Use AI to show you the zigs, so you can make the zags

Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg told the world that Meta AI had become so advanced that brands would simply need to show up to the platform with a marketing objective, connect their bank account et voila … the system would handle everything without the need for creative, targeting or demographics.

But how well would it do this? Bryan Cano, the head of marketing at men’s fashion brand True Classic, took to X to put Meta AI’s efforts on show. The results were laughably bland.

This is what Will Lion, chief strategy officer at BBH London pointed out to me at the start of our chat on AI.

“What came back in this example was exactly Zuckerberg’s vision. But the output was literally grey. And the copy was totally uninspiring.”

For Lion, this embodies the current state of generative AI. “It shows what happens when you remove taste, creativity and human judgment from the process.”

In comparison to Meta AI’s fully generated content, social media is full of viral videos created using Open AI video-generator Sora. Whether it is the Queen getting a speeding ticket, Stephen Hawking on a Formula One track or different breeds of dogs doing Olympic-level dives, Lion’s argument is this: there is still a human behind it all creating humorous content. “You can apply these tools to almost anything and churn out slop but to have the ability to have your hand on the tiller - to guide and direct it - that makes the real difference.”

AI is only levelling us up

The technology is a great leveller that has democratised creative capability - for better and for worse, Lion believes.

While everyone can now access this democratising tool, the fundamental things that stand out - creativity, insight, judgment - are still the true differentiators.  

“We’re judging a technology that’s still in its infancy but there’s still a long way to go in terms of taste, sensibility and humour - all the things that people actually find interesting. They’re not quite in the realm of the machine yet.”

For Lion, AI is best understood as an amplifier - not a replacement. “It’s just making clear that the things that have always mattered … matter even more.”

The drudge work of creative strategy has also been reduced. Gone are the days of crawling though Goodreads, Instagram and other places that might provide insights. “Now you can just say, ‘Give me three quotes, a film scene, a TV scene and a meme about sabbaticals,’ and it gives it all back in seconds. What used to take two days of scrolling now takes ten seconds.”

This is liberation not laziness, he is quick to point out. “You still need taste - that human layer that goes. ‘Yeah, this one feels right.’” Lion tells his department to be proud and shameless in using tools that “zap intellectual drudgery.” It allows his team to elevate up and focus on the bigger, more creative parts of strategy.

He likens the arrival of AI to the arrival of Photoshop in that it did not kill creativity but rather demanded more of it and made it more accessible.

“We’re using it to raise all boats on creative craft and create more space and time for the kind of creative strategy that it still can’t do. And even if it could, everyone would be using it the same way - and we’d all end up with the same work anyway. So if you want to get ahead, you have to jump off the tracks.”

AI is improving the way BBH sells ideas, reducing the need for expensive shoots. “Now we can help clients understand our ideas instantly with AI visuals. It really closes the gap between our imagination and what they can visualise.”

As well as freeing up time for creativity, the secret to using AI to improve creative thinking, Lion believes, is also knowing when to artfully inject randomness. “It’s the cleverness of adding a little chaos into the system that gives you the good stuff back - those little creative devices.” Referring back to the Meta AI example, he adds that to reach the heights of human creativity, the tech company would firstly have to build in some code that injects quirky thoughts. “Otherwise, you’re just going to get grey grannies with grey fleeces sitting on grey chairs saying ‘the softest fleece ever.’”

Rejecting AI suggestions is also key for BBH’s strategy department. Lion wants to avoid the “sea of sameness” - and this is where the agency’s specialist AI tool The Zig Index comes in. 

 “One of the ways I think about AI,” Lion explains, “is that it lets you hire 100,000 strategists who are just sitting on GPUs somewhere around the world, humming away.” 

 What those digital strategists excel at, he says, are the repetitive, time-consuming tasks. “A competitor review before would have been some poor strategist sitting down, going through all the channels. Now, we’ve created a specialist AI called the Zig Index.” 

 The platform is essentially trained to sniff out clichés. It scours X, YouTube, TikTok, websites - anywhere a brand shows up online - and identifies the recurring tropes that dominate a category. “We take the top ten brands in any category, look back five years, and can set the geography we want. What we get back is an AI-generated script,” says Lion. “Basically, it says: ‘Here’s the obvious ad this category would make.’” 

 The results, he admits, are often unintentionally hilarious. “You’ll get lines like ‘Securing your tomorrows today’ for a health insurance brand, with a diverse family sitting outside having a great time. But that’s the point - what we’re able to do is quantify sameness.”  

 BBH can map the creative terrain of a whole category - the colours, tropes, story structures and taglines. The Zig Index acts as a creative mirror - one that shows clients exactly what not to do. “The clients say, ‘Yeah, let’s not do that.’ It holds everyone to account throughout, because it’s so easy to slip back into norms. You see the zigs, and AI gives you permission - and data - to zag.” 

Broader AI shortcomings 

 Tom Waits once said: “I like my music with the pulp and seeds left in - those are the nutrients.” Lion uses this quote to remind his team that insights are not just data points but ideas that make them say: “Fuck, I’ve never thought of it that way before.” 

 BBH’s 2023 Tesco Christmas campaign was built on the idea that people feel Christmassy at different speeds - some in October, some on Christmas Eve. “The insight is so simple, almost silly, but so true. And that’s where I think AI can sometimes miss - it gives you the pop version of insight. The obvious stuff. It doesn’t find the unusual, human angle.” 

Ex Tesla and OpenAI specialist Andrej Karpathy recently referenced the ‘model collapse’ - the idea that AI runs out of steam because it is designed to collapse answers down and give you the efficient and expected response.  

 “It’s not designed to give you diversity. For agencies, that’s the risk. If everyone uses these systems the same way, sure, you’ll get your first great campaign. But if everyone starts doing that, brands will get more and more samey - less distinctive, less memorable, less effective. We’ll end up with this big fat belly in the middle of the market: a mass of similar, mid-quality brands.” 

 “We need to use AI in bizarre and weird ways to level people out and get attention.”