How to Keep AI From Ruining Your Marketing
AI is changing how businesses create content. With it, you can create more content, faster – but that speed comes with a new problem marketers are calling slop.
What “Slop” Actually Means
Slop is a derogatory term used to describe low-quality, low-value, mass-produced content created with AI. Think of it like spam – it clutters up our feeds, blogs, and inboxes everywhere.
The name slop originally referred to the cheap animal feed made from leftovers. In marketing it holds essentially the same meaning – it’s bulk content made for output, not value.
AI slop shows up everywhere. It’s usually generic, repetitive, and only exists to make money or fill space. Because there’s so much of it, it turns our online experience into white noise, making it harder for us to make real connections.
How Slop Can Hurt Your Business
Small businesses need to build trust with their customers to stay in business. When you’re running the show on your own, you don’t have the luxury of slipping up and letting a PR team make it right. People are getting better at spotting filler posts and AI fluff. When they do, it can hurt your credibility.
The goal of marketing isn’t just to be visible. It’s to be valuable. If your content doesn’t sound like you or connect to your customers’ real experiences and needs, it just blends in with the noise.
Some Examples
While AI slop can be found anywhere, there are a few prominent examples worth mentioning.
Coca-Cola “Holidays Are Coming”
Coca-Cola used generative AI to produce holiday ads in 2024. At first glance they seemed fine, but consumers were quick to point out the odd visuals – truck wheels gliding instead of rolling, weird proportions, anatomical inconsistencies. The result? Viewers largely either hated it or mocked it, calling it soulless and glitchy.
Why it matters: If a brand as big as Coca-Cola can get dragged for low-quality AI content, small businesses need to be careful too.
Amazon Product Listings
Amazon had to remove a wave of AI-generated product descriptions and reviews that included nonsense sentences, repeated phrases, and placeholders like “insert benefits here.” Screenshots went viral because customers couldn’t believe how sloppy it looked.
Why it matters: Even everyday customer-facing content can quickly turn into slop if no one reviews it.
Air Canada – AI Chatbot Promised Things the Airline Didn’t Offer
An Air Canada traveler used the airline’s AI-powered chatbot and was given incorrect refund information. When the traveler complained, Air Canada tried to argue it wasn’t responsible for what its AI said, and a judge ruled yes, you are.
Why it matters: Whatever comes from your AI is still your responsibility. Customers don’t separate the bot from the business.
What This Means For Small Businesses
If billion-dollar brands with big creative teams can end up in hot water for sloppy AI output, small businesses need to be even more intentional, not less. AI is a powerful tool, but without human direction, human editing, and human judgement, it can damage your credibility faster than the time it saved you in the first place.
Common Mistakes
AI is still new – and there are plenty of people trying to profit off making you feel like you’re already behind. It’s easy to lose sight of the big picture and worry that you’re not doing enough.
We’ve all been guilty of it – with or without an AI engine – you catch yourself in a pinch and make something that’s fast rather than valuable. While there’s not anything inherently wrong with just getting something out the door (in fact, sometimes that’s the best strategy), you really can’t skip the human element of your marketing.
Here’s some of the ways slop can creep into your content:
- You let AI write for you instead of with you
- You copy and paste without editing or adding your point of view
- You start creating content just to feed the algorithm instead of serving your audience
- You chase quantity over quality
- You stop fact-checking claims and statistics
AI is a powerful assistant – but it’s never good practice to let your assistant completely take over.
Using AI the Right Way
When it comes to AI – bad prompts create bad output. There’s no amount of automation that can replace the relationship and understanding you have with your customers. Ultimately, the quality of what you create still depends on your human strategy behind it.
1. Start with your goal
Before you ask AI to create something, decide why you’re posting. What do you want your audience to do or feel?
2. Give great context
Share who your audience is, what makes your business different, and the tone you want to use.
Example: Instead of “write a Facebook post about chandeliers” try “write a short Facebook post for a high-end boutique lighting showroom that caters to luxury homeowners and businesses. We want to introduce a new chandelier that will be available next month. The post should make the reader feel like they’re part of an exclusive group getting early information, and encourage them to follow our account for future updates.”
3. Edit with intention
One of our favorite “hacks” is to ask for several different versions. Take a look at what comes out, and start piecing together the parts that feel the most like you. Then, add your experience, opinions, or personality to what you’ve created. Replace generic statements and advice with real examples from your business.
4. Prioritize value over volume
A feed full of slop looks, well, sloppy. Your audience is already seeing hundreds of AI posts – they don’t need volume from you, they need value, connection, trust. A few thoughtful posts that connect, inspire, or even teach will always beat a feed full of filler.
The Bottom Line
AI can help you create faster. But faster isn’t better unless you guide it. The internet already has enough slop. What people are craving is something real: a voice, a story, a business that knows who it’s talking to.
Your job isn’t to outpost the competition. It’s to cut through the noise by being clear, consistent, and authentically human. It’s okay to let AI do the heavy lifting… but make sure you’re the one steering the ship.
