“Slop” proves the need for human voices in marketing.
Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2025 was “slop.” While the word has been around for centuries, it is its newest meaning that earned “slop” this dubious honor. The editors defined slop as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.”
In their explanation for the choice of the word, they noted that “The flood of slop in 2025 included absurd videos, off-kilter advertising images, cheesy propaganda, fake news that looks pretty real, junky A.I.-written books, ‘workslop’ reports that waste coworkers’ time… and lots of talking cats. People found it annoying, and people ate it up … In 2025, amid all the talk about A.I. threats, slop set a tone that’s less fearful, more mocking. The word sends a little message to A.I.: when it comes to replacing human creativity, sometimes you don’t seem too superintelligent.”
How prevalent is the backlash to bad A.I. generated content? It is wide enough that this past December, an openly-A.I. produced commercial for McDonald’s Netherlands was pulled less than a week after being released. Consumer complaints ranged from “creepy” and ‘poorly edited” to “No actors, no camera team…welcome to the future of filmmaking,” to “god-awful.” Closer to home, Almond Breeze has released a new ad that spoofs slop marketing, with oblivious agents coming up with outrageous, A.I. generated spots, such as the Jonas Brothers riding an almond “horse” (you have to see it to believe it).
A.I. generated content is an issue that marketers and marketing firms face regularly. Can A.I. be helpful? Yes. Can it harm a company’s reputation? Also, yes. Is A.I. content slop or a solution to marketing challenges? It can be both. For years, our position has been that A.I. is a tool that needs to be carefully managed by professionals, so that written content has value and artwork does not portray people with six fingers on each hand.
A.I. – You Know It When You See It
There is, however, a very distinctive A.I. style, especially as the tools have become more advanced, for lack of a better word. In a very funny and insightful feature in The New York Times, “Why Does A.I. Write Like … That?” (December 3, 2025), the author, Sam Kriss wrote, “A.I. writing is marked by a whole complex of frankly bizarre rhetorical features that make it immediately distinctive to anyone who has ever encountered it. It’s not smooth or neutral at all — it’s weird.”
Kriss noted that A.I. writing can be identified by its rule-of-three phrases; odd, stretched-to-the-limit metaphors; and over-reliance of words such as quiet, hum, echo, and other aural descriptions. Most tellingly, Kriss adds, “As everyone knows, A.I. writing always uses em dashes, and it always says, ‘It’s not X, it’s Y.’”
As a non-A.I. writer who enjoys a good rule-of-three phrase and a well-placed em dash—I admit to be conflicted. However, I hope my metaphors are not too extreme and my writing is not too weird!
To test Kriss’ thesis, I prompted a free A.I. content generator to create an introductory paragraph for an article on marketing. Here is the result:
Marketing, once a simple matter of announcing one’s wares, has become a subtle and shifting art, shaped by technology, culture, and human desire. It lives at the intersection of story and strategy, where data informs intuition and brands speak in carefully chosen voices, hoping to be heard above the constant hum of modern life. In an age defined by abundance and attention scarcity, marketing is no longer just about persuasion, but about meaning — about understanding people, anticipating their needs, and crafting narratives that invite connection rather than demand it.
Kriss would be proud. The content generator provided three variations of “not this but that,” two rule-of-three lists, a lofty set of metaphors, voices that hum—and an em dash for good measure.
A.I. Content
Our industry and marketing in general have adapted to new tools through the years. For example, we have moved from hand written or typed letters to bulk mailings to mail merged communications to personalized emails and text messages. Each of these advancements in communication came about as professionals saw the value in a new technology. A.I. is another such tool, one that still requires a human touch.
There are many uses for A.I. in marketing. When working on web content, blogs, or other longform and shortform content, it is very helpful in summarizing complex documents and reports, developing topic prompts, offering keyword recommendations, and other initial research or conceptualization tasks.
A.I. content must be checked and double checked before it even can be considered as “background” information. Often, the “research” it provides is antithetical to our customers’ services or flat-out wrong. The tendency for A.I. systems to hallucinate is well known. However, these errors can only be found by a writer who understands the client’s business!
At PriMedia, A.I. is never used for anything other than initial research. Admittedly, there have been times when a client has asked if a blog or social media post was written by A.I. It wasn’t. Our copywriters waiver between being insulted and complimented, but, for the sake of customer relations, have agreed to simply be amused.
A.I. Graphics
Graphic teams often enjoy working with A.I. to quickly develop unusual images, such as a bear holding an umbrella, a cat in space, Santa repairing heating equipment, a group of friends enjoying a meal with a branded product in the background. In many cases, A.I. can replace hours that had previously been spent combining images, developing variations, expanding the image, adding details, or photoshopping other modifications. A.I. can also animate static images for websites, videos, social media, and more.
Of course, just as one needs to be careful with A.I. generated text, oversight of A.I. images is paramount. While it has gotten better over the years, A.I. generated “people” can still have a waxy or plasticine look. A fully A.I. generated image, like fully A.I. generated text, will just look blatantly fake. Examples of poorly executed A.I. abound, with subjects sporting extra limbs, group shots with floating heads, or images reflecting the biases in the sources used to train the platform.
When a new image-generating platform was announced, our team ran yet another experiment. (See images above.) First, the engine was asked to produce images of a “heating technician working on an oil boiler.”
These were not bad, but it all felt too pristine. I don’t know any technician who has encountered equipment in such surgical-sterile surroundings, and with so much elbow room. The prompt was modified to, “make it look more like a basement work area.” It made the change, providing a basement-like background, but somehow, the equipment was suddenly 50 years old!
A.I. Marketing
In today’s digital marketing universe, it is impossible to effectively manage an advertising campaign without utilizing some form of A.I. Google will happily use its platforms to create ads from content on your website based on the search query. This works for online retail: someone looking for a right-handed 9-iron will be served a selection of sponsored results that meet their requirements, and the retailer did not have to create individual ads for every item in their inventory.
In a niche industry such as home heating fuels, giving that much freedom to the machines can backfire. Our services are too local, too downstream, and too specific for Google and other platforms to properly identify. This is why Google recommends keywords for a home heating company’s marketing campaign that include phrases related to drilling, upstream fuel transport, pipelines, vegetable oil manufacturing companies, oil well service companies, natural gas production, gasoline prices, gas stations near me, and other terms unrelated to the actual business of delivering heating fuels and maintaining home heating equipment.
Even when one maintains control over the content, whether for Google, social media, or programmatic marketing, the end result includes A.I. Ad text is provided in individual descriptions of approximately 90 characters. The platforms test which combinations of descriptions and images deliver the best results for specific audience segments or placements, and then “learns” to utilize those variations over others. When given permission, they will also modify or animate images, create videos, add music, and more. Again, these options need to be utilized carefully, if at all.
A.I. Coding
You will note that I have not included web coding as a use for A.I., despite the many platforms offering this service. Our company produces, manages, and updates custom software solutions, and every line of code is created by our in-house development team.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. You go to a website offering “custom, A.I. coding” and tell it you want a system that can do “x.” Press submit, and within minutes you are presented with the code you need. Or are you?
Software developers are sounding the alarm, even as many have turned to A.I. coding assistants. Apparently, A.I. produces code more quickly than humans, but it creates more errors, large and small, as well. Code that “looks right” at first glance often hides issues that will only be found once it is set live.
More importantly, A.I. coding can create security issues for your business. In a June 2025 review of A.I. coding concerns, CyberRisk Alliance reported the following:
“Stanford researchers put developers through their paces with AI coding assistants and got troubling results. In 80% of tasks, developers using AI tools produced less secure code than those coding the old-fashioned way. Here’s the kicker: those same developers were 3.5 times more likely to think their code was actually secure.
“Even when researchers explicitly asked for secure code, every single model spit out software vulnerable to at least four of the top ten Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) categories. When we see consistent problems across different AI systems, we know it isn’t just a few bad examples.”
Your company’s data is too important to gamble with A.I. generated code. When working with software providers, your management and tech teams should specifically ask about how their systems were created.
A.I. – Stop the Slop!
Artificial intelligence, like every other technological advancement, is not going anywhere. And like every other tool, it needs to be handled by professionals who understand the work that is being generated. Copywriters to catch errors and make text sound human. Graphic artists who understand the nuances of design and perspective, and the differences between a wax figure and a real person. Software developers who are not simply pulling lines of code from some global toybox, and are actually writing thoughtful, secure systems.
A surgeon may be able to operate with a robotic laser, but you would not expect your untrained nephew to safely perform surgery. Your company’s health is equally at risk if A.I. is deployed without the required expertise.
Richard Rutigliano is President of PriMedia, Inc., an integrated marketing and communications firm specializing in the home energy sector and offering a wide array of SaaS products nationwide. He can be reached at 516-222-2041 or rrutigliano@primediany.com.
