AI Is Reshaping Quantity vs Quality; But Not in the Way You Think

It’s easy to get carried away with shiny new things. Like a kid obsessed with a new toy on Christmas morning, our industry has become hooked on hype when it comes to AI. 

In many ways that’s understandable. After all, we’re talking about a technology with genuinely revolutionary potential - and which is already delivering a lot more in terms of practicality than, for example, the metaverse did at a similar stage of its hype cycle.

But it’s still important to keep a sense of perspective with AI. At Five by Five, we’ve been experimenting with new “AI-powered” automation tools which have been popping up a lot over the course of the past few months. They allure us with the promise of how easy it is to automate a plethora of choices, create gazillions of ad variations, compositions and the like. But as much as this is powered by AI (it must be right? it says that on the tin) it does feel like regardless of these algorithms and machine learning, it just gives you more sort of bulk banality to wade through. As marketers we are naturally inquisitive and we really don’t need anymore distractions!

This perspective develops another worrying trend in the current AI conversation which, we believe, is entirely missing the point about why the tech is so exciting. It relates to ‘efficiency’ - or more cynically, the idea that AI is a brilliant way to produce an ever-greater quantity of ads. 

The ‘quantity vs quality’ debate is one which seems tangentially tied to every tech innovation our industry has been exposed to in recent years. How often have we heard, for example, that “data is killing creativity” thanks to an over-reliance on personalisation and targeting? 

Because AI has the clear potential to make a lot of efficiencies, there’s a temptation to think “oh great, I can now make five thousand ads and really cover the internet with my messaging”. But the most successful marketers aren’t doing that. We know that brands who opt for that kind of approach get feedback like “I’m so sick of seeing these ads”, which hardly helps their favorability no matter how bespoke and targeted their banners might be. 

The question we should be asking isn’t “how can AI efficiencies help us to make more ads”, but rather “how can AI efficiencies help us to make better ads?”. 

And, at Five by Five, we think we’ve found an answer. 

The truth is that there’s always been a dark art to the world of creative automation. And it’s one our team is very familiar with, not least thanks to our years of experience and our custom-made in-house ad delivery system Oceanview. 

Efficiency is the name of the game in the often-complex world of ad delivery, but not just efficiency for efficiency’s sake. Whenever we can find a way to work smarter, the savings are put to work in strengthening the creative - in other words, ensuring that a brand’s messaging is working as hard as it possibly can. That’s how we can develop ads for B&Q that quadrupled ROAS (return on ad spend), or how we reduced production times without scrimping on quality on our video production for Epic Games. 

So, in that context, there’s a very positive spin to the story of AI so far. And it is that by finding these efficiencies in the process and seeing how AI can help us capitalise on this. It’s then, we can create more space to focus on creative quality. That, ultimately, is the benefit of putting quality first. 

The danger of failing to do that is one that I think many of us in the industry can sense. There’s a reason, for example, why so much of the imagery put out by generative AI like Midjourney is only ever seen by the people who make it. Often, it takes so long to finally guide the AI towards something of genuine creative quality that you haven’t actually saved any time at all. You might as well have made it yourself.

There’s a reason, too, why “you sound like Chat GPT” has become an insult. There’s already a deep cultural recognition that generative AI produces bland, lazy content that doesn’t connect with anyone. 

Nobody wants the internet to become awash with poor-quality, derivative, and forgettable ads. Not brands who end up paying for ineffective communications, and certainly not audiences who will mentally disconnect from content altogether. 

So let’s make sure that we’re getting excited about AI for the right reasons. If we’re using it as a cheap replacement for creative quality, it will fail to deliver on its potential and likely end up in a similar position to the metaverse - a synonym for low-quality content fuelled mostly by business suits looking to make an easy buck. 

But if we use it to find efficiencies which empower our creativity to be better than ever, everyone will win. That means using it to fine-tune code, to generate ideas which humans can improve, or to take away the menial labour of automation. 

This is a technology which could do a lot of damage to the industry’s reputation for quality, or it could revitalise the way we connect with our audiences and help us produce work that’s more efficient - and more effective - than ever before. That all depends on how we choose to use it. 

So let’s make sure we make the right choice.