Maintaining Brand Safety and Integrity in the AI Slop Era

Algorithms are flooding feeds with AI slop. What’s a brand that’s spending money and time to capture attention to do?

During an ADWEEK House Possible panel co-hosted with Silverpush, industry leaders tackled that question as well as how to evaluate risk and protect your brand’s media buy in an ever-messier landscape.

Brand integrity on the line

With so much low-quality content clogging up feeds, Sarah Larkin, VP of sales at Silverpush, suggested that brands may need to redefine what success and performance mean for them and put the proper protections in place. “You have to have your own guardrails around what that brand safety definition is for you, because every brand is so different,” she said.

Maintaining brand integrity is a top priority for Best Friend Animal Society, Jessie Earl, the group’s associate director of paid media strategy and digital engagement, shared.

“We are trusted with donor dollars to do the best we can to reach more people,” she said. (5:04) As such, while the nonprofit does lean into machine learning, it limits certain placements that don’t align with the brand mission. “We know where we belong and where we don’t. Over the years, we’ve removed politics and religion, conversations that homeless pets don’t need to be part of, and we’re good with that,” explained Earl.

Freddy Dabaghi, chief transformation officer at Crispin, acknowledged that although most brands have certain types of content they prefer not to be part of, there is always some gray area, too.

“Some consumers are OK with AI slop; for some consumers, that is their entire feed. And if they’re engaging with your content, they’re purchasing your products, then I don’t think it actually is that bad,” he said.

It becomes problematic when there’s an obvious disconnect between the brand message and where it’s placed. “If you have a brand that is talking about skincare and all the content is AI, then it does feel inauthentic to your brand,” said Dabaghi.

Same slop, different trend

AI slop may be the problem du jour, but the sentiment surrounding it harkens back to the days when user-generated content started appearing on YouTube to the dismay of brands, said Larkin. But over time, she pointed out, the industry pushed back, and UGC became better.

“I think the same thing is going to happen with AI. I think those that are true AI slop are going to be optimized out,” said Larkin.

For now, the comfort level around AI will be brand-dependent, said Earl. That’s why you won’t see Best Friend Animal Society using AI-generated pets in their videos anytime soon. “We’re not going to start making up pet stories,” she said. Instead, she shared that they’ll be staying “true to our brand integrity, through and through.”

Dabaghi applauded Earl for taking that stance, but added he’s excited for the prospect of working with more brands that decide to use AI intentionally as well.

The session ended on a positive, hopeful note that in the next year or two, AI slop will be but a faint memory. “I think we’re going to see a lot less of that and a lot more of the well-produced, well-thought-out, well-intentioned AI content,” said Larkin.

First appeared on Adweek.