OpenAI’s Marketing Efforts Are Embarrassingly Ineffective, New Consumer Research Finds

OpenAI’s biggest advertising push to date depicts users taking advantage of ChatGPT Highly produced, everyday moments designed to be relatable.

The only problem? Consumer research shows that effort is not related to impact at all.

Advertisement titled “Dish” shows a young man trying to convince his date to eat a home-cooked meal with a sweet message – “I need a recipe that says ‘I like you, but I want to play it cool.’” Another film, “Pull Up,” shows another young man struggling with a pull-up After asking the robot to help him feel powerful.

The ads premiered during NFL Primetime, and are scheduled to run in the US and UK on traditional media – TV, streaming platforms, paid social, outdoor and influencer partnerships through the end of 2025.

But while highlighting the massive struggles the AI ​​industry faces with public perception, Adwic It states that marketing Research firm System1 tested both Click ads with A panel of American consumers – and the results were absolute depressed.

System1 measured panelists’ emotional response to… Advertisements based on the famous UCLA psychologist Paul Ekman’s framework of universal emotions: happiness, surprise, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, and contempt, plus a neutral option. They also made use of a special tool to capture emotional responses second by second.

Although the technology industry According to Adwic‘In the reports, both ads were both ranked at number five For long-term growth and immediate sales impact. Panelists largely couldn’t tell which brand was being advertised to them until the ChatGPT logo appeared in the final seconds of the ad.

In other words, OpenAI exists Difficulty connecting with real-life humans – the very consumers you desperately need to become paying customers.

Ironically, the campaign did not only fail in humans. AdwicMark Ritson – who has worked with System1 in the past – asked ChatGPT to evaluate one such application. Advertisements, and even the robot gave it a score of five out of ten.

“Pull-Up is strategically concise and well-designed, but it de-weights premium assets and branding in the middle of the ad, so it risks becoming a likable, generic ‘AI helped me’ story rather than a memorable ChatGPT ad that builds future sales,” the bot said.

One thing the ads succeed at: they’re pretty to look at — but that makes sense, because they feature real people, not artificial intelligence.

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