Your ATTN Please || Friday, 30 May

“Is AI art real art?”

That question has become the peanut butter to Twitter threads, Instagram carousel rants, and TikTok hot takes. Everyone’s got a position. Raging purist, gleeful technophile, cautiously optimistic fence-sitter. And yet, for all the noise, very little is actually being said. What it is doing is riling people up. But what if that’s actually the wrong question to be asking right now?

-Sophie Randell, Writer

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WHAT’S HAPPENING IN MARKETING TODAY?

e.l.f. acquires Rhode for $1B, McCain creates AR game & Shooting victims sue social platforms

e.l.f. Beauty has just bought Rhode for a hefty $1B.

Just 3 years ago Hailey Beiber started her DTC beauty brand with only 3 products, the Peptide Glazing Fluid, Barrier Restore Cream, and Peptide Lip Treatment. Since then, Rhode has built an audience of over 4.5 million followers on social media (I'm sure the fact that Hailey has 60 million followers on her personal socials didn't hurt)!

Now, e.l.f. has announced it will acquire Rhode for $800 million plus an additional $200 million if the brand continues to grow over the next 3 years. The move makes sense for e.l.f., given it's considered a mass-market beauty brand. Rhode is what you might call "entry-level prestige," which means e.l.f. can now expand its customer base to a new market of girlies.

But don't for a moment think Hailey is handing over the keys to the kingdom and walking away! She will stay involved with Rhode as its Chief Creative Officer and Head of Innovation. Getting to enjoy the pay out now while still building a brand she loves? Livin' the dream!

McCain launches AR game to teach consumers where their potatoes come from.

Sometimes, spotting a gap in consumer understanding is the only opening you need. Like McCain, that launched Farms of the Future AR, an Augmented Reality mobile game to teach people about regenerative farming. Why? Because their spuds don’t just appear in your freezer fully formed, duh. They’re part of a farming system that the brand is involved in trying to change for the better.

And by making farming fun, McCain not only made sustainability sticky, but they made themselves the hero. Suddenly, they're not just the frozen potato people. They’re the frozen potato people saving the soil. This is a brand that realised marketers can stop waiting for consumers to “get it” and just building the bridge themselves. Bonus points for doing it with tech that feels more like play than preach. Call it education. Call it PR. Either way, it’s smart marketing.

Reach. Amplify. Radicalise?

The whole point of a digital marketer’s job is reach, engagement, and algorithmic amplification. But what happens when those same levers fuel harm? A lawsuit filed on behalf of victims in the 2022 Buffalo mass shooting is targeting major tech platforms – including Meta, Reddit, 4chan, Google, and Amazon – for allegedly helping to radicalise the shooter through their algorithms. It’s one of the most direct challenges yet to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the US internet law that protects platforms from liability for user-generated content.

The suit alleges that these companies played a role, not just by hosting harmful content, but through the “defective” algorithm design choices that amplified it. It’s the age-old question of where responsibility for someone else’s actions begins, and where it ends – but from a marketing perspective. Although it’s heavy, this case is one to watch because the outcome of this could be monumental. It may even reshape the expectations placed on platforms, designers, and, yes, marketers too.

-Charlotte Ellis, Editor & Helena Masters, Copywriter

DEEP DIVE

Why "Is AI art real art?" is the wrong question to ask right now

One camp’s clutching their paintbrushes in rage.

The other’s frothing at the mouth over prompt engineering. Meanwhile, the rest of us are just trying to make it through the day without seeing another AI-generated “dark academia fairycore woodland princess” on our feed.

You can’t argue that AI-generated art is getting scary-good. It can mimic, remix, and reframe existing styles in seconds. It’s not original in the traditional sense, but then again… what is? Art has always been a cycle of influence, rebellion, homage, and theft. That’s not new. What is new is the speed, scale, and impersonality of it.

And that’s where people start yelling.

But most of the AI art debate isn’t really about art.

It’s about fear, control, identity, and, frankly, engagement. “Is AI art real art?” isn’t a question… it’s rage bait. A question engineered to spark hot takes and algorithmic reach. Y’all, we are arguing in circles.

And it’s become oddly partisan. Two camps have formed, as always. One sees AI as the end of creativity, a soulless machine flattening human expression. The other sees it as the ultimate tool, a glowing muse on steroids, democratising creation. Both have valid points. Both often talk past each other. Neither is solving the real problem.

Debating the ethics of art is equally useless and powerful.

It’s useless when it becomes performative, a surface-level squabble over aesthetics and authorship with no room for nuance. But it’s powerful when it reflects the true, messy tension between humans and the systems we create.

That’s the real debate, isn't it? It's not “is this art?” but “who controls the narrative?” Every generation of artists has faced this. Photography was once seen as the death of painting. Digital tools were “cheating.” Even Duchamp’s urinal shattered the idea of what counts as “art.” So here we are again… with another counter-manifesto.

Art, at its core, is about the individual.

It's about how a person sees, processes, and transforms the world into something that speaks. The problem is, we keep trying to label and box that individuality into categories: real vs. fake, human vs. machine, authentic vs. derivative.

And while labels can be helpful for critique, they’re also sooo easily weaponised. They become tools to gatekeep, monetise, or dismiss. “AI Art” becomes a bogeyman. “Real Artist” becomes a brand. But what happens when both labels collapse under the weight of nuance?

We often forget that no medium exists in a vacuum. AI is shaped by the internet, trained on the same content loops we scroll through daily. And we, in turn, are shaped by the platforms we use.

The real question isn’t even about AI at all.

The deeper question isn’t is AI art valid? It’s: “what kind of world are we making through our conversations about art?” Are we creating space for new voices, new forms, and new rules? Or are we just re-enacting the same old tired debates in a faster, flashier format?

AI isn’t the enemy of art. But the way we talk about it might be. Because no amount of content, machine-made or human-crafted, will mean anything if we lose the ability to hold meaningful, messy, unresolved conversations.

And maybe, just maybe, the real art is learning how to argue better.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

TREND PLUG

I see you. We good.

You know those people you don't really speak to, but you don't have anything against them?

Maybe they're a colleague from way back when that you see around LinkedIn. Or maybe they're just someone you see out in public wearing the same shirt you're wearing. There's almost this unspoken connection between you, but no one is openly acknowledging it.

This trending sound goes, "I see you, we good. Ok we good. I see you. We see each other. We see each other. We good." And it describes these situations perfectly. Because yeah, you might not say anything to that person. But you see them, and they see you. And you're all good.

How you can jump on this trend:

Grab the trending sound. Then, think of the situation you want to highlight where no words are needed. You just exchange that "look" with someone and you both know it means you're good.

A few ideas to get you started:

• When you see that ex-client liking all your Stories

• When you pass your ex-nemesis in the hall and realise it's all water under the bridge now

• When your former work bestie likes your job announcement post on LinkedIn, even though they're still at your old agency

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor

ASK THE EDITOR

I've just started on LinkedIn. What's the best way to build my network? - Petr

Hey Petr!

If I were you, I'd start by connecting with people in your industry. Try to send 10 connection requests every day to begin building up your network. The next thing I'd do is comment on other people's posts. Look for posts that already have other people having conversations about your industry in the comments. When you comment, your response will show up in your network's feeds, so it's a good way to start getting your name out there.

Another advantage of commenting on other people's posts is you get to see what conversations are happening around your industry right now. You can use that information as inspiration for your own posts, which will mean you'll know what you're writing about is relevant right now. The more time you spend interacting with people on the platform, the faster you'll grow your network.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

Not going viral yet?

We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.

WHAT DO YA THINK?

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