Artificial Intelligence is going to change the world.
Cross-referencing mountains of data, learning, opinion and statistics from the whole history of mankind.
In terms of advertising, it’ll be very useful.
It could offer up the insight that adults try to look youthful.
Or that some people do this by dressing inappropriately. 
But it’ll never offer up a sentence as succinct and memorable as ‘A woman of 40 will never look 30 by dressing like 20’.
It would be great to understand all the ways that people feel about buying tyres.
But it’ll never suggest using the word ‘only’ in the line ‘The $75 Tire. If it only saves your life once, it’s a bargain’.
It’ll help source information on the various benefits of fruit wine, the habits of potential buyers and what links the two.
But it’ll never conclude that you should send them the message ‘If your neighborhood liquor store doesn’t sell Bandor Fruit Wine, don’t buy it there’, because it makes absolutely no sense.
It could certainly help pin-pointing all the jobs that involve heavy eating.
But it’s unlikely that list will include ‘Actor in a food commercial who keeps getting his lines wrong.’
Only way to get these kind of wonky, left-field observations is to ask a human.
And in my experience, humans prefer to be talked to by human beings, precisely because they are imperfect, idiosyncratic and funny.

Evan Stark was one of the Hall of Fame copywriters in the DDB creative department in the sixties, we had a great chat, hope you enjoy it.

“This was my first attempt at a comp ad for the portfolio I wanted to create.

I’m the guy holding out the cigarette pack to the young woman on the bench.
A friend of mine took the photo and a friend of another friend’s sister posed with me.
When I met with a copy supervisor at BBDO he told me it was an okay piece of work and that I should do 10 or more ideas as well.
As naive as I was at the time, I thought he meant 10 more dummy ads like the one I showed him, which would
have meant getting 10 ideas for different ads, along with photos, each one with typed headlines.
It wasn’t until I actually started working with art directors that I knew what he meant, by which time I already had a job with an agency.
7 years later.”

Bandor Fruit Wine.

DANIEL & Co.
Hahn Brothers.

Gleneagles.

Doyle Dane Bernbach.
UniRoyal.


Ohrbach’s.  
Gillette.
Whirlpool.

ATA Foundation.
Sony.
Alka-Seltzer.

Grassroots.
Mobil.

GILBERT, GRACE & STARK.
Club Mediteranee.


Champion Paper.

Mrs Grass.
Russell.

Cyprus Wines.Bassett Walker.

Evan.

His TV reel.

His radio reel.