Does Vodafone's 'The Rhythm of Life' Chart a Future for AI Ads?

Maybe so—for better and for worse

The first time we saw Vodafone’s “The Rhythm of Life,” created entirely through AI, we thought, “It’s good they managed to get all those fingers and toes right.”

Set to a remix of a Corona’s dance track “The Rhythm of the Night,” a big hit in Europe, the ad kicks off with a baby in the womb and ends with a man alone on a mountain, watching a Black woman give a speech. There are vague notions here, more felt than rendered explicit: A diverse world, freedom to roam, a sense of togetherness.

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“In the rhythm of life. We just keep the beat,” the spot concludes, followed by the tagline: “Together We Can.” These phrases kind of have something to say, but also don’t, like the ad itself: It is a pastiche of moments approaching meaning without setting stakes in the ground.

As such, it is a success. Unlike Coca-Cola’s AI-driven “Holidays Are Coming,” which generated backlash for its uncanny-valley weirdness, Vodafone has done something with tech that nobody really expected: It made a generic telecom ad that feels uncontroversial, has nothing to say and rides a classic song.

Advertisers who aspire to careers filled with reams of “good-enough” work can rest assured: their jobs are safe. Clients’ budgets may also find some relief moving forward, too.

Three agencies and studios were commissioned for this campaign: New Commercial Arts and Design Bridge, both U.K.-based; and New Zealand’s Sleeper. Sebastian Strasser of Lipstick directed.

Vodafone global senior brand identity and communications manager Amr El Badr, puts a lot of emphasis on the human labor involved.

“The creative idea was entirely human,” Badry told AdAge. “AI was used as the production tool to enhance mainly and accelerate the process for us. But the campaign’s direction, storytelling and the vision were all crafted by our creative team.” He also observes that while a lot of the ad industry has negative feedback on the work, consumers haven’t found much to complain about. It’s diverse, global in scope. It was easier to do with AI than shooting on-site.

We’ve talked before about how AI has the potential to be a powerhouse creative tool. If Vodafone’s done anything with “The Rhythm of Life,” it’s shown that AI efforts don’t even have to be groundbreaking. They can clock in at “adequate,” slipping seamlessly into a suite of whatever tools creatives are already using. Bravo there.

For us, the real problem with the work is more existential. Vodafone is hardly the only brand focused on diversity, specifically, using AI. As with the problem of virtual influencers, there’s this open question about whether disenfranchising actual minority talent using technology is really the way we want to go, even if consumers accept it.

We don’t think anyone worries about AI’s potential as a creative tool, per se. We have to figure out how to use it and refine our use of it, but that’s an addressable learning curve.

The larger question is more insidious: John Maynard Keynes once famously said his grandchildren would be working 15-hour weeks because of technological advances. This didn’t bear out, and the reasons are obvious: Technology got better and could ostensibly give us more leisure. This isn’t possible within systems of enforced scarcity, where we are expected to continue participating in an economy to survive, even when we are rendered obsolete.

The result is that technology improves and divests people of work. But they don’t get to enjoy any new leisure time; they’re instead forced to train against increasingly competitive standards of survival.

Technology is improving faster now. Retirement ages are going up, and benefits are decreasing or simply vanishing. The tech class has made it clear that they’re interested in using AI to replace—not augment—jobs that rely on particular types of human ingenuity, including art, literature and entertainment.

As an actor or a model, you don’t get paid much to show up in an ad. But you do get paid significantly more than you might make bussing tables at a restaurant. And it’s all the more meaningful a price for minority groups who, frankly, don’t get as many such jobs as their white counterparts.

Was that really something that should have been taken away?

In “The Rhythms of Life,” Vodafone’s done a fine job of showcasing diversity. It’s done nothing for actually facilitating a more equitable world, where this AI pipe dream of equality—all of us dancing together, kissing our babies and randomly listening to the speech of a Black woman in a politically important context—can actually be realized.

This, in our view, is advertising at its worst: A promise vaguely made, broken by design.

Consumers might not rail at this specific ad. But work like this, and the ripples it causes, may contribute to the anger and disenfranchisement so many people feel.

As underwriters of technology and also of culture, advertising has a responsibility to do so much better.