Can’t Auto-Generate Ethics
Using generative AI seems to diminish the instinct to credit intellectual property and actual creativity. The examples are piling up.
There was the incident last year when OpenAI blatantly ripped off Scarlett Johansson as the voice of its new AI agent after asking for permission and being denied. Sam Altman, OpenAI’s co-founder and CEO, cheekily noted the dub, tweeting only the word “her” when the product was released (a nod to the movie of the same name in which Johansson voices a disembodied AI product).
Now, the studio that produced “Blade Runner 2049” is suing Tesla and Warner Bros. Discovery because Tesla allegedly fed video and images from the film into an LLM to generate unlicensed lookalike material for a Tesla product launch. According to the suit, Tesla and WBD (the distributor of the film, but not the studio) asked for permission first, but were refused and so decided to auto-generate content as a workaround, reports The Hollywood Reporter.
And then there’s Mark Zuckerberg, who has said publishers and individual creators “overestimate the value” their work has for AI models. Meta, for its part, has already begun auto-generating bot profiles of seemingly real people, as well as auto-generating comments, not to mention ad creative.
Silent Partner Network
Google’s Search Partner Network (SPN), which licenses Google searches to third-party sites, is relatively small – at least by Google standards. It’s still a billion-dollar annual business.
But SPN, according to some, is also a black box of subpar inventory.
“It is fraudulently bad traffic,” writes Mike Ryan, head of ecommerce insights at consultancy Smarter Ecommerce. Ryan, typically a diplomatic poster, goes on to say: “This year I want to burn Google’s Search Partner Network to the ground.”
Google has made a few teensy concessions to SPN advertisers. For example, starting last month, Google said it would stop serving SPN ads to parked domains by default.
But parked domains are garbage!
Have you ever misspelled a website and reached a domain that’s blank except for a few random, spammy links? Some of those are parked domains, others are simply dormant, but they all prompt Google searches.
Meanwhile, an Adalytics report released last year detailed some horrific third-party sites, far worse than parked domains, taking advantage of SPN’s opacity.
From Google’s perspective, the blowback is a bit much, since advertisers can turn off SPN with one click. But Microsoft has a similar search partner network, and it offers URL-level transparency, which Google does not.
If Google isn’t ashamed of SPN, it should show what’s inside.
Dress For Success
Perhaps no company better encapsulates the macroeconomic ups and downs of the past few years better than David’s Bridal.
The wedding gown seller was bought out of bankruptcy in 2023 by CION Capital, a midmarket business lender, and proceeded to do some major cost-cutting, including closing one-third of its retail locations and reducing from 10,000 to 6,000 employees.
This year, David’s Bridal expects to achieve profitability, CEO Kelly Cook tells The Wall Street Journal. Although, was that before or after April 2? Anyway, Cook took the top job last year after more than five years in leadership roles at the company, including CMO.
David’s Bridal was a victim of changing consumer habits. But now the wedding retailer will open locations under different brands, including for bespoke gowns costing up to $10,000, many times more than its historically more affordable prices.
But David’s Bridal stores will also keep serving its thriftier clientele with dresses ranging from $99.95 to $299.95. (At least round up, c’mon.)
To cap it all, in December, David’s Bridal acquired Love Stories TV, a wedding content producer, and launched its own retail ad business called Pearl Media Network.
But Wait! There’s More
Best Buy launched an affiliate storefront program for social creators who recommend tech and consumer products carried in its stores. [Adweek]
According to search tracking vendors, Google’s AI Overviews are now showing up more overall searches than they were a month ago. [Search Engine Roundtable]
Meta is pitching advertisers much more openly on its AI services for recommending and auto-generating creative. [Ad Age]
Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke says employees will be required to demonstrate why a task cannot be completed using AI before requesting new hires or additional resources. [CNBC]
You’re Hired!
CivicScience appointed Gretchen Tibbits as President and Chief Operating Officer. [release]
Greenbids names Rebeca Vélez Minguez as Global Marketing Manager. [release]
Thanks for reading AdExchanger’s daily news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
