Witty, slightly sarcastic takes on all things AI — from buzzwords to buyer’s guides, hallucinating chatbots to agentic assistants. If you’re a marketer wondering what LLMs have to do with ROI (and chai), you’re in the right place.
OpenAI’s latest “documentary” videos aren’t just slick testimonials—they’re a masterclass in the “Authenticity Paradox.” By erasing decades of digital struggle to sell a seamless AI future, these films reveal a dangerous new marketing trend: the weaponisation of documentary aesthetics. Here’s why polished realism is killing consumer trust and what smart marketers should do instead.
OpenAI’s voice AI demo promised seamless, global, inclusive conversation. Real-world testing reveals something far darker: a foreign-accented, wavering voice that systematically fails marginalised users. When an Indian woman prepares for a job interview using ChatGPT’s interview prep tool, she hears a confident female voice in the demo. In practice, she gets a man’s jarring, foreign accent struggling with Hindi. Maps work. Complex topics don’t. Indian languages break entirely. This is the Trojan Horse—not a broken feature hidden in pretty marketing, but a fully functional platform designed to exclude. The 5% vocal instability affecting disabled users, non-English speakers, and interview candidates isn’t a bug. It’s the architecture itself.
OpenAI’s Voice Revolution Is a Trojan Horse—And Users Are Carrying It Inside Read More »
Perplexity’s partnership with Cristiano Ronaldo isn’t just an ad; it’s a strategic pivot from selling “tech” to selling “greatness.” This analysis breaks down how the campaign leverages celebrity trust to kill the “hallucination” narrative, signals the death of prompt engineering, and why this marks the end of the “Magic Box” era of AI marketing.
Spotify India’s 2025 Wrapped ads are a masterclass in hyper-local marketing for Mumbai and Chennai. But by focusing only on Bollywood and Kollywood, they’ve highlighted a massive “blind spot,” ignoring the cultural and economic power of Bengal, Punjab, and the country’s Tier-2 heartland. This is both a triumph of execution and a failure of strategy. Here’s what marketers can learn from it.
Spotify Wrapped 2025: The Triumph (and the Trap) of Hyper-Local Marketing Read More »
Most AI tools reward speed. This piece argues for something different: “Slow AI” that takes 45 minutes, not 4 seconds, to think. By using Claude’s research mode and projects like a digital analyst, marketers can trade cheap volume for deep insight and real strategic advantage.
The Death of the Chatbot: Why Marketers Need to Embrace ‘Slow AI’ Read More »
Apple’s latest accessibility campaign, “I’m Not Remarkable,” marks a seismic shift in how brands market to disabled audiences. By explicitly rejecting “inspiration porn”—the practice of praising disabled people simply for existing—the film signals the death of pity-based marketing. Instead of golden-hour slow-motion shots and soaring piano music, we see messy dorm rooms, failed exams, and students getting coffee. This is not inspiration; it is infrastructure. For marketers, the message is clear: authenticity now trumps polish. Gen Z detects condescension instantly and rejects corporate narratives that demand gratitude for basic functionality. The most effective accessibility marketing doesn’t look like marketing at all. It treats disabled people as customers, not charity cases. Moving from empowerment narratives to invisible technology is not just ethical—it is the future of brand trust.
Microsoft Work IQ claims to personalise productivity, but beneath the sleek surface lies a sophisticated architecture of observation, memory, and inference—raising urgent questions about surveillance, regulation, and the gap between AI marketing promises and measurable reality.
The AI That Knows You Better Than Your Boss Does Read More »
By the time Johnny Weir appears on screen, clad in a sequinned blazer, looking for redemption in “Snowberry Falls,” you realise something fundamental has shifted. For three years, Big Tech screamed about Large Language Models and neural networks with sombre, cinematic adverts. Google has finally admitted defeat in the “features war” and opened a new front in the “culture war.” With Sleigh My Name, they’ve stopped explaining how the sausage is made. Instead, they’re serving it on a glittery platter with drag queens and reality TV stars. This isn’t just a funny advert. It signals the end of the “Tech Demo” era and the arrival of “Post-Hype” reality. Every marketer—whether selling SaaS or sparkling water—needs to dissect this campaign.
The Era of “Look at the AI” is Dead. Long Live the Era of Camp. Read More »
In a year of tone‑deaf AI advertising, Apple’s handmade puppet film “A Critter Carol” quietly reframes what good marketing looks like: humans on stage, tech in the background, and visible craft as the new premium signal of trust.
Apple Brought Puppets to a Robot Fight — And It’s the Smartest Marketing Move of 2025 Read More »
Amazon’s “Five Star Theater” campaign represents a seismic shift in modern advertising. Rather than selling aspirations, the brand performs real customer reviews with theatrical intensity—transforming messy authenticity into marketing gold. This campaign works because audiences are exhausted by polished corporate messaging. They want to be seen, not sold to. The data backs this up: 90% of Gen Z prioritizes authenticity, 88% of consumers trust peer reviews over brand claims, and funny ads deliver 6x more brand lift than traditional spots. Amazon didn’t invent new content; it simply elevated what already existed—unfiltered testimonials from the reviews section—into strategic art. The result? A campaign that mocks influencer fakery, celebrates internet culture, and critiques advertising excess simultaneously. This signals the end of aspiration-based marketing and the beginning of recognition-based authenticity. The brands winning in 2025 aren’t trying harder. They’re trying differently.