Samsung ad crashing out for so many reasons

Astonishing.

This Samsung Electronics ad crashing out for so many reasons.

And then there's this one.

Bias.

In AI. Everywhere. All over our marketing and deep in this campaign.

Watch it, slowly.
What you'll see is it's all white, good-looking, slim men as the 'adventurers'.
The backs of locals 'of colour' as the guides.
No women. Anywhere.
Adventures are not for everyone, clearly.

Marketing keeps women indoors, according to recent research on the Cannes Lion body of work from The Geena Davis Institute.

For men, the stereotype is here: men are who 'explore' are also one-dimensional: white, chiseled, with stubble.

We are building AI biased work off biased data, which perpetuates stereotypes.

This is being deployed at speed and scale with zero guardrails or oversight.

And it will hinder our economic growth. How can we possible reach all our addressable audiences with AI? Who is this ad relevant for?

The recent backlash to Samsung’s AI-generated ad is a useful reminder: why on earth would you not commission the very people you are trying to sell to? And there’s a bigger issue. AI learns from the data we give it - including the biases and blind spots we’ve collected along the way. This is a case study of bias. A 2026 UN Women analysis of 133 AI systems found 44% showed gender bias, while 26% showed both gender and racial bias.

Meanwhile, 66% of 18–29-year-olds view AI advertising negatively, and 73% say AI-created people or voices in ads are unacceptable.

Representation matters in data and storytelling.
Every brand needs to have a trained AI inclusion lead and a clear policy on when, why and how to use it.
Samsung missed their entire audience.

*It's been removed from YouTube . . . but we managed to get hold of it before it was taken down.