#18 Minds & Machines: The "ugly", "absolute trash" Christmas Ad. And yes, you can wear a sparkly catsuit!
Plus, turn a sketch into a photo, a prompt for a new perspective + Erasure poetry.
Speaking at the Federation for Small Businesses Conference
Hi, I hope you’re good.
The last couple of weeks have been busy, but great. I’ve run a nice mix of online and in-person AI workshops and talks.
I’ve delivered sessions in Milton Keynes, The Cotswolds and my home county of Staffordshire. Being home meant I got to hang out with my dad for a bit, which was nice. I don’t see him as often as I’d like.
The next couple of weeks are looking lively. I’m copywriting for a charity, delivering AI courses to business advisors, running AI copywriting and custom GPT training for an IT consultancy – and talking at the DMA’s Copy Club.
To counteract the busyness, I’ve been carving out time for restorative yoga (thank you, Carolyn), sunshiny autumn walks with friends, quiet cuppas, and watching Paddington (cute).
What about this week’s newsletter, you ask?
Well, we have AI Christmas ads, a woman’s retreat with AI bots – and some Canva AI tools. Please excuse the sparkly catsuit!
What’s inside this edition:
👁️ AI News update
The Christmas AI Ad that’s causing a stir
Open AI’s upcoming agent
Ads coming to AI search engines (sigh)
✨ AI Tools to Try
Canva’s AI Sketch to Life + Magic Edit tools
💡 Prompting tip
Getting new perspectives on your work
🔗 Human + AI Creative Combo
The fun + serious side of AI voice tools
💛 The Human Element
Try out Erasure Poetry
👁️ My top 3 news stories
I absorbed heaps of AI news and chose three key stories for content creators
Oh, the controversy! Coca-Cola has used AI to recreate its ‘Holidays are Coming’ Christmas ad – and they’ve pretty much removed Santa in the process.
Unsurprisingly, it has had a huge amount of backlash. Just check out the posts on X. “Ugly”, “dystopian nightmare”, “absolute trash” and calls for a Coca-Cola boycott. It’s all going on.
Interestingly, it scored very highly in audience research—5.9/6 on the System1 creative testing.
But we have to remember that this ad is built on 30 years of human-created ad history. I doubt it could have stood up on its own.
According to reports, OpenAI plans to launch an AI agent early next year. The “agent” programs act independently, handling tasks like customer service or scheduling with only a small amount of human input.
It’s an interesting leap forward, but I worry about trust, responsibility and where this might take us. Do we really want systems that act on our behalf?Perplexity is trying out ads in its search results. Well, it was always going to happen (sigh).
The ads will take the shape of follow-up questions, which you’ll see on the right-hand side of the answers. Here’s the info.
✨ AI Tools to Try
A detailed look at a recent AI tool and how it can help you.
Modify your images quickly in Canva
I covered Canva’s Media Studio in an earlier edition. This week, I’ve been playing with a couple of tools – Magic Edit and the new Sketch to Life tool, which converts a sketch into an AI image.
Sketch to Life
Turn a crappy computer sketch into an AI photo.
Here’s how:
Go to the Sketch to Life app in Canva.
Create a sketch and describe it in the prompt box
3. Press generate
I turned this sketch into this image. Nice!
Magic Edit
Magic Edit is a free tool for quickly editing photos and images. Just brush over a section you’d like to modify and then prompt AI to change it.
You can swap objects, change colours, or add new elements to your image. Or, as I did, you can change a basic yellow top into a sparkly catsuit or haute couture jacket. Yes!
Here’s how it works:
Upload an image into Canva and click on it
Click on the Edit button above your image
Then scroll to Magic Edit in the Magic Studio carousel
4. Use the brush to highlight what you’d like to change (you don’t have to be super precise).
5. Then describe what you’d like to see in the prompt box.
6. Choose your favourite image. Or press ‘Generate again’ if you’re not happy.
Here are some of my favourites (original top left).
Results?
Changing colour from yellow to red gave me the neatest result and preserved my hair. The sparkly catsuit isn’t quite so neat, but I still love it!
Here’s the Canva tutorial video with some slightly more serious examples! Magic Edit starts at 1m 30 seconds.
Enjoy!
💡 Prompting tips
Prompting tips and hacks to help you create your content
Get different perspectives on your work
Want to get some different perspectives on your writing? Ask AI to take on a role and give you a viewpoint.
Here are a couple of starter prompts to play with.
I’ve found them helpful for finding new angles. Or for getting a surprising new take on a topic I’m working with.
Please act as an experienced marketing director in a [type of business] in [sector].
I will give you a [content type].
Please analyse this from your perspective and share your practical and emotional viewpoints.
Please give rationales for your answer.
Here is my content [insert content].
🔗 Human & AI Creative Combo
Nice examples of human and AI creative collaborations
Can AI bots really be your friend? This vlog from the Wall Street Journal investigates.
Content Warning: contains a reference to suicide
This is a great video blog from Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal.
The author spent 24 hours in a cabin with voice bots Gemini, ChatGPT, Meta and Copilot for company.
She put them through a range of challenges, seeing how they’d fare as helpers and friends.
The results were interesting, and funny at times.
But there’s also a serious message in here too. The fact is, people can fall into the trap of taking friendly AI chat and fake emotions seriously. And the consequences can be tragic.
So yes, AI voice assistants are useful. They can help us with many tasks and ideas. I often use ChatGPT Voice Mode for brainstorming. It’s super helpful.
But we have to be conscious of what we’re talking to here.
And we have to remember that human connection is still really bloomin’ important.
💛 The Human Element
A celebration of our wild minds and creative souls
Exploring Erasure Poetry
My first attempt with a news article
Analogue creative adventures have become even more important to me since working with AI tools.
Last weekend, I tried Dr Suzannah V Evans’ Erasure Poetry course at The Folk House in Bristol.
Erasure poetry is a fascinating practice of uncovering poetry within existing text. It’s part art, part activism, and can be as expressive or subversive as you like.
Need some inspiration? Austin Kleon is a big fan. And I love Tracy K Smith’s poem, Declaration, which scaldingly reworks the US Declaration of Independence:
If you want to push your creative thinking, or writing, give Erasure poetry a go.
Just grab a piece of writing – a leaflet, a newspaper, the page of a book.
And see what words call out to be crafted.
☀️ Upcoming Adventures
My upcoming public talks, workshops and events
The DMA’s Copywriting Club is back and I’m delighted to be speaking at the event in Bristol on 27 Nov, 6-8pm. It’s a free!
Yoga and Creativity Retreat: Carolyn Thompson and I are running another retreat. It’s called Create. Rest. Reset. Date: 20-22nd June 2025. Bookings are open and we’ve sold 5 places already.
My Winter Solstice Women’s Circle: Writing in the Woods is available to book. Grab your journal and come sit around the fire with a cuppa. This is time to unwind, connect with others – and uncover your thoughts with good old pen and paper. Book here.