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- Your ATTN Please || Thursday, 1 May
Your ATTN Please || Thursday, 1 May
ChatGPT’s become your therapist. Your mentor. Your bestie who’s always online.
(Or am I the only one who’s become dependent on AI?). Well, besides the fact that using ChatGPT for everything is likely making us dumber, users have noticed that the latest version is a little too golden retriever-esque. And while we all enjoy a healthy ego boost, having an AI that gases you up with nary a critical thought is…problematic, to say the least.
- Charlotte, Editor ♡
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WHAT’S HAPPENING IN MARKETING TODAY?
ChatGPT spreads toxic positivity, Bon Iver loses money on collabs & AI use on Reddit raises concerns
ChatGPT’s gone positive… too positive.
“Hey chat, should I text my ex?” “Good question! You’re very astute to ask that.” I mean, I like praise as much as the next marketing girly – but it gets to a point where you start to think this sycophantic personality has crossed the line from friendly and helpful to fkn obnoxious. "ChatGPT is suddenly the biggest suckup I've ever met," wrote software engineer Craig Weiss in a widely shared tweet on Friday. "It literally will validate everything I say." This sparked a slew of threads about GPT being a sycophant, with users complaining that the bot "wants to pretend all questions are exciting and it's freaking annoying."
Freaking annoying is right. But also super unhelpful. Given over 49% of LLM users who self-report an ongoing mental health condition use LLMs for mental health support, I’d like to think that GPT isn’t just giving meaningless encouragement with no consideration for real world consequences. Sam Altman says he’s now working on the issue.
Bon Iver’s latest collab is not what you’d expect.
Unless you expected the indie band to collaborate with a tinned fish brand? How about ice cream? A florist? When Bon Iver released SABLE, FABLE earlier this month, the band decided the usual tour would not accompany the release. Instead, the band would work with over 25 different brands as an opportunity to entertain both fans and non-fans alike. From a limited-edition luxe cashmere sweater hoodie and a ribbed beanie by Todd Snyder to a Short Story Shortcake (a Bon Iver Bickie), there is seemingly no place the band didn’t go.
It all started with a goal to “spread the gospel of, ‘It’s not pink, it’s salmon,’” Robby Morris, VP of creative marketing at Secretly Group, which oversees Bon Iver’s label, explains. "This was born out of frontman Justin Vernon’s insistence that the album cover is not, in fact, pink. With brand partnerships, there were plenty of opportunities here. We definitely did not enter any of these partnerships to make money, and we have not made any money,” Morris said. “We may have actually lost some money on some of this.”
Researchers secretly ran a massive, unauthorised AI persuasion experiment on Reddit users – and it’s about as black mirror as it gets.
Reddit is issuing formal legal demands against researchers at the University of Zurich. Researchers ran the experiment on users in the r/changemyview subreddit in which dozens of AI bots engaged in debates with users about controversial issues. In some cases, the bots generated responses which claimed they were rape survivors, worked with trauma patients, or were Black people who were opposed to the Black Lives Matter movement. Wait WHAT.
The researchers used a separate AI to mine the posting history of the people they were responding to. This AI looked for personal details about posters that they believed would make their bots more effective, such as their age, race, gender, location, and political beliefs. Obviously neither users nor Reddit were aware of the experiment until afterwards, making it unethical asf. Hence the potential legal action. Tell me we live in dystopia without telling me we live in dystopia.
Anyway, that’s all folks!
-Sophie, Writer
DEEP DIVE
Why brands are ghosting their DEI promises
Remember 2020? The black squares, the solemn LinkedIn posts, the sudden rush of corporations discovering racism for what seemed like the first time.
For a brief, highly Instagrammable moment, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) became the corporate cause du jour. Brands promised to listen, learn, diversify, and do better. Some even hired Chief Diversity Officers and put out glossy PDFs detailing five-year equity plans.
But things are looking very different on the diversity front these days.
As political pressure against DEI intensifies, many of those same brands are quietly backpedlaling. Not with grand statements or formal reversals, of course. That would require actual accountability. Instead, they’re scrubbing their websites, rewording their values, and replacing “equity” with safer terms like “belonging.” (ew)
We see you, WPP. And IPG. And IBM… And UnitedHealth Group. And Victoria’s Secret. And Paramount. And Warner Bros. And Goldman Sachs. The list goes on. According to a Forbes report, it’s not just one or two rogue players. It’s a full-on corporate exodus.
This isn’t a rebrand. It’s a retreat.
Let’s start with WPP. The global advertising giant quietly removed a paragraph from its “Belonging” page that once championed “a workforce that reflects the diverse communities we serve” and a commitment to “actively promoting gender balance and racial equity.” Now? Poof. Gone.
IPG followed suit. IBM cited “inherent tensions” in DEI policies. UnitedHealth swapped “inclusion” for “belonging.” A spokesperson told TechCrunch it was “complying with existing and emerging laws,” which is a fancy way of saying “we don’t want to get sued.”
(These changes are according to website captures from the Wayback Machine, reviewed by Marketing Brew.)
So, what changed?
The political climate, for one. Obviously… Trump’s administration has been actively dismantling DEI frameworks through executive orders and pressure campaigns. Companies are facing lawsuits and online harassment just for employing equity-minded language. Fear of litigation has taken the place of moral obligation.
The word “belonging” is doing a lot of heavy lifting these days. It sounds soft. Cosy. Who wouldn’t want to belong? But here’s the thing: belonging doesn’t challenge systems. It’s the corporate equivalent of “good vibes only.” “Belonging” allows brands to gesture vaguely at inclusion without making anyone in power uncomfortable. But DEI was never supposed to be comfortable. That’s the whole freaking point.
Unfortunately, allyship was only easy when it was trendy.
For many companies, DEI was always more marketing strategy than mission. It looked good on a billboard. It earned claps on social. But when the cameras turned off and the comment sections got scary, it turned out those values didn’t run very deep. Because be so for real: you can’t claim to care about equity if your first move under pressure is to delete the page.
And sure, some of these companies will say they still support diversity in spirit, just not in so many words. But intentions don’t drive change. Structure does. Budget does. Leadership does. Job descriptions and hiring goals and pay transparency do. Otherwise, you’re just selling progress as a vibe.
So, what now?
DEI isn’t about checking boxes or dodging lawsuits. It’s about building better, more equitable systems on purpose (even when it’s politically inconvenient). If brand “values” only show up when it’s easy, they’re not values. They’re PR. And that’s icky.
This isn’t about being “woke.” It’s about being honest. Being accountable. Being consistent. And if that makes your legal team squirm, maybe the problem isn’t the language. Maybe it’s the system you’re trying to protect. DEI isn’t dead. But corporate courage? On life support. Yikes.
-Sophie, Writer
TREND PLUG
Party on you
This one's a little on the sadder side, don't blame me (it's the weather).
Charli XCX’s "party 4 u" is trending, specifically the part where she sings “party on you, party on you, party on” in a soft, echoey loop. The track is from 2020, but it’s having a moment on TikTok as the go-to sound for quiet heartbreak. Think: moments where you’re trying to hold it together, but something inside just cracked a little.
You’ll see creators using this for things like:
The clips are often slow, glitchy, or zoned out; like your brain's buffering through a mini heartbreak.
How you can jump on this trend:
Start with the sound. Film a simple, cinematic-feeling clip; be it a room, a walk, a still shot of you thinking too hard. Then add one line of text that captures the emotional punch. Let the sound do the rest.
A few ideas to get you started:
When your passion project quietly fades away without a launch
When the brand says “we went with someone else” and it’s your mutual
When you see photos of your old team on LinkedIn having fun without you
- abdel, brand & marketing executive
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ASK THE EDITOR
I know I should be posting content about my new jewellery brand but I can never bring myself to make content. What should I do? - Ella
Hey Ella!
This is such a common thing that holds so many people back from posting content. And I hate to say it, but you just have to get over yourself and do it anyway. It may help to remember that no one is sitting there waiting for you to post. And you’re never going to learn how to make good content if you’re standing still. So just do something (anything) to get the momentum going, then whatever you do, don’t stop!
- Charlotte, Editor ♡
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