Category: In the News

In the age of synthetic social, it’s getting harder to tell the difference between AI and human-generated content. Despite the AI hype, the influx of synthetic social (and mounting backlash to so-called AI slop) isn’t resulting in more, lucrative brand deals for creators according to the five influencer agency execs Digiday spoke with for this piece.

Over the past year, AI-powered video apps like OpenAI’s Sora or Meta’s Vibes have developed further into the uncanny valley with machine-made, personalized social media content. Marketers are interested but largely hesitant to make synthetic social part of their marketing toolkit mainstays.

“It’s (synthetic social is) still novel,” said Thomas Markland, founder of the creator company HYDP, “While companies like ours are becoming increasingly aware of potential issues, planning strategically to deal with them, we have yet to see significant impacts on human creators.”

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Next year’s FIFA World Cup stands to be the largest spectator event in history. And Unilever, one of the planet’s largest advertisers with a total marketing budget of $10.1 billion in 2024, is determined to capitalize on the billions watching.

“Next year is the biggest sporting event that’s ever going to happen..It’s taking place in our biggest market. We will be making absolutely every effort to make it the biggest thing we’ve done,” said Chris Barron, Unilever’s general manager for personal care in the U.K. and Ireland, and vp of deodorants in Europe.

The company’s execs are currently planning how best to do that via paid media and sponsorships spanning four of its flagship personal care brands (Rexona, Dove, LUX and Lifebuoy) while simultaneously executing a major course change within its own marketing organization — a grand turn away from traditional one-to-many channels like television, toward a “many to many” approach prioritizing paid social and influencer marketing. 

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