Ep 199: AI-generated ads and the future of creative production

Can you tell the difference between an ad featuring a real person versus an ad featuring a person generated by AI? According to today’s guest, AI is close but not quite there. However, it is democratizing access to high-quality advertising content for small and mid-sized businesses. John Gargiulo is a seasoned entrepreneur and growth expert currently leading Ready Set, Sleepless, and AirPost – three brands approaching the challenges of growth and creative production with different AI solutions. In this episode, Apptivate host Taylor Lobdell taps into John’s perspective of the AI landscape to learn about where AI-generated ads are today, what the role of human marketers will be tomorrow, and which AI tools marketers should be paying attention to now.

Listen on Apple podcasts

Listen on Spotify

• If you were a marketing manager focused on creatives at an e-commerce brand, how would you get started using AI to produce ads?
• How do you think creative teams are evolving now that AI is here?
• Will there still be a need to work with humans in a world where AI can create ads on demand, and in what role?
• How is AI democratizing access to high-quality content for small and mid-sized brands?
• What AI tools do you recommend for marketers?
• How much should marketers be on top of new AI tools?
• Tell us about your time at Bluestacks.
• What advice would you give to someone trying to break into marketing today?

• 0:58 John’s background
• 3:20 Footage engineering aka AI-generated imagery
• 4:57 Getting started with AI for making ads
• 7:26 Limitations of using AI for advertising
• 9:38 Will AI take our jobs?
• 12:43 The role of humans in AI-generated ads
• 14:58 The value of AI for creating ads
• 16:47 Recommended AI tools
• 18:28 How much should marketers be on top of new AI tools?
• 21:48 BlueStacks
• 23:43 How to rise to the top
• 27:47 What to do in Silicon Valley

(4:05-4:26) “Yes, the AI orchestrates the script, the voiceover, the performance framework, the footage with the supers, the music – but it needs good ingredients to work with to make the sauce. So, if you can actually engineer footage – particularly with people and products in the frame together (because that’s hard to shoot at scale), it would be a complete game-changer for the marketing industry.”