AI deepfake ads—what brands can learn from GetDirty’s influencer experiment

Deepfake ads platform Arcads was thrust into the spotlight after a social media post it helped create for GetDirty wipes went viral online, with onlookers debating whether the entire video was completely AI-generated. On the surface, GetDirty’s video appeared like any other influencer promotion. In it, Ariel Marie, an influencer who gets work through the freelance platform Fiverr, makes an earnest pitch for GetDirty wipes. But the internet picked up on a slightly-off feeling associated with AI, with many thinking the post and Marie were completely computer generated. GetDirty’s founder said there was no plan to run the video as an ad. Still, it hit the internet, where it soon prompted viral discussions. In actuality, Ariel Marie is a real person—and she works with Arcads’ ad-generating platform. The GetDirty video served as a fresh example of how Arcads and other AI tools can help brands create deepfakes—which are digitally manipulated media for entertainment or misinformation—and how real footage of creators, and their speech, could be altered to read any script and promote any agenda. Tools such as Arcads mark a new point in the AI revolution in advertising that affects everything from how brands make social media ads to how they plan creative for campaigns. There have been voices in the industry arguing for caution around the technology, arguing it could generate ads that don’t meet the same standards humans apply. Meanwhile, AI enthusiasts see generative AI as the ultimate advertising tool, bringing creative ideas to (virtual) life in seconds with images, video, text and speech. Arcads seemed to hit at just the right moment in an advertising world that is still suspicious of AI and all the ways it could upend the traditional modes of business. Arcads allows influencers to license their likenesses so any brand could automate social media posts featuring them singing the brands’ praises. For creators, the technology could be an accelerant. In this case, the AI-generated video ultimately led to a new brand-influencer connection, with GetDirty striking a deal with Marie for future campaigns. AI marketing blog How brands are using ChatGPT, DALL-E 2 and other tools Read more here The technology and the ads it can help produce raise ethical questions, such as how much control influencers will have about the types of products they cosign when any brand can take their image and voice. Such ads also touch on the need to properly identify AI-generated work so as not to confuse audiences. There are larger societal questions with the proliferation of AI, as deepfakes could be used to make anyone say anything and fool consumers. Bad actors have already used the likenesses and voices of Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Joe Rogan and many others to make ads without their permission. Those ads have shown up on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and elsewhere. ‘Made business boom’ Arcads works directly with creators, including Marie, who sent the company versions of her typical social media posts that could be manipulated later for brand purposes. “I would like to continue working [with] them for future projects,” Marie told Ad Age in a message last week. When asked about the implications of having an AI-powered doppelganger out there, Marie said: “Honestly, I just think it’s accelerating what I’m already doing. People are still reaching out to me, wanting to get footage and content produced by quote ‘the real Ariel’ so it’s honestly made business boom more than ever.” In fact, on Friday, Fiverr announced it would work more closely with Marie, too, and named her an “ambassador for the AI spokesperson category.” Marie will share tips on the freelancer platform to help influencers navigate AI in the creator sphere. Marie also posted a new video to X, formerly Twitter, saying she is a real person, aiming to dispel any confusion that the woman in the GetDirty video was computer-generated. You’ve probably seen videos of @marieeaariel and wondered if she’s real or AI. Would you believe it if we told you not only is she real but you can also hire her on Fiverr to create UGC content for your brand?https://t.co/WbVu4hFW5p. https://t.co/tPAqM0Txc7 pic.twitter.com/ppiTyGFUHq— Fiverr (@fiverr) March 28, 2024 Arcads charges $100 to generate an ad, and Marie lists a menu of options for personal videos she produces through Fiverr, starting from about $80 for user-generated content for product reviews and other videos. One of Marie's new business partners is Becky Litvin, founder of GetDirty wipes, who made the brand’s initial post featuring the influencer through Arcads. In the Arcads platform, Marie’s likeness sits among a catalog of influencer options, and her character is called Lily. “I know it’s pretty bad but this video is AI generated, made it while playing around with some content for GetDirty,” Litvin said a little more than a week ago on her LinkedIn account, where she goes by Becky Litvintchouk. “I won’t be using it because it looks a bit off but imagine where we can be in 6 months to a year.” “I commissioned the video from Arcads but never actually ran it as an ad,” Litvin told Ad Age by email. “I was mostly just testing it out and was impressed by how good it was for ‘AI.’ The real life creator reached out to me, and we are now working together on branded content.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by GetDirty (@shopgetdirty) Here are the top 5 AI activations in marketing right now The Arcads version of Marie is not an AI-generated influencer. Instead, the platform uses voice generation and video manipulation techniques to make it look like she is saying the words prompted by a script. There are true AI influencers that have become popular in recent years, though, such as Lil Miquela, which has worked with Prada, Calvin Klein and YouTube and has 2.6 million followers on Instagram, where it is described as a “19-year-old Robot living in LA.” Meanwhile, Instagram works with Kendall Jenner on an AI influencer and chatbot project under an account called “your sis Billie,” which mixes the real Jenner with some AI-generated content. User-generated performance U.S. influencers stand to generate $8.14 billion from brand deals this year, an increase of 16% from last year, according to a new report from eMarketer. AI could help infuse more user-generated content into feeds, but it’s unclear how high-performing the ads will be once the novelty wears off. Alex Cooper, a marketing commentator on YouTube, recently made a video showing the ease of using Arcads to create influencer testimonials for brands. The video shows Cooper going into the platform, picking an influencer character, giving it a script and generating the video in minutes. Single testimonials, like the one generated by GetDirty, are not the best creative for performance, with or without an AI component, Cooper said, adding that the best way to use Arcads’ videos is to splice them into longer videos that incorporate more information. “What I think the main value of this kind of tool is, is to be able to build up your content library with clips that can be used inside of mashups,” Cooper said. Cooper also mentioned that consumers may not notice when AI is used, even when the video is labeled properly. “When we are speaking to people on the news feed they are in their dumbest, most stupidest dumbest state,” Cooper said. “They are either sitting on the sofa, or they’re in bed, or they’re on the toilet. They are not in a mind state to catch this kind of thing, and if you struggle as a marketer to catch it then best believe they will as a consumer find it difficult.” More social media news: Gen Z trends for brands to watch Arcads, on its website, has displayed ads that it created for the hit game Monopoly Go and dating app Tinder, as examples of its past work. But the startup took down the Monopoly Go reference after being asked about its affiliation with the developer of the game. Monopoly Go did not return a request for comment, and Arcads did not address a question about working with Monopoly Go when asked for comment. It’s unclear if Monopoly Go ever authorized Arcads to mock up AI-generated ads for the game using deepfake influencers. Tinder did not return a request for comment about whether it worked with Arcads, as the website suggests, nor did its parent Match Group. Arcads also lists performance marketing partners, including Photoroom, Codeway and Voodoo. Codeway and Voodoo were not available for comment. Photoroom is an AI editing tool for creating images of products and other services, and it has used Arcads in marketing, according to Lauren Sudworth, Photoroom’s head of brand and content. “Gen AI is really useful in ads, but right now most of the use cases for us are helping automate or fine tune a certain aspect of the ad, rather than helping us generate entire ads from scratch,” Sudworth told Ad Age by email. “For example, AI generated voices have helped us localize ads for international markets very quickly or test the kind of voices that perform best in ads.” Read about AI washing in advertising The proliferation of AI in advertising could cause problems for brands and creators, though, said Ricky Ray Butler, CEO of Benlabs, an AI-focused entertainment company. Butler advises brands to properly vet the startups that are all over the AI ad game. “There’s a there’s a lot of gray areas there and you have to be extremely careful of what types of deals you sign with brands, especially if they’re startups where they’re performance marketing companies, or in performance marketing agencies, you have to be very careful there,” Butler said. This is especially important for creators who are giving their images over to anyone who can then control their words. “Context is everything right,” Butler said.

AI deepfake ads—what brands can learn from GetDirty’s influencer experiment

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