Glenlivet Gets AI To Craft Whisky Ad… And It Exposes Biases About Being A Dad

Scotch whisky company The Glenlivet is trying to drown out the stereotypes of what being a father and a man entails with a new advertisement highlighting the media’s biases.
 
The Glenlivet team rounded up a group of father-and-child duos for the campaign, where they were handed a script written for the spot. Unbeknownst to them, it was actually an artificial intelligence generator that was given the task to “write a whisky commercial for Father’s Day.” The plot told the story of a dad taking his son out camping in the woods, teaching him how to start a fire, and fish.

It held a very stereotypical look at the perceived relationship a dad and his son were meant to have. It first excluded the possibility that a father could bond with his daughter, insinuating that it was not a girl’s position to learn the ways of the outdoors. Beyond that, it showed how distant fathers were always made out to be, maintaining a stoic and cold role in families as they focused on being breadwinners, and left child-rearing to women.
 
The film, created by creative agency CPB London, had the duos read the script to each other, and at the end, they were told an AI had written it. The pairs were quick to point out that such generators can only work with what they’re fed. Ultimately, the point was to show how the media has also, in turn, been painting a harmful image of what a father’s role in his children’s life is meant to be.
 
The spot rounded out with each pair speaking about their relationship with one another, and stating how times have changed as many of them had no interest in engaging in the outdoors, nor were they forced to by their parent. More importantly, they reflected on how their father, or father figures, had taught them empathy and other essential traits missing in media from a bygone era.

 
 
 
[via The Drum and LBB Online, images via various sources]