Rebranding as “Voltswagen.” Shutting down Trader Joe’s. Emailing confirmation of a $750 food delivery.
The range of April Fools’ Day marketing pranks gone awry is as varied as their reception. Met with everything from smiles and social media shares to confusion, derision or even fury and falling stocks, the puckish promotional tactic represents a risk that can endear customers to a brand as swiftly as it can sour them on it.
“One person’s humour is another person’s offense,” said Vivek Astvansh, a marketing professor at McGill University.
As April 1 approaches, consumers would be wise to extend even more skepticism, with experts saying artificial intelligence ramps up the potential for high-tech promotional ploys. Whether through generative text-to-video tools that conjure rich scenes from dashed-off instructions or chatbots that serve up endless ad ideas on command, AI raises new questions of authenticity and could make distinguishing between jokes, facts and deepfakes even harder.
“In the next few days, we will see many ads that were motivated by GPT-4 or other generative AI tools,” Astvansh said in reference to the most current version of OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT program.
Even before the AI breakthroughs of the past 16 months — OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022 — the technology’s power to transcend human capacity has played a role in corporate hijinks.
On April 1, 2019, Google announced it had figured out how to communicate with tulips in their own language, “Tulipish.” It offered translation between the perennial’s petals and dozens of human dialects, citing “great advancements in artificial intelligence.” The video closed off by noting that Google Tulip would only be available that day, leaving few in doubt about the joke.
But past misunderstandings suggest future ones could await, augmented by AI’s abilities.
In the lead-up to April 1, 2021, Volkswagen AG put out a news release stating its American division would change its name to “Voltswagen.” Several news outlets reported the statement, despite some doubts about its authenticity. The confusion that greeted the announcement grew further when the company told reporters who asked if it was an April Fools’ gag that the auto giant was dead serious — only to admit the stunt hours later.
The joke fell flat as an old tire in the wake of Volkswagen’s “diesel dupe” scandal several years earlier, when U.S. authorities found the company had installed software on more than half a million cars that enabled them to cheat on diesel emissions tests.
Other April Fools’ Day ruses that backfired include when Yahoo News falsely reported in 2016 that Trader Joe’s would close all of its 457 stores in less than a year, and when British online food delivery company Deliveroo sent its customers fake confirmation emails in 2021 for orders of $750, causing thousands to think their accounts had been hacked.
Now, the ready accessibility and low user cost of many AI tools opens the door to more companies deploying the technology — including for April Fools’ fun that might go sideways.
“GPT-4 can instantly create multiple advertising campaigns’ content, which could be video or which could be still images. And then within a very short period of time and with very little spending or investment, the internal advertising team or marketing team can sift through the outputs that GPT-4 would have generated,” Astvansh said. All that remains is to select one, tweak it with edits and post it.
To guard against deception, Astvansh said disclosure of both methods and intentions will be key, especially on April 1.
“I hope they declare or they give some information in their content that the seed idea or the seed content was created by a generative AI tool,” he said.
Digital watermarking — embedding a pattern into AI-generated content to help users distinguish real images from fake ones and identify who owns them — is one such disclosure method.
“It’s basically making sure that the images or the videos that are being produced by these platforms are tagged in a way that when they then show up on the internet, labels are being attached to them so … users know what they’re seeing is AI,” said Sam Andrey, managing director of the Dais, a public policy think tank at Toronto Metropolitan University.
The technology’s potential for trickery is already well-established. Witness the scams that use a loved one’s voice to convince their partner to transfer money to fraudsters, or recent robocalls that impersonate prominent political figures. Combine those with sophisticated images or digitally generated characters and the result is a potential for deception on a vast scale, including from corporate actors.
“Even just a year ago it was more cartoonish,” Andrey said of AI-created graphics.
“If it’s generating innocuous, normal media and it’s lowering production costs, that’s less worrisome,” — for example, if AI had been applied to Tim Hortons’ square-shaped Timbits, Ikea Canada’s meatball vending machines or Jeep Canada’s all-flannel interior “keeping you as cozy as a lumberjack in the Canadian wilderness.” All were April Fools’ Day pranks last year.
“But we should not be using AI to deceive people,” Andrey said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 30, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada Goose Holdings Inc. says it has signed a deal that will result in the creation of its first eyewear collection.
The deal announced on Thursday by the Toronto-based luxury apparel company comes in the form of an exclusive, long-term global licensing agreement with Marchon Eyewear Inc.
The terms and value of the agreement were not disclosed, but Marchon produces eyewear for brands including Lacoste, Nike, Calvin Klein, Ferragamo, Longchamp and Zeiss.
Marchon plans to roll out both sunglasses and optical wear under the Canada Goose name next spring, starting in North America.
Canada Goose says the eyewear will be sold through optical retailers, department stores, Canada Goose shops and its website.
Canada Goose CEO Dani Reiss told The Canadian Press in August that he envisioned his company eventually expanding into eyewear and luggage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
Almost seven years since news broke of an alleged conspiracy to fix the price of packaged bread across Canada, the saga isn’t over: the Competition Bureau continues to investigate the companies that may have been involved, and two class-action lawsuits continue to work their way through the courts.
Here’s a timeline of key events in the bread price-fixing case.
Oct. 31, 2017: The Competition Bureau says it’s investigating allegations of bread price-fixing and that it was granted search warrants in the case. Several grocers confirm they are co-operating in the probe.
Dec. 19, 2017: Loblaw and George Weston say they participated in an “industry-wide price-fixing arrangement” to raise the price of packaged bread. The companies say they have been co-operating in the Competition Bureau’s investigation since March 2015, when they self-reported to the bureau upon discovering anti-competitive behaviour, and are receiving immunity from prosecution. They announce they are offering $25 gift cards to customers amid the ongoing investigation into alleged bread price-fixing.
Jan. 31, 2018: In court documents, the Competition Bureau says at least $1.50 was added to the price of a loaf of bread between about 2001 and 2016.
Dec. 20, 2019: A class-action lawsuit in a Quebec court against multiple grocers and food companies is certified against a number of companies allegedly involved in bread price-fixing, including Loblaw, George Weston, Metro, Sobeys, Walmart Canada, Canada Bread and Giant Tiger (which have all denied involvement, except for Loblaw and George Weston, which later settled with the plaintiffs).
Dec. 31, 2021: A class-action lawsuit in an Ontario court covering all Canadian residents except those in Quebec who bought packaged bread from a company named in the suit is certified against roughly the same group of companies.
June 21, 2023: Bakery giant Canada Bread Co. is fined $50 million after pleading guilty to four counts of price-fixing under the Competition Act as part of the Competition Bureau’s ongoing investigation.
Oct. 25 2023: Canada Bread files a statement of defence in the Ontario class action denying participating in the alleged conspiracy and saying any anti-competitive behaviour it participated in was at the direction and to the benefit of its then-majority owner Maple Leaf Foods, which is not a defendant in the case (neither is its current owner Grupo Bimbo). Maple Leaf calls Canada Bread’s accusations “baseless.”
Dec. 20, 2023: Metro files new documents in the Ontario class action accusing Loblaw and its parent company George Weston of conspiring to implicate it in the alleged scheme, denying involvement. Sobeys has made a similar claim. The two companies deny the allegations.
July 25, 2024: Loblaw and George Weston say they agreed to pay a combined $500 million to settle both the Ontario and Quebec class-action lawsuits. Loblaw’s share of the settlement includes a $96-million credit for the gift cards it gave out years earlier.
Sept. 12, 2024: Canada Bread files new documents in Ontario court as part of the class action, claiming Maple Leaf used it as a “shield” to avoid liability in the alleged scheme. Maple Leaf was a majority shareholder of Canada Bread until 2014, and the company claims it’s liable for any price-fixing activity. Maple Leaf refutes the claims.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:L, TSX:MFI, TSX:MRU, TSX:EMP.A, TSX:WN)
TORONTO – TD Bank Group, which is mired in a money laundering scandal in the U.S., says chief executive Bharat Masrani will retire next year.
Masrani, who will retire officially on April 10, 2025, says the bank’s, “anti-money laundering challenges,” took place on his watch and he takes full responsibility.
The bank named Raymond Chun, TD’s group head, Canadian personal banking, as his successor.
As part of a transition plan, Chun will become chief operating officer on Nov. 1 before taking over the top job when Masrani steps down at the bank’s annual meeting next year.
TD also announced that Riaz Ahmed, group head, wholesale banking and president and CEO of TD Securities, will retire at the end of January 2025.
TD has taken billions in charges related to ongoing U.S. investigations into the failure of its anti-money laundering program.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
