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I’m scared to ask this, but is AI killing passion? This 4-second scene took 1 year and 3 months to animate. It’s from The Wind Rises (2013), a film by Studio Ghibli. Director Hayao Miyazaki was adamant it must be hand-drawn, no CGI, no shortcuts. So animator Eiji Yamamori spent 15 months crafting it. At 24 frames per second, that’s 96 unique drawings. Each character in the crowd moves with their own purpose, their own tiny story. No two are the same. Miyazaki once said when AI creates something like this, it feels like “an insult to humanity.” You don’t draw to get a drawing. You draw because it makes you feel alive. It’s the act of choosing colors. Sitting by a river. Letting the world around you fade while your world on paper comes alive. And maybe that’s what AI can’t do. It can produce images, but it doesn’t love making them. And maybe that love, messy, time-consuming, deeply human, is what art actually is.

Two ads. Same headline. Same bottle. But a single punctuation mark changes the entire story. “She’s pregnant!” Excitement. Joy. Celebration. Time for a drink. “She’s pregnant.” Shock. Stress. Maybe fear. Still… time for a drink. All they changed was punctuation, and the tone flipped completely. That’s the magic of advertising done right. No gimmicks. No hard sell. Just understanding emotion. But here’s the deeper genius you might be missing: The product isn’t the hero. The moment is. They don’t say: “Buy our beer.” They say: “Are you happy? Sad? Shocked? Overwhelmed? Here’s something to go with that.” Great brands don’t shove their product into your life. They slide into your story. And well, sometimes, that’s all it takes. A punctuation mark. A shared moment. And a bottle of beer. — Want more content like this in your feed? Follow me for 60-second insights on branding, culture, and virality.

CHANEL did something most luxury brands never dare. They let kids design their ads. No Photoshop. No filters. Just crayons and raw love. Not art directors. Not agencies. Not creative leads. These are crayon drawings by kids, used for Chanel’s Mother’s Day campaign. Zero polish. No retouching. Just pure feeling. And somehow, that makes them more luxurious than the most expensive 3D render. Sometimes, the most powerful branding move is giving the stage away, and letting someone else tell the story for you.

Burger King launched one of the most controversial ads of the decade. Perhaps one of the smartest too. Burger King dropped a headline that instantly made people stop scrolling: “Women belong in the kitchen.” Outrageous? Yes. Clickbait? Also yes. But here’s the part most people missed: They weren’t being sexist, they were pointing out that only 24% of chef positions are held by women. Only 7% are head chefs. The ad was announcing a scholarship for female chefs, designed to change that stat. It’s a classic example of using a cultural cliché, flipping it, and making you think. It was definitely controversial, but effective, too. You’re still talking about it, aren’t you? That’s the thing about bold advertising, it walks a fine line. But when done well, it doesn’t just sell burgers, it sparks conversations that matter. — Want more content like this in your feed? Follow me for 60-second insights on marketing, branding, and internet culture.