generated Ads: See winning ads
To see what advertising might look like in the near future, I’ve collected all the award winners in this piece. You can watch for yourself to see if you can tell the difference between what is true and what is not.
Some videos are more transparent than others, and feature the tell-tale glossy sheen characteristic of many AI videos. However, like AI-generated images, the telling is getting harder and harder to see.
Although this should be obvious, please note that all of these videos contain AI content.
Best storytelling: “Accidental Perfection” by Michal Kuzminski
Best Guide: “Meet the Tough New CEO at Gorilla Glue Company” by Gorilla Glue Company
Best Sound Experience: “Instant Grind, Nescafe” by Blackbrightstudio
Creative Ad of the Year: “Puppramin” by PJ Accetturo
Special Ad of the Year: “Vans” by Çağlasın Yılmaz and Bilgehan Yoldas
Commercial of the Year: “Watch” by Runway Creative and J. Felipe Orozco
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