Each AI advertising and marketing catastrophe you’ve seen—the cringeworthy faux influencers, the clearly robotic copy, the manufacturers caught mendacity about AI use—occurred as a result of somebody thought AI may exchange technique, creativity, or authenticity.
The examples on this article show the other: AI’s worth is eradicating grunt work and constraints, not changing the people who perceive your market, your model, and your clients.
A $100 denim canine harness model struggled with low advert engagement. The issue was that rock patches had been on the again of the harness, so product photographs confirmed the canine from behind, hiding its face. Canine homeowners scrolling social media stored scrolling previous advertisements with out cute canine faces seen.
So, Aditya Chavan and his crew used ChatGPT (with DALL-E) over 5 days to create AI-generated product photographs exhibiting each the harness design AND the canine’s face from flattering angles.
Subsequent, they scraped Amazon opinions of competing canine harnesses, used AI to investigate suggestions, recognized the highest 4 buyer priorities (excellent match, escape-proof, breathable, aesthetics), and rewrote advert copy round these.
There was an sudden discovery, too. New advertisements with AI-generated photographs obtained huge engagement however low conversions. Utilizing Microsoft Readability to trace web site conduct, they found why: the AI photographs appeared higher than the precise product. Prospects felt misled when the true harness didn’t match the AI-generated promise.
As a substitute of abandoning AI photographs, the shopper redesigned the bodily product to match what AI had proven clients needed, creating the “Rocker 2.0” assortment primarily based on the AI-generated idea.
In consequence, each day orders and income each doubled, whereas the product redesign primarily based on AI insights efficiently matched buyer expectations.
Takeaway
You’ll be able to analysis competitor opinions on Amazon or Google and use AI to identify widespread buyer frustrations and desires. Then, create photographs that talk on to these wants. Instruments like ChatGPT, Midjourney, or DALL-E allow you to rapidly generate and take a look at product concepts—no want for expensive photoshoots or giant stock upfront.
Create 10–20 picture variations in just some days, run them as advertisements, and use the outcomes to see which of them your viewers connects with most.
Allied International Advertising wanted to launch a marketing campaign for NERF Motion Xperience, the primary official NERF play heart within the US. NERF, identified for its colourful foam dart blasters, had a facility nonetheless beneath building—no photographs or movies existed.
They used DALL-E to generate illustrations of teenagers with NERF blasters, but it surely wasn’t easy: they went by “too many iterations to rely,” closely edited outputs in Photoshop (isolating characters, adjusting colours), transformed all the pieces to vectors in Illustrator, and filtered precise NERF merchandise to match the artwork type.
The end result: they met unimaginable deadlines and created a full library of marketing campaign property because of AI.
Takeaway
AI can generate visuals when nothing exists to {photograph} but, supplying you with unimaginable velocity to market, however don’t anticipate plug-and-play. Work with a designer to scrub up outputs—that’s the place high quality occurs.
AGORA, a artistic company, created high-end marketing campaign visuals for jewellery, equipment, and CPG manufacturers by combining AI-generated surroundings with historically photographed actual merchandise.
As a substitute of a full photoshoot crew (artistic director, photographer, stylist, make-up artists, and many others.), they diminished it to: artistic director, immediate engineer/AI artist, and photographer/retoucher.
Making an attempt to AI-generate the precise product led to poor outcomes—the merchandise nonetheless want skilled pictures. Gimmicky all-in-one AI instruments don’t work for high-end tasks.
The successful components was to make use of AI for elaborate backgrounds (seashore scenes, studio setups, outside places), then composite professionally photographed actual merchandise into these AI scenes.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/matteo-trapella-b104a913b_heres-how-we-harnessed-the-power-of-ai-to-activity-7313138354789801985-mTf0
Takeaway
AI can exchange costly location shoots, however not product pictures. Use AI to create background scenes. {Photograph} your product professionally, and use Photoshop to composite.
AGORA’s method is greatest for: jewellery, equipment, packaged items—any product needing premium presentation however versatile environments. Don’t use it for trend on fashions or the place product/surroundings interplay issues.
AI works for large manufacturers which have lengthy stood for high quality content material, if used correctly. At Ahrefs, one of the crucial revered search engine optimization blogs within the trade, we use AI all through our content material workflow whereas conserving people firmly in management. Let me present you a couple of examples.
In the course of the analysis part, instruments like NotebookLM assist rapidly course of giant quantities of enter—reminiscent of dozens of responses, interviews, or survey solutions—to floor the insights that matter.
AI assistants with “deep analysis” characteristic are nice for checking what’s already identified a couple of matter and figuring out gaps price exploring.
I’ve additionally used ChatGPT and Claude to deal with extra technical duties reminiscent of writing API code, combining datasets, or working primary statistical checks.
We additionally use our personal Ahrefs’ AI Content material Helper to investigate top-ranking pages and maps which matters want protection, eliminating the necessity to manually open dozens of tabs.
Lately, we began making our personal vibe-coded inside instruments. For instance, I used Riff to make an app that inserts WordPress shortcodes and picture alt textual content (through Gemini API). And to suppose I did all that manually…
Takeaway
Use AI to compress analysis time, automate formatting, and preserve consistency. All the time have people deal with artistic choices, fact-checking, and stopping generic AI voice. That is the right way to use AI with out sacrificing content material high quality.
Gael Breton from Authority Hackers created an in depth system immediate defining his publication’s tone and construction, supplied actual examples of previous work, then fed the AI his uncooked, badly formatted notes and bullet factors—the unique, high-value insights.
The AI dealt with sprucing, writing, and even ran supplementary analysis utilizing Perplexity for sections like “Software of the Week.” He manually reviewed and edited all output.
This allowed them to chop publication manufacturing time in half (2 hours complete per week) whereas sustaining excessive reader engagement. Discover the division of labor: AI did formatting, sprucing, and researching simply obtainable information; the human supplied authentic concepts, insights not documented on-line, and high quality management.
Takeaway
Use an AI assistant with an in depth system immediate that features your tone, type, and examples. Give AI your uncooked ideas and bullet factors, let it format and polish, however at all times overview and edit to stop a generic “AI voice”.
That is excellent augmentation, not substitute—you concentrate on producing proprietary insights whereas AI handles mechanical writing duties. Human experience creates worth, AI removes tedium.
Eric Siu from Single Grain used AI through dictation instruments to workshop video ideas. He fed the AI most popular thumbnail types with efficiency information (like Mr. Beast’s view stats), requested for viral options and full outlines, and let AI analyze patterns from profitable content material.
Brainstorming time dropped from hours to about one hour most, giving his design and enhancing groups clear, particular course primarily based on data-informed artistic choices.
However discover what didn’t change: Eric nonetheless made the ultimate artistic decisions. AI dealt with sample evaluation, various era, and description construction; the human dealt with artistic course, closing choices, and model judgment.
Takeaway
Speed up artistic improvement with out sacrificing high quality—AI handles analytical work (sample recognition, various era) so people spend extra time on strategic artistic choices.
Advice
Eric was analyzing profitable content material for his movies—I’d take that additional. Use Ahrefs’ Content Explorer to find content people link to most often in your niche. Search your topic and sort by referring domains to see what naturally earns backlinks. Feed these top performers to your AI and ask it to identify what makes them link-worthy—the data, format, or angle. Then apply those insights to your content ideas.
In the example below, I’m looking for ideas on the topic of vibe coding in English, published this year, excluding homepages for better results and sorted by number of referring domains.
Life Media UK had lower than 24 hours to create a video marketing campaign for Puxton Park’s “Curly Tails & Cocktails” occasion, with zero present advertising and marketing property. Conventional filming was unimaginable.
So, they used AI video era to create a promotional teaser, however made a important strategic alternative: they used stylized, whimsical animation as an alternative of making an attempt to look life like.
By making it clearly AI-generated and artistic (not fake-realistic), they prevented the backlash manufacturers like Vogue confronted when making an attempt to move AI content material as actual. The video was “eye-catching, scroll-stopping” and efficiently promoted the occasion.
Takeaway
For last-minute campaigns with no footage, use AI video instruments (Runway, Pika) however go for “whimsical,” “animated,” or “illustrated” seems to be. Keep away from making an attempt to make it seem like actual footage—that’s the place manufacturers get roasted. Suppose “cartoon”, not “documentary.”
When McDonald’s relaunched its Snack Wrap on July 10, 2025, Popeyes responded instantly. They commissioned PJ Ace’s AI studio Style.ai to create a diss observe video—and obtained it completed in three days.
The 64-second video includes a rapper dissing Ronald McDonald (“Meals be tastin’ humorous when a clown is in da kitchen”) in surreal occasion scenes with sloths, giraffes, and aliens consuming Popeyes wraps.
https://twitter.com/PJaccetturo/standing/1943321631272923229
To cover AI’s lip-sync limitations, they positioned a big pop filter over the rapper’s mouth in sales space scenes, turning a technical weak spot into an aesthetic alternative that emphasised the power.
The marketing campaign was a viral success, racking up over 10 million views throughout platforms by mid-July and matching McDonald’s timing completely. Extra spectacular was the price: roughly $200 in month-to-month AI software subscriptions versus the $50,000-150,000+ a conventional 3-day rush manufacturing would have required.
Takeaway
When timing issues greater than perfection, AI video instruments like Veo 3 and Runway provide a fast-track answer. Begin with an in depth script describing digicam actions, lighting, and character actions, generate footage utilizing text-to-video AI, edit the clips collectively, and launch inside days.
This method shines for entertainment-first content material the place AI’s surreal, humorous aesthetics work in your favor. As PJ places it, ‘Entertain first, branding second’—comedic AI content material constantly outperforms makes an attempt at genuine or critical messaging.
Superside wanted a high-quality industrial with out time or price range for actors and a studio. As a substitute of asking AI to easily make a video, they constructed it the way in which you’d assemble a collage, layer by layer.
They used Midjourney to generate character photographs, Runway to make these photographs transfer for 3-4 seconds, and their very own workers recorded strains with actual emotion on their telephones, then used ElevenLabs to “filter” their voices to sound like skilled actors. This stored human emotion however added skilled polish.
The end result: 40-60% quicker than conventional manufacturing, excessive conversions, and nil bodily manufacturing prices.
Takeaway
Consider AI video like placing items collectively, not making all the pieces from scratch. As a substitute of filming each scene your self, you possibly can construct a robust story utilizing completely different AI instruments and nonetheless hold the human components that matter most.
For instance, you possibly can create characters with Midjourney, animate them with Runway, and have actual folks document the dialogue on their telephones. Then you possibly can frivolously improve the voices with instruments like ElevenLabs so that they sound cleaner and extra skilled—with out dropping the true emotion.
This combine works effectively as a result of people deal with the sentiments and efficiency, whereas AI takes care of the time-consuming visuals, animation, and polish.
Gael Breton used CapCut’s built-in AI to robotically flip lengthy movies into vertical clips. He then used automation to transcribe these clips with Gemini and had Claude write the descriptions.
He nonetheless threw out 3 out of each 4 clips, however the 25% that made it by averaged round 2,000 views per publish, and that content material wouldn’t have existed in any respect with out AI.
The method was quicker and cheaper than hiring full-time editors and writers, whereas human judgment was nonetheless key to deciding what was adequate to publish.
Takeaway
You received’t like all the pieces AI generates out of your prompts, however one thing like 25% and even 10% success fee continues to be price it for content material that wouldn’t exist in any other case.
Very Eire, a serious on-line retailer, used AI to rewrite 1,471 product titles for his or her Google Procuring campaigns. Working with Wolfgang Digital and Producthero AI, they ran similar campaigns side-by-side—one with guide titles, one with AI-optimized titles.
AI efficiency began 3% worse in month 1 however ended 11% higher by month 4, with a 5% enchancment in return on advert spend. AI wanted time to study, however as soon as it did, it outperformed guide optimization whereas saving 10 hours of work.
Takeaway
Use AI to rewrite titles in batches. Begin together with your prime 20-50 merchandise, give them your model pointers and best-performing examples, then take a look at AI titles towards guide ones in separate campaigns.
AI breaks the trade-off between personalization and effectivity. However be affected person; anticipate a studying curve of a number of months earlier than seeing full outcomes.
Past copywriting, AI may assist automate your advert workflows with instruments like n8n. For instance, my colleague Remus Marcu constructed n8n workflows that robotically examine search phrases in Google Advertisements and flag whether or not they’re related, utilizing the marketing campaign’s key phrases, product descriptions, and previous damaging examples.
Advice
If you wish to do that in your personal merchandise, I’d suggest utilizing Ahrefs’ Patches to rewrite web page parts at scale.
As a substitute of manually optimizing every product title one after the other, Patches lets you update hundreds or thousands of titles simultaneously using AI while maintaining your brand guidelines. You can test AI-optimized titles against your current ones, measure performance, and roll back changes if needed—exactly what Very Ireland did, but with far less manual work.
Barilla used AI software Buzzly to run a 15-day Meta promoting marketing campaign the place AI dealt with the testing and optimization that entrepreneurs usually do manually. As a substitute of making a couple of advert variations and checking efficiency weekly, the AI generated a number of variations of advert copy tailor-made to completely different viewers segments, then robotically shifted the price range to better-performing advertisements in real-time.
In simply 15 days, the AI-optimized marketing campaign drove 43,240 clicks at a 6.58% CTR—effectively above the everyday 2-4%—whereas reducing cost-per-click by 81% (from $0.16 to $0.03) and lowering administration time by 75%.
Takeaway
AI can automate the repetitive work of testing advert variations and adjusting budgets. As a substitute of manually creating 5-10 advert variations, working them for per week, analyzing leads to a spreadsheet, then making modifications, you possibly can have AI generate dozens of variations, take a look at them concurrently, and optimize in real-time.
Advice
Earlier than you let AI optimize something, be sure to perceive how your clients truly speak and search. Begin by on the lookout for the precise phrases they use. A software like Ahrefs’ Key phrases Explorer may help you discover high-intent key phrases in your area of interest and present how fashionable they are.
For instance, if “fast pasta recipes” will get 18k searches a month however “simple weeknight dinners” will get 23k, that’s a robust trace about which angle to strive first.
Moreover, you’ll find extra angles to strive by exploring search time period variations within the Matching phrases report.
Coca-Cola constructed “Create Actual Magic,” a customized AI platform (combining GPT-4 and DALL-E) with OpenAI and Bain & Firm.
They gave digital artists worldwide entry to their most iconic model property—the contour bottle, Spencerian script brand, Santa Claus, and Polar Bear—and invited them to create authentic paintings.
The marketing campaign ran as a contest the place artists may submit work for an opportunity to look on Instances Sq. and Piccadilly Circus billboards.
Coca-Cola chosen 30 creators for a three-day “Actual Magic Inventive Academy” at their Atlanta headquarters to co-create content material for merchandising and digital collectibles. All members had been credited.
Takeaway
AI can supercharge UGC contests by reducing the barrier to entry—members don’t want design expertise, simply concepts. Conventional UGC campaigns require folks to {photograph}, movie, or design one thing from scratch. AI-powered UGC lets anybody with a immediate create professional-looking content material that includes your model.
Closing ideas
In case you’re getting carried away with AI hype, I believe these examples ought to deliver issues again to actuality. None of those manufacturers fired their advertising and marketing groups or changed technique with a couple of prompts. They nonetheless relied on individuals who understood their clients, made artistic calls, and caught AI’s errors.
However when you’re skeptical—when you suppose AI is simply costly vaporware—have a look at what truly occurred. Very Eire saved 10 hours month-to-month and boosted click-through charges 11%. Barilla slashed their cost-per-click by 81% and reduce marketing campaign administration time by 75%. Heads or Tails Pup doubled their each day gross sales. Popeyes obtained 10 million views for $200 in AI subscriptions versus the $50,000+ a conventional rush video would value. Authority Hackers reduce publication manufacturing time in half.
Even when AI by no means improves past the place it’s at present, these time financial savings are actual—they usually add up quick over months and years.
Acquired questions or feedback? Let me know on LinkedIn.
