If you’ve been to the New York City subway recently, you’ve probably seen Stark White Ads promote a wearable AI device called Friend.
CEO Avi Schiffman told AdWeek that the company spent more than $1 million on a campaign that included more than 11,000 cards on subway cars, 1,000 platform posters and 130 city panels. Some stations, like West 4th Street, are completely dominated by friends’ ads.
“This is the world’s first major AI campaign,” Schiffman said. (There were other AI ads of questionable effectiveness, but perhaps not a print campaign of this scale.) He described it as a “huge gambling,” adding, “I don’t have much money left.”
A friend’s $129 device is controversial, with wired writers recently criticising its constant surveillance, declaring, “I hate friends.” Similarly, some friend ads are destroyed with a message that calls it “surveillance capitalism,” urging audiences to “get real friends.”
Schiffman knows well that “New Yorkers probably hate AI more than anywhere else in the country,” so he deliberately bought advertisements in many white spaces “as they would make social comments on topics.”
