OpenAI’s recent ads for ChatGPT were everywhere—NFL Primetime, streaming platforms, outdoor, and beyond. Press coverage hailed the AI company’s biggest marketing push yet as a new chapter of AI brand building.
But few pointed out just how incredibly poor the ads were.
Set aside the irony of an AI company relying on traditional media to promote its product. Focus instead on the dire creative quality of the two TV spots, Pull-Up and Dish.
Research firm System1 tested both ads with a representative panel of U.S. consumers. The results confirm that while AI tech bros continue to kill it with product development, they’re lightyears behind on the rest of the marketing challenge.
Both ranked in the lowest quintile for long-term growth and short-term sales impact. That’s incredibly bad, even for the tech category, which always underperforms.
Worse, both scored dismally on fluency—System1’s measure of whether consumers actually know which brand is being advertised to them.
Source: System1 FluencyTrace real time testing of “Pull-Up”The Pull-Up ad managed a fantastically bad fluency score of 59. That means only 59% of viewers–who were being paid to watch the ad with their full attention–knew what was being advertised. In System1’s real-time assessment above, you can see a black ocean of ignorance engulfing the audience. A disappointingly small hump of pink recognition kicks in two seconds before the end, when ChatGPT’s logo appears.
This is the definition of bad advertising, standing in rude contrast to the sea of pink when KFC or Apple or Mars ads are tested.
Source: System1 FluencyTrace real time testing of Twix “Two Bears” Ad