They Called it Fyre Festival for Willie Wonka

In Glasgow recently, organizers put together an unsanctioned Harry Potter event, and it was so bad that angry parents called the cops.

What was fascinating to me is that the marketing for this event were a series of images made in AI.

When fyre festival epically bombed a few years ago, one area they didn’t skimp was in marketing. They hired supermodels like Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner, Elsa Hosk and Hailey Bieber to promote it.

Thanks to AI, marketers can now throw together glossy, polished marketing advertising material so easily.

High production values and in depth retouching used to be the hallmarks of a company with deep pockets and resources to fund it. With AI imagery that’s not the case anymore.

These Scottish parents were fooled by it, but I don’t think it’s going to be long before everyone is feeling numb and very skeptical to this polished imagery. What does this mean for the future of images and advertising?

I think we’re going to start seeing more emphasis put on imperfect images. Think Juergen Teller, Ryan McGinley and Wolfgang Tilmans.

A Ryan Mcginley Image

A Juergen Teller Image

From what I see, it’s actually harder for AI to do imperfect and flawed. As people get numb to these overly retouched AI images, I think we’re going to see more interest in advertisting images that feel real and technically imperfect.