‘Perfectly Imperfect’: Resurfacing the Soul of Social Media in the Era of AI

In recent years, we’ve seen advertisers increasingly take advantage of low-fidelity marketing, particularly on social media. This “perfectly imperfect” content, mostly known for its underproduced visual representation, can also manifest in inconsistent voiceover quality and low-effort copywriting that has no regard for punctuation or capitalization.

Lo-fi marketing at first appeared counterintuitive to many brands and advertisers—in an industry with a history of airbrushed, auto-tuned perfection, “trying less hard” just didn’t feel right. But more brands have been embracing the content style, initially out of the necessity arisen during the pandemic, which stripped advertisers of their conventional production capabilities, and eventually due to its evident benefits.

Leaning into lo-fi production has not only equipped brands and agencies to more effectively partake in fleeting trends and operate on tighter timelines, it also allowed them to speak on par with their audiences and form authentic connections through content that appears native in the context of social media platforms. However, the lo-fi surge isn’t the only change that marketers have to adapt to: Methods of more professional production are rapidly evolving as well. The advancements of the contemporary industrial revolution, fancily dubbed Industry 4.0, is becoming widely accessible, including in the form of generative AI.

With both the ends and the means of creative production transforming so swiftly, the fate of content—and the professionals who create it—is in question. Where will lo-fi content evolve? How should creators adapt to AI tools? And could one perhaps be the remedy for the other?

Keeping up with the speed of culture

The first reason marketers are trading in tens of thousands of dollars of production gear and state-of-the-art post-processing techniques for camera phones and wonky in-app green screen filters is agility. Brands are forced to compete with creators who don’t have to navigate corporate red tape and multiple rounds of revisions in an extremely fast-paced, culture-driven environment. Naturally, production and timeline economies allow marketers to better meet ephemeral cultural moments.

The second reason is authenticity. Lo-fi doesn’t mean low quality; in fact, it requires something very difficult to fake: a keen ear to the ground of ever-changing culture and genuine connection with community. Turns out brands had permission to step off their shiny pedestals and communicate with customers in an executionally amateur manner all along. Corporations like Wendy’s and Target have used this “social media vocabulary,” ranging from irreverent to insightful, to effectively cut through clutter and reach their consumers.

Finally, it pays to fit in. Ad men have been known to cleverly slip the product placement pill in the bologna of entertainment since the early days of print ads. Throughout the 20th century, print media marketers faced more competition among each other and from other media vehicles like radio and TV, which led to what’s now known as the Golden Age of print advertising. Promotion- and value-focused ads, akin to coupon clippings, eventually evolved into full-fledged editorials, using copy and images to soft-sell products through whimsical storytelling while blending in with the rest of the content. The same tendency has occurred with TV advertising: Since ads are mere interruptions to the content viewers are trying to consume, marketers have learned to masquerade their work as part of the native media to surpass the “innate ad blockers” of a jaded audience.

Promotional content is always evaluated in the context of surrounding content and the medium itself. With social media being the most democratized media vehicle since cave wall etchings—boasting an incredibly low barrier to entry—the visual quality of the content is expected to be low. As a result, lo-fi brand content appears so naturally alongside content generated by users, and it’s proven to enjoy on average 40% more views than hi-fi visuals.

The revolutionary lesson

While brands are being rewarded for leveraging lo-fi content, creating high-quality output becomes increasingly effortless thanks to the developments in technology. We ushered in the Fourth Industrial Revolution in 2018, when McKinsey and World Economic Forum established the Global Lighthouse Network, an initiative to unite manufacturers spearheading the next generation of technology tools. The next generation of value chain efficiencies—Industry 4.0—incorporates an array of technologies like renewable energy, robotics, cloud computing and, of course, generative AI—which, with unheard-of adoption rates, has become ubiquitous in just about six months.

What are the near fates of content and the professionals that create it? Perhaps the inkling of an answer can be found by going several industrial revolutions back—specifically, the Second Industrial Revolution of the late 19th century, where a series of critical technological advancements including the steam engine shifted the manufacturing paradigm. With long hours and skill no longer required to produce merchandise, the place of the artist and the craftsman became uncertain as machines replaced handwork. And yet, instead of extinction, craftsmanship experienced a renaissance.

Technology marked the end of the aristocracy’s monopoly on production and spurred interest toward traditional methods of art and manufacturing as custom-made production became scarce. Artists began intentionally leaving tool marks in wood and stone as proof of their handiwork. The Arts and Crafts movement that emerged among many other craftsmen’s guilds in the U.K., and later around the world, has largely informed contemporary art and design.

Lo-fi versus AI

GenAI will inevitably wipe out some jobs, just like any productivity tool ever has. It will not replace human creativity, but rather democratize it. One can already use AI to generate high-quality imagery, surpassing the learning curve it would require even a couple years ago. The access to unprecedented tools will empower creators to develop more content, faster, using saved time to delve deeper into the strategic aspects of their work and tell better stories.

Consequently, now that final creative product is easier to achieve, the process of creation itself and the story at the core of content becomes more important. That’s where lo-fi content wins. It allows us to strip creative of glamorous production techniques and breathe meaning into content by favoring the journey over the picture-perfect—boring—result. Think behind-the-scenes creative, livestreams and leveraging user-generated content.

The conventional social media networks, like Facebook and Instagram, started out as tools for people to connect with others, share with friends and family, and identify communities of like-minded folks. But as those platforms were monetized, they fell captive to brands, creators and publishers, who skewed the landscape toward entertainment. That, in turn, stripped social media of its original purpose and raised the expectations for content quality. While AI accelerates the content race, rapidly flooding our feeds, many users, perhaps unknowingly, revolt—some in the form of joining emerging platforms, others by sharing even less adulterated content.

What if the modern lo-fi sensibility of recognizable iPhone photo quality, abrupt storytelling and photo dumps are the craftsman’s marks of our time—a token of value and authenticity in the age of mass content production? In this case, lo-fi creative may well be the answer to the content overload ailing social media dwellers, a way for marketers to AI-proof their efforts and zag in the age of content automation. We should expect brands and advertisers to lean further into perfectly imperfect marketing, focusing on more meaningful stories.