Dollar Shave Club shot its new campaign with real people in front of and behind the camera. AI got the gags, like a spokesperson holding up six fingers for a six-blade razor. It did not get the shave. That split is the most useful thing I read this week. The other three items are about knowing what you may use, and where.
A six-blade razor, sold with six fingers
“Perfectly Good Is Perfect” launched on 20 October across connected TV, YouTube, Meta and TikTok. It was made in-house with agency partner Humanaut. AI was used “for quick visual gags, like the spokesperson holding six fingers when showing off the six-blade razor,” and helped cut production to about two and a half months. The brand still avoids AI for shaving in action, because the result does not look right (Marketing Dive, 20 Oct).
What it changes: That is the split I work to. I reject 60–70% of AI takes, and the ones that fail most are the ones that carry the product. Give AI the joke and the world around the product. Give the product to the camera or to the real pack file. On Festival Toffee the packs keep their original artwork in every shot; only the world around them is invented.
“Open weights” does not mean free for a brand
Black Forest Labs released FLUX 3 Image Klein on 15 October: 5.6 billion parameters, open weights, native 4K, and with its INT8 build it runs on NVIDIA RTX cards with 8 GB of memory. Commercial use is free for “individuals and companies with annual revenue under $5M”. Larger organisations go through “self-hosted licensing options or API”, which starts at $0.009 per 1K image (Black Forest Labs, 15 Oct).
What it changes: Most FMCG advertisers are far over $5 million a year. So the free tier is not yours, even when the freelancer you hired runs the model on their own laptop. Ask one question before the first frame: whose revenue does the licence count, the studio’s or yours? Then write the model and the licence into the brief.
YouTube now labels AI music
YouTube Music started labelling songs “created primarily using generative AI” on the player page, based on what partners disclose and on YouTube’s own detection. YouTube says the labels “will also expand to the main YouTube app” (YouTube, 14 Oct).
What it changes: A brand film on YouTube with a generated track may one day carry that label next to your logo. The Festival Toffee soundtrack was written in code, with no samples and no vocals, so I can say where every note came from. Add a music column to the delivery sheet: how the track was made, by whom, under which licence.
Dubai now has rules for what goes on a billboard
Dubai Municipality issued content guidelines for outdoor advertising. They cover written content, images, logos, animations, promotional displays, interactive elements, and the use of landmarks and symbols, and they “take into account developments in digital technology and artificial intelligence”. The full text is available from the municipality’s call centre on 800900 (Campaign Middle East, 19 Oct).
What it changes: The report quotes no AI-specific rule and no start date. Get the full text before you approve AI imagery for a Dubai outdoor site. One hero film now runs in many markets, and each cut has to pass where it is shown, not where it was made.
What I’d do next week
Add two lines to every AI brief: the model and its licence, and the shots that are camera-only — the product, the pack, any real person. Add a music column to the delivery sheet. If a cut is booked for a Dubai site, request the guidelines first. For results, see twelve AI ads graded on what they did; for the production side, this is how I work.
Sources
- Marketing Dive (Chris Kelly) — Dollar Shave Club markets “perfectly good” razors as AI push continues, 20 Oct 2026 — www.marketingdive.com
- Black Forest Labs — FLUX 3 Image Klein: open weights, 5.6B parameters, 15 Oct 2026 — bfl.ai
- YouTube Official Blog — AI labels on YouTube Music, 14 Oct 2026 — blog.youtube
- Campaign Middle East — Dubai Municipality issues outdoor advertising content guidelines, 19 Oct 2026 — campaignme.com