Let Humor Reign
July 1, 2025
Notes from the intersection of AI and branding.
Adobe Says More Winks Are Coming
An Earful of Your Own Personal Ads
Spotify recently launched something called a Programmatic Ad Exchange, which sounds like exactly the kind of corporate naming convention that would make my college writing professor roll his eyes. But here's what it actually means: advertisers can now bid in real-time to reach you while you're listening to—and only when you’re listening to—your carefully curated "Songs to Cry to in the Car" playlist.
The platform is also rolling out AI tools that can generate audio scripts and voiceovers. So that intimate moment when a brand "speaks" to you through your headphones? There's a decent chance it was written and voiced entirely by algorithms. Microsoft Advertising is doing something similar, letting brands use AI to optimize campaigns and create personalized copy at scale.
Which brings up an interesting question: When personalization becomes this granular, what happens to the actual person behind the persona? Are we creating more meaningful connections, or are we just getting really sophisticated at digital stalking? (I’ll leave the do we have free will conversation for another day.)
The Enterprise Advantage (Or Is It?)
Organizations are adopting AI at what researchers are calling an "accelerated rate," especially at the enterprise level. The biggest companies are investing heavily. Will this give a future advantage to larger companies that are able to invest earlier in the technology? Greater efficiency and workforce automation are obvious first steps. But AI focus groups are here, too, and ultra-specific customer personalization will be easily available for all marketers soon. See Zohe’s take in his Growth Hacking. Everyone needs an AI plan going forward. Unsure if this is like a disaster plan or a vacation plan…
Gary Marcus, a cognitive scientist who's made a career of being a sometimes AI contrarian, suggests we might want to pump the brakes a bit. His recent podcast appearance on The Most Interesting Thing in AI is worth a listen if you enjoy having your AI optimism tempered with some healthy skepticism.
The Return of Funny
According to a recent Adobe whitepaper—because of course Adobe has thoughts about creative trends (though you may have read my rants about how slow they are to actually respond to those trends)—humor is going to be deployed more often in marketing communications this year. Which raises a question: If your brand's humor is increasingly generated by AI, will it actually be funny? I plan to write a post about best ways to use AI to add a third scoop of dripping, unbalanced humor to your branded content. More soon.
I mean, humor is fundamentally about surprise, timing, and shared human experience. Can an algorithm really understand why something is absurd enough to make us laugh? Or are we going to end up with a lot of technically correct jokes that feel like they were written by someone who learned about humor from a textbook?
If your brand trades in good-natured winking and genuine wit, this might be where AI-enabled Brand Gravity becomes essential. Because while AI can generate content that looks like humor, only a deeply understood brand foundation can ensure that humor actually feels authentic, purposeful, and distinctly yours.
What Are We Building, Anyway?
Sometimes it seems like all these AI developments are just focused on better targeting or more efficient campaigns. But consider what happens when the tools we use to connect with consumers forget the fundamentals of human connection.
The technology isn't the problem—it's the possibility that we'll use it to create more noise instead of more brand meaning. Because in a world where every brand can generate personalized content at scale, the ones that will stand out aren't necessarily those with the fanciest algorithms. They're the ones that remember what it means to be genuinely worth paying attention to.