ABA-004
Ad
Dear Sydney, and the letter nobody wanted written
An Olympics ad showed a father asking Gemini to write his daughter's fan letter. Viewers hated it, and Google pulled it.
Dear Sydney,
Aired during the Paris 2024 Olympics, the spot follows a girl who idolises hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Her dad asks Gemini to help draft a letter. Nothing technically goes wrong.
Everything emotionally does. The ad hands a child's first fan letter to a machine, and audiences read it as a brand that did not understand which parts of life people actually want help with.
It is the most useful failure in the archive. It drew a line every AI marketer now works around: automate chores, never feelings.