🔥What’s Hot in Advertising Right Now
Stay up-to-date with the latest advertising trends and news.
Quick heads-up: In August, we’re shifting to Tuesdays only. Thanks for sticking with Ad Catalyst!
American Eagle's 'good jeans' ad ignites debate across race, beauty, and ethics
A provocative ad featuring Sydney Sweeney has gone viral—not for the jeans—highlighting how tone‑deaf branding can spark national conversation about inclusion and eugenics messaging.
Broadcasters Show Unexpected Fiscal Strength Against Headwinds
TV station groups are outperforming expectations—boosted by connected‑TV growth, dynamic ad insertion, and tech‑driven resilience in ad monetization.
Etsy Turns From TV Ads Toward Search, With AI as the Wild Card
Etsy is shifting millions from TV to search and influencer marketing—and betting agentic AI shopping behaviors will determine its next growth chapter.
Tech Giants Are Revising AI Product Claims That Faced Scrutiny
Shelved marketing claims from Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Samsung highlight how advertising compliance is tightening amid AI hype regulation.
Can you tell which image is AI?
As marketers, we’re no strangers to the doom and gloom around AI.
Even with advancements in AI, humans still play a vital role in the advertising industry.
Simon Westlake – an Australian photographer – reminds us of this fact with his ingenious promo.
In his ad, Simon features his photograph (right) side-by-side with an AI rendition of the same photo (left).
Both photos feature two men working on a rusty truck. He labels the AI photo and cleverly names his photo “SI eye.”
Without saying anything else, he challenges the viewer to compare both images.
And after taking a closer look, you’ll easily see the AI version is cluttered with mistakes.
Take a moment to find as many mistakes as you can (we’ll wait here ⌛).
Did you find the same things we did below? (If you found something we didn’t catch, let us know by replying to this email.)
Here’s our full list:
1. The headlight is not attached to the front of the car (it should be facing towards the right 👉).
2. The truck cabin and steering wheel are located on the side of the truck instead of behind the hood (remember, the guy on the right is supposed to be directly facing the front of the truck 🛻).
3. The background guy is standing through the middle of the truck (not next to the truck like a normal human 🪚).
4. Both men have some issues with their arms/hands. The guy by the hood seems to have half of a right arm, while the background guy doesn’t have normal fingers.
I don’t know what it is about AI and hands, but it always gets them wrong (it’s going for The Princess Bride joke, iykyk 6️⃣🖐️).
Sure, at first glance, you might not catch all of these AI mistakes (both men do have the right number of facial features 🧐).
But, the internet is great at finding AI/Photoshop mistakes in images (just Google celebrity photoshop mistakes).
And if you’re not careful, mistakes like these can shatter your ad campaign.
But want to know what photo doesn’t have all of these mistakes? Simon’s photograph.
It’s why this ad works so well.
It clearly shows human creatives outperforming AI – perfect for a photographer selling his services.
Speaking about AI performance, even MIT is sounding the alarm around AI usage here.
While Simon highlights AI’s accidental flaws, Colgate once flipped the script—intentionally sneaking in visual errors to prove a point.
What looked like Photoshop fails turned out to be a masterclass in customer insight…
Upgrade to premium to read it:
📷 The best Photoshop trick in advertising
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Ad Catalyst to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.