Can AI Compete with Human Creativity?

Puma’s recent ads made headlines for different reasons. They released a pure AI-generated ad “with virtually no human touch”, followed by the lauded ad, Runners’ High. The latter was their core brand spot built by their creative agency Adam&Eve.  

As marketers continue to explore the possibilities of generative AI, a key question emerges: What do we actually gain - and what might we lose - when we put machines in the creative driver’s seat?

In this post, we break down how both Puma ads performed in real-world testing. From brand lift to emotional resonance, we dig into the data to compare AI-generated creative with its human-made counterpart. Spoiler: AI can deliver - but human creativity still holds the power to surprise, inspire, and make your brand truly memorable.

Human Made Machine dig deeper into performance, using high samples, gold standard randomized testing, and collecting rich qualitative and quantitative data. Results are analyzed with AI - as well as by our brilliant team of real human analysts.

Quantifying Creative Impact

Let’s now look at these two ads and compare their performance.

Creative Brand Lift Score (AI)

+5.9%

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Creative Brand Lift Score (Runners' High)

+13.2%

Runners’ High drove over twice the lift in unprompted mentions of Puma when our audience was asked what sportswear brands come to mind. As well as significant lift in Unaided Awareness, higher salience was reflected in stronger breakthrough measures - Runners’ High scored better for our Distinct and Memorable diagnostics. In contrast, the audience was more likely to specifically call out originality as an issue for the Puma AI ad:

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“I just feel like you could place any sportswear brand in the ad and it would feel the same”

“I like the athletes showing their strengths which I like. But I guess a lot of sports ads show the same thing”

“I like the message of being yourself, but the images are somewhat stale since competitors use similar looks”

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Predictably AI’s re-hashing of existing creative materials is limiting - creating risks of competitor misattribution and a lack of differentiation.

The AI Creative Paradox

However, the Puma AI ad still had an impact on the audience. Although less salient than Runners’ High, the Puma AI ad also increased Unaided Awareness, and both ads similarly boosted Purchase Intent.

The Puma AI ad also had particular strengths - the voiceover directly connects to a message of empowerment, so those exposed to the Puma AI ad were more likely to associate Puma with confidence. It was also seen to have better Brand Fit. With AI generation potentially utilizing older brand imagery, AI has the potential to use branding more consistently over time and tap into existing memories/associations with the brand.

AI or Human for Success? 

Our conclusion is that these ads serve distinct campaign goals. For your big brand burst and foundational campaigns (where you want to make a splash) use human creativity to bring interest and originality. If you want to build and iterate on the brand and associations you already have, consider the careful use of AI-generated creative. When using AI, be mindful of the risks of copying competitors and the importance of using your own distinct brand assets to build upon.

Finally each of these creatives have distinct messages which resonate differently with the audience -  empowerment (AI) versus feel good (Runner’s High). Rather than rely on intuition, it’s always better to test your messaging approach.

Trust but Verify

At HMM, we're passionate about not just predicting Brand Lift, but also giving our clients extra confidence by verifying results against real in-campaign performance. We do this by comparing the results of our creative testing with in-campaign brand lift studies measuring the same ads. Our clients see a 2-3x increase in successful brand campaigns when they optimize ads based on our recommendations.

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To learn more, connect with us and request a demo.

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