AI Brand Comms Tracker, April 2025
Published 29 April 2025
Improved creativity in advertising is the third most cited advantage of brands’ use of artificial intelligence (AI), according to consumers (see Key Stats). We unpack three key engagement tactics – including a crop of ads riffing on AI image generation’s uncanny quirks – as well as those leveraging pop-cultural legacies, civic commerce initiatives preserving shared cultural heritage, and AI-enhanced eco-comms messaging.
Key Stats
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Coca-Cola Traces Literary Legacy: Spotlighting the brand’s place in cultural history, Coca-Cola’s Classic campaign used AI to scour modern literary classics for references to the beverage. Several mentions (including passages from American horror writer Stephen King’s The Shining and Nobel Prize-winning Trinidadian-British author VS Naipaul’s A House for Mr Biswas) were translated into understated minute-long video ads (launched across social media and cinemas in the UK), which feature a typewriter, complete with ASMR-inducing key taps (see Sonic Brand Strategies), typing the stories on a blank page. When the literature mentions Coca-Cola, typewriter text is replaced with a stamped Coca-Cola logo.
Also, see Future-Facing Heritage and Bibliophilic Brands in Brand Spaces 25/26.
ChatGPT’s Conversational Commerce Bids to Cut Through Digital Fatigue
Aiming to combat the digital fatigue that often accompanies e-commerce – 43% of Americans have intentionally reduced their screentime in the past year (Nuvoodoo, 2025) – OpenAI-owned ChatGPT’s launch of ‘conversational shopping’ sees it provide personalised product recommendations alongside a summary of product details, reviews and price comparison across retailers. The service will be available to those searching for fashion, beauty, electronics or home goods. Users can click on retailer links to check out. This follows similar moves from Google and US-based AI-powered search engine Perplexity. See Search Concierges Expedite E-Comm Missions in Digital Commerce 25/26: 8 Trends & Opportunities.
ChatGPT
KFC Singapore Riffs on AI’s Extra Finger Flaw: In a playful jab at AI’s inability to accurately depict human hands, the Singaporean arm of American fast food chain KFC amended its tagline (“It’s finger lickin’ good”) to cater for the distorted visual trope with an AI-generated Extra Finger Lickin’ Good campaign. Developed in collaboration with ad agency Havas Malaysia, the campaign features AI-generated images of diners with extra digits expressing their enjoyment of KFC’s chicken by licking their additional fingers. The ads were displayed across metro stations and inside Singaporean KFC stores.
Channel 4 Harnesses Absurdism for Reality TV Ad: British broadcaster Channel 4 leaned into absurdist AI imagery to promote the latest season of Open House: The Great Sex Experiment (a reality TV show where formerly monogamous couples pursue an open relationship with a third party).
The ad begins with realistic-looking AI-generated videos of happy couples, seen enjoying a cinema date and lounging in a pool together. Aligning with the show’s volatile premise, as a third person enters the scene, the visuals descend into aesthetic chaos, with the trios seen vomiting popcorn and spontaneously transforming into dolphins (both vomiting and sudden species transformation are common tropes in AI-generated weirdcore content).
For more on how generative AI visuals are taking over social media real estate, see Synthetic Social Media in Pop Culture Primer: 8 Trends for 2025.
KFC Singapore
Kirin Ichiban’s Tradition-Preserving AI Camera: Timed to Japan’s hanami season, when residents observe sakura trees blossoming (often celebrated with food and drinks, such as beer), Japanese beer brand Kirin Ichiban exemplified positive civic engagement with the launch of an AI tool that enables consumers to record the age and health of local trees.
Planted in the post-war period in Japan, many of the most common cherry tree species, Somei-Yoshino, are surpassing their 70-year average lifespan – putting Japan’s sakura ecosystem at risk. To aid the preservation of the hanami tradition, Kirin Ichiban developed Sakura AI Camera (accessible via a mobile-based microsite), letting users capture images of cherry blossom trees that are then assessed by a built-in AI to determine their age and health. The data is inputted into an interactive map, which charts the status of the trees across Japan. As of April 2025, data has been collected for more than 25,000 sakura trees (Kirin Ichiban, 2025). Information will be passed on to local authorities to spur proactive preservation efforts.
See also Civic Commerce: Socialising the Retail Revolution and Heineken Puts Irish Pubs’ Cultural Heritage in the (AR) Spotlight.
Tata Tea’s WhatsApp Tool Tracks Eco Habits: Steering consumers towards positive eco behaviours, Indian tea brand Tata Tea launched a WhatsApp-based tool for users to track their sustainable habits. When initiating the WhatsApp chat, they can select from a list of eco behaviours they wish to record (such as choosing public transport) and upload a photo of their action. The tool uses AI image recognition to verify the behaviour (for example, recognising a metro train interior) and provides an estimate of carbon emissions saved annually.
While the simple WhatsApp format encourages regular tracking, the tool could be made more effective if it was tied to a loyalty programme, incentivising positive behaviour. See Doing Better Daily: QR-Synced Smart Packs & Impact Receipts in Eco Comms, Autumn 2023.
Kirin Ichiban
Tata Tea