Google’s Olympic Gemini Ad Upsets The Internet

OK Google, we need to talk about your latest Gemini ad. It’s a great example of another marketing mishap that could have easily been avoided.

It’s ‘Dear Sydney’ creative tells the story of a young girl who idolizes Sydney McLaughlin, the 24-year-old US track star and Olympian, and wants to send her fan mail. The girl’s father explains how he turned to Google’s Gemini to write said letter because he is “pretty good with words but this has to be just right.” His full prompt is:

“Gemini, help my daughter write a letter telling McLaughlin-Levrone how inspiring she is and be sure to mention that my daughter plans on breaking her world record one day.”

Now, I’m a pretty big AI fan, but teaching kids to just use AI to write important content is gonna leave a bad taste in any parent’s mouth.

The internet agrees. Many people are upset by the search giant’s apparent disregard for authenticity and personal touch (hand written letters for the win!) and the promotion of using AI to replace human creativity, which could have disastrous effects on basic learning skills. The fallback was so swift, that Google has had to turn commenting on the video.

This could have easily been avoided if Google chose to show the dad collaborating with his daughter on the first draft of the letter and asking Gemini to help EDIT it instead of writing the whole darn thing.

You’d think Google would have learned from the backlash Apple received for its Crush ad earlier this year.

Marketers, stress test your ads before you put them out! Make sure to get a bunch of unbiased opinions from a diverse group of other marketers on your creative and have them checked for any blindspots you may have missed. (If you need a hand with that, MIM Marketing offers a Blind Spotting service!)

All in all, this ad isn’t super damaging to Google (compared to, say, Adidas’ screw up). But the campaign still clearly didn’t land with the public the way it was intended.

So, what do you think of this spot? Should Google pull the ad? 💬 👇