Inside CPG's AI advertising boom, from Super Bowl spots to synthetic focus groups
· Business Insider
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- Coca-Cola and Svedka are using AI to enhance holiday and Super Bowl ads, speeding up content creation.
- Companies like Mondelēz and Blue Chip use AI to test concepts, saving time and improving strategies.
- The tech can help CPG firms work faster, but risks include AI slop in campaigns.
Coca-Cola's holiday ad and Svedka's Super Bowl commercial share more in common than promoting a beverage — both were generated with the help of AI.
The technology is catching on at consumer goods companies, with marketing leaders adding AI to their processes on both the creative and strategic sides.
As a result, assets and campaigns are coming to fruition faster than they could without AI.
AI in Action explores how companies are implementing AI innovations.
Before AI, it could take Mondelēz International up to 10 weeks — from concept to production — to spin up a six- to eight-second social media video for its Chips Ahoy! character "Chip," said Jennifer Mennes, VP and global head of digital marketing and strategy at Mondelēz International.
Now, the marketing team can prompt AI and create a video in less than five minutes. After various checks by human members of the team, the total process might take days.
The biggest opportunities aren't necessarily in "big flashy campaigns," like Super Bowl spots, Mennes said. Instead, AI is helping CPGs quickly produce a greater volume of text, headlines, social content, and lifestyle imagery. As firms pump out more content, they could risk putting out AI slop and turning off consumers with AI-generated material. But so far, the efficiency gains are proving worthwhile as companies and agencies save weeks of time, especially on high-volume work and strategy.
"It doesn't seem that exciting," Mennes said. "But it's actually driving impact."
Testing and learning with AI
AI can play a role in parts of the marketing process that are invisible to consumers, such as idea generation. Johnny Rohrbach, founder of global partnerships and operations at Silverside AI, said marketing teams and their partners can "come up with different directions until the cows come home." His AI lab works with several CPGs, including Coca-Cola, on its holiday campaigns.
Focus group testing is another AI use case. Sonja Evans, VP of business intelligence and strategy at Blue Chip Marketing Worldwide, said her agency partners with Waldo.fyi, an AI company, to create digital twins of a brand's target consumers, using detailed demographics and purchase history. The team then presents creative ideas to this synthetic audience.
"We can talk to them just like we would be talking to a consumer," Evans said. Based on the feedback, the agency whittles down the ideas before presenting them to real consumers. The feedback from digital and virtual consumers "is shockingly similar," she said.
Blue Chip — which has worked on campaigns for Bob's Red Mill, Emerald Nuts, and Panera Bread — also uses AI to create what's known as a boardomatic. This is essentially an animated version of a spot with voiceover, script, and motion, but without the time, costs, or hired talent needed for a shoot.
The agency can test multiple animated spots with consumers to gauge their reactions "before we even spend a dollar on production," Evans said. The agency then uses the feedback to decide which version goes into full production.
Avoiding the trap of AI slop
Today, consumers demand more content, creating a cycle in which brands must appear in their feeds more often to stay top of mind, Rohrbach said. Marketing budgets don't always expand to keep pace with consumer trends. He added that AI can help bridge the gap, allowing marketing teams to do more with the money they're allocated.
There's a fine line when it comes to volume, though.
"If the spots feel like garbage and if you're just pumping out content because you can, then you're going to turn off the consumer," Mennes said, adding that a human is always in the loop at Mondelēz. The CPG company sees AI as additive and enhancing how it already connects with consumers, not replacing workflows.
"Nothing goes into the market without rigorous approval," Mennes said.
For food brands, especially, imagery needs to look real and authentic, Evans said. "People are very quick to call out when something looks AI."
Consumers have blasted brands for AI slop, with many criticizing AI-generated Super Bowl ads as uninspired or low-quality. Rohrbach, whose AI lab partnered with Svedka parent company Sazerac to produce its AI Super Bowl spot, said brands need to ensure they're not putting out content that's irrelevant, poorly executed, or "a little bit tone deaf." His lab's Coca-Cola holiday ad was among the spots that drew criticism, but he said the ad performed "exceptionally well" according to internal and external testing.
The strong performance may have been partly driven by the attention it received for using AI, even though social media sentiment was largely negative. In fact, the spot was the most talked-about Christmas ad of 2025.
"I'm super proud of that ad," Rohrbach said. He added that Coca-Cola is "very much on the vanguard" of AI experimentation, and CPGs as a whole are embracing the technology due to the high demand for content.
In fact, a BCG study from February found that seven in 10 CPG marketing leaders expect GenAI to help them work faster — although only 13% said the tech is fully integrated into marketing workflows. The report said the figures point to a maturity gap. Evans said bigger brands may have larger budgets to experiment with AI, while midmarket companies are contending with tariff and inflation pressures, making them more focused on business goals than on AI experimentation.
Mennes said major CPGs are "well on their journey" and "rapidly embracing this space." Plus, she's noticed a change among her CPG peers. For the first time in her career, they're cross-sharing ideas, comparing challenges related to hallucinations, and gut-checking solutions with one another.
"It's actually refreshing," Mennes said. "If we can help each other out on that, it just accelerates our ability to transform our organizations."
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