AI is turning entry level media jobs to dust.

The Media Mix podcast interview with Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.

Flamin’ Hot: AI is torching the low-level media job market.

From Hollywood to Madison Avenue, artificial intelligence is the buzzword and bogeyman of 2023.

Some are fighting the AI-driven job destruction and copyright infringement (Hollywood acting and writing talent, authors and journalists) and some are embracing all the ways AI can compress time consuming tasks, produce copy and cut costs (creative ad agencies and corporate C-suite executives.) 

“Advertising, journalism, script writing, TV, they are all going to be affected,” creative ad guy Jeff Goodby told The Media Mix podcast this week. “because AI really can do a pretty passable job of writing those things that you have to write when you first get a job at a radio or TV station, a newspaper, or an advertising agency. I'm afraid the AI can do that stuff really well, and reproduce it and make it for lots of different media, immediately.” 

Goodby is the co-founder of Goodby, Silverstein and Partners, a San Francisco-based creative ad agency, known for its highly memorable Super Bowl spots for fast food giants that break the fourth wall, taking campaigns from TV into real life. The Doritos Triangle campaign which used augmented reality is a good example of what they’re about.

Margaret Johnson, the agency’s chief creative officer, told me the company spends 10 percent of its budgets exploring how to use new technology and teaching clients. “Don’t run away, because humans that are using AI are going to replace those who don’t,” she warned in the interview. 

The agency believes the only way to deal with new technology is to embrace it to offer marketers human created ideas propelled by AI. 

Goodby and Johnson are being inundated at the moment by under employed writers from Hollywood, striking over AI-related incursions into their field. And those strikes are having a knock-on effect on marketers trying to book celebrities for next year’s Super Bowl. So far, those bold faced names have to sit on the sidelines because of their union doesn’t want them doing promotions. (Goodby explains how some marketers can get around those hurdles on the podcast.)

Goodby and Johnson share that they’re working on a bigger number of Super Bowl spots than usual, pointing to a more buoyant ad environment come next year. They report that AI conversations have “jumped the shark” to such an extent that it will be a big comedic theme of the in-game Super Bowl commercials next year. 

From AI’s DALL-E to surrealist painter Dali, Goodby has been fusing technology and creativity for years. The agency worked with OpenAI on a project for the Salvador Dali Museum in Spain bringing the artist back to life via a deep fake. 

Separately, the two creative ad executives share that AI products could use some branding help. 

Goodby says on the podcast, “One of the things that Margaret and I have been talking about a lot is branding AI.  Nobody's really done a branding job for their version of AI…ChatGPT, Bard, all these different names are there, but there's not really a brand for them, and what’s different from one from the next.” 

Sounds like a job opportunity for someone. 

Credits: Thanks to The Media Mix podcast team: EP: Jamie Maglietta and the Situation Room Studios: Raymond Hernandez, Christine Baratta, Johanna Maska and Brett Bruen.

Listen to this week’s podcast here. Let us know what you think with a review, rating or subscription. Drop us a line at: TheMediaMixUS@gmail.com.