LA Story - or, AI Story. What's real anymore?

LA is often seen as a byword for everything that is artificial, superficial and unreal. La La Land. So how could an old story about it tell us something new about AI in marketing?

Everything I Know about Advertising I Learnt from the Movies: #4

I obviously didn’t get the memo: about influencer campaigns that is. Or maybe I’m just old-fashioned. But, as well as being cheap (and usually cheerful) I always thought that the whole point of brands using influencer-created content was that it gave a sense of authenticity. It was more ‘real.’

So, imagine my lack of surprise at seeing some recent campaigns (the first of many I’m sure) that use AI generated influencers. The first was ‘Emma’ – to promote German tourism. This pretty, brown-eyed (not blue) Aryan blonde takes you by the hand to guide you through the country’s “impressive historical sights, vibrant cities and beautiful landscapes.” 

Then there’s Laila Khaadra, Puma’s new “Moroccan” virtual influencer, who guides you through her very own Puma world. And Casablanca.

And most recently, the oldest virtual influencer of them all, Santa Claus: leading his convoy of big red trucks through Coca Cola’s winter wonderland. “Real magic.”

Sure, lots of people are looking at the technical flaws and weird fingers etc. But this is improving at an exponential pace, and soon AI content will be indistinguishable from actual filmed content, with real people and places.

So, what – apart from all the job losses in the production industry – is the problem? And how has it got anything to do with a nineties Steve Martin comedy, about life in Los Angeles, that you’ve probably never seen. Was Steve – as well as being a multi-talented writer, actor, comedian and banjo player – also far-sighted prognosticator of today’s AI generated world?

Well, in a way, yes.

LA Story is basically him trying to do for LA, what Woody Allen has done for New York, in countless movies. Which he does pretty nicely. He wrote the screenplay too. It’s a kind of love letter to the city, satirizing but at the same time celebrating its artifice and superficiality. As is sometimes said about it: “there’s no there, there.”

This sense of artifice is brilliantly captured in one scene, when Steve Martin’s character is starting to get fresh with Sarah Jessica Parker’s airhead Valley Girl, having sex in the City of Angels. His hands stray gently over her breasts, when something suddenly stops him.

“Sandy,” he says, looking a bit puzzled, “your breasts feel weird.” She replies, very matter-of-factly, so as not to kill the intimacy, “oh, that’s cause they’re real.”

It feels to me as this is where we are heading with AI generated content right now – in advertising and elsewhere. Soon everything will be artificial, which will at some point become normal. 

What’s worse? That AI generated content – although amazing – still looks like AI generated content, and lacks authenticity and a human connection? Or that soon we might not be able to tell the difference between what’s real and what isn’t? 

Or even worse, like Steve Martin discovered over thirty years ago, that ‘real’ is the thing that feels weird. And weird feels real. Real enough to sell lots of travel, sneakers and cans of soda. Or even to get someone elected president. 

What is real anymore anyway? And does it even matter, if it works?  

Either way, this will soon be the new reality.