It’s a long time since an ad campaign caused as much of a stink as this: Mother’s rather understated Super Bowl exposition of Anthropic’s opposition to ads on AI platforms has reduced OpenAI’s Sam altman to seeming apoplexy.
It’s always funny when those modern day masters of the universe the tech titans have their cages rattled. Anthropic has done more than that though. Its new variant Claude Opus 4.6 can, it seems, replace most of the data-based tasks many modern businesses are founded on and, in the process, replace their people. The big AI fear of course.
So shares in the ad holding companies tumbled on Wednesday, including Publicis. Publicis’ recent success is founded on data businesses so it may be vulnerable. Cindy Rose is trying to turn WPP around via AI so the same, presumably, applies there. Big education businesses like Pearson and legal firms were hammered yesterday on the same fears.
Mother, blessedly, does not bang on endlessly about data and AI, preferring to weave its magic spells from its Shoreditch fastness behind a wall of mystery. Maybe there’s hope for creative agencies still.
Update
Looks like it won the Super Bowl ad contest too.
