Tag: advertising

GenAI Ads Gone Wild

Earlier this year, I started noticing some very strange ads showing up in my Google phone feed. The ad copy and the images were odd at best, nonsensical at worst. The images and copy made zero sense together. I wish I’d captured more of them!

My working theory is that this was an early attempt at GenAI-based ad copy + image creation. It didn’t last very long, perhaps a few weeks, so either the technology got dramatically better, or they pulled the plug and re-introduced human curation of the ads. I suspect the latter. Either way, I did manage to capture these amusing examples, so enjoy GenAI Ads Gone Wild…

This appears to be a from-the-future Miley Cyrus who is slightly irked she did not follow Lendgo’s “genius” tricks.

This woman is looking very stern in a court room. Did she borrow from a bank and they took her to court?

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What exactly do USB-C docking stations have to with Women’s Day? Are these deadly hubs worthy of the “Femme Fatale” moniker?

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I don’t think the people at Melo Air understand how caffeine impacts most people. It does not tend to make them sleepy…

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Unless this is an arm-shaped pillow that also touches you inappropriately, I don’t understand what this ad is promoting.

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Wait, why do silk pajamas need amino acids?!?

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Advertising With Radio Metadata: Just When I Thought I’d Seen Everything…

radio-ads-on-car-console

Like most people, I’m accustomed to seeing advertising across nearly every facet of my life. I truly did not expect to see advertising on the console screen in my Mazda 3. It seems this particular radio station in the Seattle area uses the tiny bit of data that can be pumped on FM frequencies (or maybe it’s only on HD radio, I’m not sure) to display an ad for Western Washington Honda Dealers. How utterly tacky and desperate of them…and of the Honda dealership to participate in such a thing. Who thought this was a good idea?

Blockless Ad Blocker: The FAQ They Missed

Yes, I’m kind of a smart-ass sometimes, but this is really how I feel about ad-blockers. Despite how much I like Blockless (DNS trickery is so much cleaner than a full-blown VPN solution), I won’t be paying for their service. As someone who once made a living off providing content for free, and supported his family off of advertising, I know that ad blocking is theft. It’s just a theft that most people can’t wrap their brains around because there’s no real-world equivalent.

Blockless-Ad-Blocking

UPDATE: To their credit, the community manager at Blockless replied to my email: “As a professional who has sold advertising for over 5 years, currently uses advertising and manages many affiliates of Blockless I have to disagree. Either way you are entitled to your opinion and not sure if you noticed but Ad Blocker does have an off button. Let me know the email attached to your account and I will cancel and unsubscribe you from our service.” If he was on the publisher side, he’d get it.