"Tech behemoths like OpenAI are taking notice, advertising aggressively in an attempt to alleviate public anxiety. OpenAI will reportedly return to the Super Bowl this year after its debut in 2025, according to The Wall Street Journal. (Read Digiday's Super Bowl coverage here.) Meta, too, is returning to the Super Bowl in 2026, promoting its Oakley AI glasses instead of the Ray-Bans line it promoted last year."
"AI platforms are waking up to the fact that they're not just tech businesses, but part of brand-consumer relationships. Last year, platforms like Microsoft, Meta, Google and others shelled out more than $473 million to advertise their AI-powered offerings, according to MediaRadar. These tech behemoths are trying to upend the current distrust narrative, according to Morgan Seamark, managing partner at Triggers, a behavioral-science-based brand consultancy. Advertising seems to be the way to do that."
""There's an innate distrust right now because it's new," Seamark said, adding "The only way you can avoid that being the narrative is to paint a new one and to overwhelm those negative associations with new positive ones.""
Consumer sentiment toward generative AI is waning, with a notable gap between industry perceptions and younger consumers. Research from the IAB and Sonata Insights finds 82% of advertising executives believe Gen Z and millennial consumers feel positively about AI-generated ads, while only 45% of those consumers report positive feelings. Major AI companies are investing heavily in advertising and using high-profile venues like the Super Bowl to reduce anxiety and rebuild trust. Platforms spent over $473 million on AI-powered product advertising last year. Advertising is intended to legitimize AI brands and replace negative associations with positive ones.
Read at Digiday
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]