AdMiration feature: ChatGPT’s “Pull Up”

For this week’s AdMiration feature, we looked at consumer response to ChatGPT’s latest “Pull Up" ad in comparison to the brand’s “The Intelligence Age” ad, which aired during the Super Bowl earlier this year. 

Read on to get our 3-2-1 snapshot of the ad (3 facts, 2 learnings and 1 reflection) and learn how their ad was received based on our data.

“Pull Up” is part of its first-ever brand-building campaign, positioning ChatGPT as something to be used for everyday life, in a more relatable way. 

The ad opens to a close up, aerial view of a young man doing a pull up at an outdoor gym. As he starts doing another pull up, the camera zooms out and “Someone, Somewhere (In Summertime)” by Simple Minds starts to play as the prompt “I want to feel stronger. Help me do some pull ups by fall” appears on screen. After completing two pull ups, he drops down as more text from ChatGPT begins scrolling across the screen, telling him what he can do to make it happen, which includes an 8 week plan and exercises to help get started and reach his goal.   

Background: Setting the scene

This ad, along with the other two in the campaign (more on the campaign below), are a clear departure from ChatGPT’s earlier ad that aired in the Super Bowl this year, “The Intelligence Age.” 

That ad was a standalone that positioned ChatGPT as the next great invention in human history. You can watch that ad below.

We were drawn to this campaign because of the more emotional focus and the goal of building the ChatGPT brand. It’s an interesting approach to position ChatGPT as something that can help us with more emotional moments in our real lives like planning a road trip to bond with a sibling or achieving an athletic goal — and one we think is the right direction for the brand.

Building a brand takes a lot of consistency over time to build the associations in the audiences’ mind. It’s not something that can be accomplished with a single ad campaign. 

So while this ad isn’t one of the best we’ve featured in AdMiration, we wanted to focus on the improvement over the brand’s Super Bowl ad and celebrate the direction the brand is headed in.

By going from techy to relatable, ChatGPT was able to establish a greater connection and understanding among viewers, with some sharing: “It was an interesting concept in that I had not thought of using AI to help with planning a routine,” "I liked that the ad on ChatGPT specifically stated what the individual had to follow in order to accomplish his chinups and in order to become successful at it" and "I liked that it's simple and to the point. I liked that it showed the usefulness of the product."

• “The Intelligence Age” celebrated the innovation of AI, and as a result it comes across as a bit cold and inaccessible. “Pull Up” makes a better emotional connection (Overall Emotion: 43 vs. 34) with much more love (Love: 24% vs. 15%). It is also a huge step forward in making people feel like ChatGPT has relevance in their everyday lives (Relevance: 3.3 vs. 3.1). Yet it is still not as strong on emotional connection or relevance as the average ad. 

• While the ad resonated far better with consumers overall, it’s those aged 45 and under that connected with it the most. We see higher scores across resonance metrics like overall emotion, enjoyment and relevance for this group. Plus, they loved the ad (Love: 37%) more than the older audience (Love: 11%).

• “Pull Up” is much easier to understand than “The Intelligence Age” (Understanding: 3.9 vs. 3.4). A third of respondents spontaneously mentioned that ChatGPT was helpful at providing advice and answers after they viewed the ad. But it is still more confusing than the average ad (Confusion: 9% vs. 2% norm), as not everyone is familiar with ChatGPT so the text scrolling across the screen was not immediately clear to the total audience. 

• “Pull Up” is better branded than “The Intelligence Age” (Unaided Brand Recall: 64% vs. 60%), but there is still room for improvement to give the brand a clearer role in the story. Those who were unfamiliar with the brand couldn’t identify the brand from the logo alone.

OpenAI’s first-ever big brand campaign for ChatGPT includes three short films, “Pull Up,” “Road Trip” and “Dish.” 

Each of these short films were directed by Miles Jay through the agency Smuggler and produced with Isle of Any and OpenAI’s in-house team. Each of these spots were also shot on 35mm film — giving them a real and nostalgic feel.

Laurie Howell and Toby Treyer-Evans, founders of Isle of Any, share, “We loved the idea of the viewer feeling like they had just been dropped into the final scene of a movie, using the prompt and the answer from ChatGPT as a nod to movie credits. We wanted these small moments to feel elevated, and give scale to how Chat helps co-create these small moments in our lives.”

The investment in long-term brand building marks a shift in the business’s approach to marketing, which has previously focused on one-off events, including its first Super Bowl ad in February.  

Elke Karskens, head of international marketing for OpenAI, shares, “Awareness and user acquisition remain a priority, but the campaign’s real target is to help users build a deeper emotional connection with the brand…Fundamentally, preference does really matter and it matters to our business long-term as well. It’s a flywheel: the more you use not just this technology, but ChatGPT specifically, the more loyal you stay, the deeper your connection to the brand. This is all very much about deepening that brand love that people feel for ChatGPT.”

Karskens adds, “AI use is deeply personal, and the most powerful stories come directly from how people experience ChatGPT. That’s why this campaign is rooted in authentic, product-led storytelling – building emotional connection by showing, not telling.”

The campaign will run across TV, streaming and paid social as well as out-of-home spots featuring simple shots based on real use-cases of the software, shot by photographer Samuel Bradley.

What a difference between these two ads from ChatGPT! The first, more techy, practical and logical and the latest more human, emotional and relatable. 

Overall, ChatGPT’s latest spot “Pull Up” performs better with consumers over the earlier “The Intelligence Age” — though there is room for improvement in future campaigns. 

This new spot is seen as much more distinctive than the first (Distinctiveness: 3.7 new vs. 3.5), but where their new ad really improved is in how it resonated with consumers. 

Audiences find “Pull Up” to be more relevant (Relevance: 3.3 vs. 3.1) and easier to understand (Understanding: 3.9 vs. 3.4).

Viewers also had a much higher emotional response (Overall Emotion: 43 vs. 34) and more love for this latest ad (Love: 24% vs. 15%). We also saw a big drop in confusion from “The Intelligence Age” to “Pull Up” (Confusion: 9% vs. 17%) — indicating that this ad is clearer, yet still not as easy to understand as the average ad. 

This is all a big step in the right direction! Showing how the product plays a tangible role in people’s real lives connects more emotionally than abstract celebrations of innovation. In the future, ChatGPT would be wise to continue to make that connection to build on the growth it’s seen with this ad — both the product and the campaign direction are new so it will take more time to fully land with audiences. 

“Pull Up” also conveyed more new information (New Information: 3.4 vs. 3.0) and, after viewing the ad, audiences felt that ChatGPT delivers what they expected from an AI assistant (Brand Meets Needs: 3.7 vs. 3.5). 

The overall message landed fairly well, with a third of respondents spontaneously mentioning that ChatGPT was helpful at providing advice and answers after they viewed the ad. Some described the message as: 

• Use ChatGPT to help with everyday tasks.

• That you can ask ChatGPT for advice and it will help you through it step by step.

• It was showing how ChatGPT can help you achieve your fitness goals.

• That ChatGPT is a versatile AI tool for work and daily tasks.

Clearly, the ad helped people see how they can use the product, understand that it's useful and that it helps them achieve real-life outcomes. Over time, this will help connect ChatGPT to category entry points so it comes to mind for people at the right time so they will use it more and more.

While ChatGPT’s latest ad resonated far better with consumers overall, it’s those aged 45 and under that connected with it the most. 

For this age group, we found higher scores across all resonance metrics — which is great news for ChatGPT considering that their user base skews to younger audiences.

Looking at viewers' second-by-second reactions to “Pull Up,” while the dominant emotion through the ad for audiences 45 and older is Like, younger audiences have a mix of Love and Like through the ad, with higher levels of Love through the end while the ChatGPT response is scrolling across the screen. 

For younger audiences, we see spikes of Like and Love when the music begins and we see the man doing his first pull up, and more spikes of Like and Love as the camera pulls back and we see him complete his second pull up. Then Love is the dominant emotion as the prompt appears on screen and we see ChatGPT’s response through to the end of the ad.

For older audiences (45+), we see similar spikes of Like through the beginning of the ad but much less Love than we see with younger audiences. Once the prompt and ChatGPT response comes on screen, we see flat levels of Like until the end — perhaps indicating it took older audiences (who may not use ChatGPT as commonly) longer to identify that the scrolling text was from ChatGPT.

When it came to what people liked about “Pull Up” overall, the biggest source of likes included the music (Music Appeal: 3.9 vs. 3.5 for the Super Bowl ad) — with audiences under 45 liking the music even more (Music Appeal 4.1). The advertising quality and clarity of the message were also mentioned as top likes among viewers. 

Here’s what some people shared: 

• "I liked that the ad was clear, showed practical uses of ChatGPT, was easy to follow, and made the AI feel helpful and approachable."

• "I liked how it showed what ChatGPT is capable of assisting you in all kinds of activities in your life."

• "It was an interesting concept in that I had not thought of using AI to help with planning a routine."

• "I liked that it's simple and to the point. I liked that it showed the usefulness of the product."

• "I really liked the music and the idea."

• "The music, and the visuals stand out."

• "The fact that ChatGPT can be used for anything including pull ups."

• "I liked that the ad on ChatGPT specifically stated what the individual had to follow in order to accomplish his chinups and in order to become successful at it."

This was a very different spot from ChatGPT in comparison to the ad they released earlier this year — overall doing a much better job at resonating with viewers. What did you think? Let us know by interacting with our coverage of the ad on LinkedIn.

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