Merrian-Webster has coined “slop” as the word of the year.
They define slop as …
“Digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.”
Fair enough. Bad AI content comes in many varieties.
On the content side we speak of the “tsunamic of bullshit.”
On the image side, we’re mostly past six-fingered hands and obvious anatomical horrors, but there are still a lot of awful AI images out there.
Then there’s video, which can be astonishingly good or painfully bad.
Since AI is going to dominate 2026, here’s a word of warning.
It’s too easy to blame AI.
Let’s take two recent holiday commercials as examples. Both were created with AI. Both were bad, but for different reasons.
The first video, by McDonald’s, was so bad that it only lasted a few days. The theme was something like “the holidays are horrible and hectic, why not stop by a cozy, relaxing McDonald’s to take a break.” This video shows parts of it.
The AI was not great, but the ad wasn’t a catastrophe because it was generated by AI. It was a catastrophe because the geniuses in the advertising department forgot that McDonald’s is an iconic brand that celebrates our cultural institutions. That ad poked fun at them, and that’s unforgivable. An edgy brand might get away with that message. Not McDonald’s.
For Video 1, yes, the AI was slop, but the real problem went far deeper.
Video 2 comes from Coca-Cola. It’s called “Holidays Are Coming.” It was more on brand, and most of the criticism I’ve seen is about the lousy production quality.
Here’s the danger. There will be a tendency to blame all AI-generated advertising failures on the AI. That is a mistake.
AI is a tool to make something. It doesn’t exempt you from the need to exercise good judgment about what it is you’re going to make.
We’re still in the early days, and it’s going to take a bit to get it just right.
In a way, it reminds me of Rock and Roll.
Some of the early pioneers of Rock and Roll were (let’s be honest) not the greatest musicians. The quality wasn’t top notch, but it scratched the right cultural itch. It was the sound and the message for a new era.
Mick Jagger doesn’t sing like Mario Lanza, and the Monkeys couldn’t even play their instruments at first, but people stood in long lines to hear Jagger and Jones.
AI doesn’t make up for bad ideas, tone deaf messages, or phony solutions. You still have to have a great product, a great message, and a great offer.
If you have the exact answer for a definite need, people will overlook the poor quality of the delivery medium.
AI is going to tempt young marketers and advertisers to get so caught up with the wow and the zing that they forget the fundamentals.
But when your poorly considered marketing plan or product launch fails, don’t let AI be the scapegoat.
The problem wasn’t the tool. It was the thinking.
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