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How would you promote a product in the age of AI “slop”?

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I don’t want to rant here (but I probably will a bit)... 😀

Almost every ad visual, but also a lot of organic content on social media, is very generic and created by AI (I get it, it’s a cheaper and more scalable way of promoting). But when everyone does it, it becomes really hard to stand out and differentiate yourself.

I feel like it’s not just on the internet anymore, but even on TV.

So, how do you stand out in a time when there is an overload of information and AI slop everywhere around us?

The only possible solutions that come to my mind are guerrilla campaigns in physical spaces, whose impact is then amplified by social media sharing, basically some kind of mediated experience that people talk about online.

I know this will depend on the type of product, but how would you approach this?

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My contrarian take:

The problem isn't AI slop.

The problem is that most marketing was already slop before AI.

AI just made it cheaper.

People don't ignore content because it was generated by AI.

They ignore it because it's predictable.

Everyone is optimizing for production.

Very few are optimizing for insight.

The posts I save are rarely the most beautiful ones.

They're usually the ones that teach me something I didn't know five minutes ago.

In a world where everyone can generate content, originality becomes the moat.

 Was this written with the help of AI? :D

   it definitely was lol

Go back to being REALLY human! I really like how does this with

   That's how beehiiv is growing so fast

Absolutely!

I think the problem isn’t just AI-generated ad videos. The real issue is that we’re constantly exposed to ads every single minute. People are just getting tired of advertising in general.

Personally, I don’t even watch videos that have “sponsored” labels anymore. And if a regular video contains hidden advertising, I usually notice it quickly and just close it as soon as I hear familiar marketing patterns.

Based on my own behavior, I’m also realizing that I’m hitting a wall when it comes to marketing the product I’m currently building.

 We moved from TV to the Internet, not to see ads. But ads will find us everywhere.

 I can still remember the slogan and the jingle from a TV commercial I saw 15 years ago, even though the brand no longer exists. But I can't even remember an ad I saw five minutes ago. How can brands create the kind of lasting impact today that old commercials used to have—the kind that stayed in our heads and kept playing over and over?

 Which slogan do you refer to? :) Which brand was it?

one way is to be visibly human.

not performatively human, not "written by a real person" disclaimers.
just actual opinions, actual mistakes, actual behind-the-scenes.
the bar for that is getting lower every day because most content has been smoothed into the same AI texture.

the guerrilla/physical angle you mentioned works for the same reason. it's inherently unscalable, which is exactly why it stands out. if something can be generated at volume, it's already losing the attention game.

 I am afraid that this is not more valid, because AI can mimic all of those. Even AI made backstage photos.

 fair point, and i'd slightly push back. yes, ai can mimic backstage photos, stories, even tone. but what it can't replicate is the creative direction behind it. the actual thinking, the weird angle you chose, the decision to do something nobody else is doing. and whether you use ai or go fully manual, that part doesn't change. the edge is always in the thinking process and the approach you bring to it. two people using the exact same tools can produce wildly different outcomes based on that alone.

I think the problem is getting the right message, for the right audience, at the right time, and on the right platform. When I get my content right (regardless of writing with AI or myself) it performs well. When I miss the mark, it underperforms.

 The thing is many people are disgusted and even when you write well, they can have bias "another piece of content"

The thing nobody talks about is that AI slop actually helps you if you're willing to do the uncomfortable stuff — showing up in the comments, having real opinions, being wrong in public occasionally.

We stopped running any paid creative a while back. Not because we couldn't afford it, but because everything we made looked like everything else. Instead we started documenting the actual process of building — the ugly in-between stuff, the pivots, the bad user interviews. That content performs 10x better.

The bar for "authentic" has gotten paradoxically lower and higher at the same time. Lower because even a slightly rough, specific, human post stands out. Higher because people's BS detectors are finely tuned now. You can't fake texture.

Tina's point is right — presence compounds. The question is whether you're building a media presence alongside the product, or hoping the product will do the marketing for you. In 2026 you really can't rely on the latter.

 And what product are you standing for?

 we’re building Propane, which is a workspace for product teams to work on a collective and compounding context - planning on launching here on PH next week 😇🤞

 we’re actually looking for someone to hunt us.. in case you know someone.. cough cough 🙈

Specificity is the antidote. Slop is generic by nature, so anything hyper-specific to a real person's real problem cuts through immediately. I sell AI prompt packs for specific niches like real estate agents and content creators. Not "AI prompts." That specificity alone does more than any ad campaign.

 okay, but it is customised service, isn't it?

I’d separate “stand out” into two jobs: getting noticed and being trusted after someone notices.

AI slop mostly breaks the second one. A campaign can be clever or physical, but if the follow-up page, founder posts, replies, and screenshots all sound like the same generic assistant wrote them, the trust leaks out fast.

For small teams I’d start with proof that is hard to fake: messy before/after decisions, specific customer language, founder tradeoffs, tiny product constraints, and examples of what you deliberately *won’t* say or do. Then use AI to package that material, not invent the personality from scratch.

So yes to guerrilla/IRL if it fits, but the durable moat is usually a recognizable point of view plus real artifacts behind it.

 I am afraid that people will start using AI (or AI will act on its own) and make mistakes to sound more "human". 😭

 Yes — the fake imperfection loop is already starting. The point is not “make it sound messier”; it is “make it traceable to something real.”

A typo or awkward sentence is not proof of humanity. A specific tradeoff, a real customer phrase, a screenshot with context, or a founder saying “we tried X and it failed for this boring reason” is much harder to fake convincingly.

You've touched on something real here. Stop using AI for storytelling. Use AI to work faster. Use authenticity to stand out. We're building Leandeck with this exact philosophy. Specific stories > Generic optimization. That's the differentiator

 I would say: Just use AI for research and polishing, but your story should be narrated by you.

I think specificity is the antidote to AI slop.

Generic content is easy to generate now, so what stands out is real examples, sharp opinions, customer language, and proof that you actually understand the problem.

One honest user story or specific lesson is often stronger than ten polished posts.

 That's why I cherish mistakes in the posts ;)

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