How would you promote a product in the age of AI “slop”?
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?
Replies
I’d avoid anything that feels like an ad by default.
People are already tired of polished, generic content, especially when it looks like it was made in 30 seconds. So the goal should be to make promotion feel less like “look at our product” and more like “here’s the problem we noticed, and here’s how we’re trying to solve it.”
Real examples, honest progress, user stories, messy behind-the-scenes details, and useful insights usually stand out more than another perfect visual.
So yes, make the ad less ad-like, and make it more solution-oriented.
ran a 60 day newsletter push for my startup recently and the pattern matches what people are saying about presence, but the specific thing that moved the needle for me wasn't the posts themselves. it was replying to individual comments and DMs from people who'd engaged. almost every real subscriber I can trace back to a conversation, not a piece of content. the post is just the excuse to start the conversation. AI can write the post for you now, it can't have the back and forth that actually converts someone