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Branded is a weekly column devoted to the intersection of marketing, business, design, and culture. While its not clear what President Trumps ever-shifting tariffs attack on Canada might ultimately achieve, it has already done one thing for certain: ticked off a lot of Canadians. Thats taken the form of anti-Trump and anti-American sentiment (including the booing of the U.S. national anthem before various sporting events being played in Canada). But its also taken the form of renewed Canadian prideas witnessed by a reported spike in buying, and flying, Canadian flags. Naturally, official symbols of Canadianism arent the only option for expressing devotion to the Great White North: Consumer brands are a big part of that conversation, too. Last month, during the reprieve between Trumps initial threat and the 25% tariff on Canadian imports kicking in Tuesday (which Trump already paused again on Thursday), a survey of Canadian consumers found 85% said that they planned to replace some or all of the U.S.-made products on their shopping lists. (Interestingly, 41% said they would avoid shopping on Amazon.) And now, it seems, many are acting on that pledge. On Reddit and other online forums, fans of Canada-based consumer-goods companies have gathered to tout brands in seemingly every conceivable categoryfrom Hawkins Cheezies snacks (I cant believe anyone would eat a Cheeto if they had the option of Hawkins Cheezies, one fan enthused), Cove carbonated drinks as an alternative to American sodas, Stanfields underwear (founded in 1856, it bills itself as Canadian even before Canada), hipster-luxury denim brand Naked & Famous and Heartbeat Hot Sauce (On Hot Ones many times, a Redditor says) to Boo Bamboo personal-care products made with organic bamboo extract. A “Look for the Leaf” sign near the checkout counter of a store in Toronto, March 4, 2025, guides shoppers to look for maple leaf labels, which mark made-in-Canada items. [Photo: Michelle Mengsu Chang/Toronto Star/Getty Images] A slew of roundups and listicles have followed, showering attention on a range of Canadian brands. The Toronto Star, to pick one example, published a How to buy Canadian primer, which recommends Savör eggs, GoodLeaf Farms produce, and Royale toilet paper and tissues. Look for [dairy] products with the Blue Cow logo, the paper advised, which means theyre made with 100% Canadian milk and ingredients. Theres also a website, Made in CA, that compiles Canadian goods. Canadian grocer Loblaws CEO Per Bank has been posting on LinkedIn about its tariffs experience, noting that weekly sales of Canadian products were up by double digits in mid-February, and recently announcing the rollout of new in-store-display features to guide shoppers to Canadian wares. The combined desire to boycott American goods and support Canadian alternatives is, in some cases, clouded by intertwined global markets that have developed over decades of free-trade boosterism. People are directly writing into customer service asking detailed questions on whether [products] are Canadian, where they source from, and so forth, the CEO of Vancouver-based superfood latte brand Blume told Modern Retail. (Blume has been playing up its Canadianism on its site and social media lately.) But that consumer challenge is creating its own market: Several new apps with names like Buy Beaver and Maple Scan promise to reveal how Canadian a product iswhere it’s made, what its made of, etc.by scanning its barcode. That said, there are plenty of symbolic gestures, too, like rebranding caffe Americano as Canadiano. And there have been more directly punitive responses including canceling U.S. vacations and pulling American brands from Canadian liquor stores (a move the maker of Louisville, Kentucky-based Jack Daniels calls worse than a tariff), along with retaliatory tariffs on many American imports. The underlying sentiment isnt a matter of wonky economics; its emotional and visceral, based on a belief among many that the tariffs have nothing to do with border-security demands (as claimed) but are a blunt attempt to damage Canadas economy, and ultimately absorb the 158-year-old nation. (Trump has derisively referred to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as governor.) If Canadians are acting like theyve been betrayed by an old friend, they have good reason to feel that way. Hours after the tariffs went into effect, CTV News interviewed several Canadian-citizen shoppers who sounded determined to defy any trade strong-arming and indeed take it as motivation to seek out Canadian-made alternatives theyd ignored or overlooked in the past. I think we should really cut them off, said one Halifax resident, speaking of American brands, and we should stay [buying] 100% Canadian. Of course, that also could mean ultimately punishing brands from other countries that have nothing to do with the U.S. tariffs. But at least one American export appears to be catching on in Canada thanks to this trade flare-up: economic nationalism.
Category:
E-Commerce
Have you seen the new Volvo ad made with generative artificial intelligence? Go ahead. Watch it. . . . Ill wait. If you think it looks awful, youre not alone. The physics are all wrong, with hair, sand, and objects going in the wrong direction at the wrong time. The humans look like theyre made of plastic. Their emotions are forced, their expressions deformed, their smiles anything but warm. Instead, they likely fill you with an uncanny Grand Canyon of dread. The lighting is artificial, toono film, digital camera, or grading would produce that unnatural palette. Some people are saying that Volvo made a mistake by not putting a car in the ad, obviously not realizing that currently theres no video generator that can reliably re-create objects. Had the ads creators tried to produce a Volvo, theyd have ended up with a car with morphing proportions and features that change from shot to shot. The ad was made with Midjourney, which is pretty bad, but Sora, Kling, or Luma would have screwed it up too. And while apparently it is fine to create uncanny humans for promotional purposes, Im pretty sure that the Swedish car company wouldnt have accepted a Frankenvolvo.[Image: Volvo Cars KSA]According to Adweek, who spoke to Lion, the Dubai-based creative agency behind the spot, the ad is an effort to reintroduce Volvo to Saudi Arabia after years of pulling back on business in the region. Lions founder and executive creative director, Osama Saddiq, told the publication: The ad is a mélange of technically accurate and culturally resonant renders for Saudi Arabia. AI today is rarely humanizedmost executions are tactical, with little focus on brand storytelling. Our approach was different. We started by crafting a narrative that strategically aligned with Volvos comeback in the region.The issue, of course, is that nothing in the ad feels human, mammalian, or even protozoan. [Image: Volvo Cars KSA]According to Lion, using AI reduced production timelines from months to weeks. That might be enough to sell a business on the technology. And sure, theres a place for AI in current production, but generating entire ads is not itat least not yet. Weve seen this exact issue time and time again with brands that use technology for technologys sake. From Coca-Cola to Toys R Us, brands that use emerging technology as a shorthand for creative innovation usually come to regret it.[Image: Volvo Cars KSA]Im sure some people will protest this ad for its ethical considerations; because they dont like the idea of AI putting people in the creative and film industries out of a job. Thats a real concern. But the reason this ad shouldnt exist is simpler than that: It just looks bad. So heres a piece of advice for ad creators out there: Its time to forget about AI for a few years. Come back to it when its ready, and when you have a good idea for how to actually use it.
Category:
E-Commerce
How are the worlds most creative people using AI to drive their work forward? This was the question at the heart of an in-depth survey Fast Company recently conducted in partnership with Whalar, a leading social agency focused on content creators. We found that, for most, AI has become a routine part of the creative processand a return to an AI-free working life has become almost unfathomable. Yet the survey also found the worlds creative elite are grappling with a technology that gets more powerful and useful every day but remains unwieldy, error-prone, and not entirely trustworthy. I want people to understand how well it can augment and enhance the thinking processnot just the creative and generative thinking process, but the thinking process itself, said one respondent. If AI is used responsibly, it’s a wonderful collaborative partner and needn’t be feared. We sent the detailed (anonymous) survey to a diverse cohort of people who have been honored in Fast Companys Most Creative People in Business list over the years, plus a selection of independent content creators, and got 100 responses. The result offers a close look at how the worlds leading creatives are using this revolutionary technology to shape the future of their industries and the wider world. “The internet first revolutionized the playing field by democratizing publishing and audience access, says Neil Waller, co-CEO of the Whalar Group. Now, AI is creating the next massive rebalancing, this time in creative production capability. What excites me most is watching creators, who are inherently nimble and unburdened by legacy systems, adopt AI tools with remarkable speed. EARLY AND ENTHUSIASTIC ADOPTERS First, here are some key stats on the respondents: Forty-seven percent of those who responded were founders, partners, or principals of their companies, and 65% were 10 C-suite or higher. The top industries were tech (22%), design (16%), and entertainment (14%), and substantial numbers came from healthcare, science and research, and the nonprofit sector. The size of their organizations ranged from global behemoths to solo creators. Twenty-two percent of respondents booked more than $1 billion in revenue in 2024. Twenty percent did less than $1 million. Unsurprisingly, these folks are not new to AI, for the most part. More than a third (39%) have been aware of AI usage in their industry for more than five years, and 19% began using it themselves that long ago. Another third (30%) began using the technology two to three years ago, a timeframe that aligns with the arrival of ChatGPT in November 2022. “Eighty-three percent have incorporated AI into their creative process, and nearly half (48%) rely on it for most or all of their projects. I absolutely use it every single dayprobably five times a day or more, says Joel Bervell, a med-school student and popular influencer known on TikTok and Instagram as the Medical Mythbuster. Text-based software still dominates usage. Three quarters (74%) of the respondents use AI primarily to generate or manipulate words, with only 26% saying they mainly use it for still images or video. Whenever I use AI for writing, I make sure to make it my own, says Amy Merrill, an artist, musician, web designer, and founder of Plan C Pills, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving abortion access nationwide. But sometimes my tired and overstretched brain needs help synthesizing, and I’m grateful for the tool to be able to take a heady, complex question or issue and compress it into a more or less understandable response that I can adapt, correct, personalize, and use. Sometimes it feels like it saves me time in the clumsy human part, while allowing me to preserve the thought leadership part. WHICH TOOLS ARE MOST POPULAR? OpenAIs ChatGPT continues to dominate the LLM market, with 69% citing it as their go-to app, followed by Googles Gemini (28%), Anthropics Claude (19%), and Microsofts Copilot (18%). Google leads in AI search, but its far less dominant than in traditional search. While well over half of respondents (57%) say they primarily use Googles AI summaries, 14% cited Perplexity and 7% Microsofts Bing. Twenty-eight percent said they dont use AI search at all. (For those tallying up the numbers, respondents could select more than one answer.) On the image side, Midjourney came out on top at 28%, followed by Adobe Firefly at 19% and OpenAIs DALL-E at 16%. We use Midjourney to create posters for our shows, says Plan C Pills Merrill. We love the experience of prompting and feeding in inspiration, and in return getting something we never would’ve thought of. Fashion designer Arturo Obegero recently collaborated with an artist to create an ad campaign featuring real models against an AI-generated backdrop. We never would have been able to afford that shoot [IRL], he says. In that vein, notes Waller of Whalar, a creator with passion, vision, and an AI tool kit can now produce content that previously required a 20-person team and a seven-figure budget. Although AI generally saves time and money, its not always smooth sailing. While the AI tools helped generate images quickly, it can be a real struggle to get results that meet our standards, said one respondent, articulating a theme that came up repeatedly in the anonymous responses. We have spent many hours sifting through hundreds of generated images that more or less looked similar. Its [often not] until we manually create more specific visual inputs such as sketches or quick 3D models/ screenshots that were able to direct the images to be more specific and distinctive and reflect our aesthetics and design principles. Despite AIs growing role in image creation, video tools have yet to see widespread adoption outside industries that rely on them, with 76% of respondents saying they dont use them at all. Of those who do, Adobe Premiere Pro was the most popular application (15%), followed by Runway (5%), and Synthesia (3%). Among respondents who use AI to help write code, ChatGPT was most popular at 25%, Github Coplit was second at 10%, and Claude third at 8%. WHERE AI IS HELPING THE MOST (AND THE LEAST) We asked respondents how AI is affecting their creative work and overall business. A plurality of respondents praised production speed (44% very positive) and idea generation (35%), with marketing/promotion (25%) and revenue generation (25%) tying for third. Production speed and idea generation go hand in hand. Many respondents noted that AI allows them to focus on creative ideation by automating tedious tasks and enabling rapid iteration without the need for physical prototypes. This dual transformationamplifying creative potential while streamlining business operationsis why AI represents such a profound accelerator for the creator economy, says Waller. When harnessed the right way, it’s not replacing the creator’s voice. It’s supercharging it, and unlocking the next chapter of growth.” On the flip side, there were grave and consistent concerns about consumer trust. My greatest fear is not about creativity, said one respondent. My greatest fear is that we are entering a dystopian era when people will lose trust in what they see and hear. I now doub every video I see on the internet, said another. Everything is no longer a wow video since it could possibly be AI. We also asked for respondents views on how AI will affect the job market in their industries. Surprisingly, 39% said it would have neither a positive or a negative impact on job creation, and 34% said it would have a somewhat positive or very positive impact. Only 28% predicted the impact would be somewhat negative or very negative impact. But when asked to predict how many jobs in their industry would be replaced by AI, 42% replied that about a fifth of all jobs would be lost to machines. THE PARADOX OF AI That apparent contradiction reflects a macro theme that infused the survey results in a variety of ways: a sense that we are living through a technological shift that is existentially game-changing but ultimately still nascent. Think of it like a young and immensely talented athlete: The potential is indisputable and crystal clear, but the coordination and mastery just arent there yet. It fails all the time in code, but I just test and ask for revisions, said one respondent. I used it to help prep me for a business meeting, said another. The client company had just emerged from Chapter 11, and ChatGPT didn’t think to mention that little fact. Overall, though, most respondents took the rise of AI as an inevitable and ultimately positive thing that nevertheless requires human will to control. Are you gonna let AI take over you, asks Joel Bervell, the Medical Mythbuster, or are you gonna let it enhance your work? In that spirit of optimism, well close with the most utopian anonymous comment in the entire survey: I truly believe we are unlocking new insights into information, understanding, creativity and human potential, including our growing ability to understand the ecosystem we live in and the vast potential to coexist with each other and everything else in it. Let’s do this!!
Category:
E-Commerce
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