They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery. ManiLife, the peanut butter brand I started from a rugby club kitchen a decade ago, has had plenty of it.
While brands ripping off ManiLife’s Deep Roast (a product we created, completely by accident, and still the best name for ‘overcooked’ we can think of) might have initially niggled, the overarching emotion was and still is flattered. ManiLife has changed peanut butter globally forever and that is, genuinely, quite cool.
So, yes, I’ve always been fine with imitation – until a fan sent me an Instagram handle that made my stomach turn.
AI imitation is icky
A Manchester-based nut butter brand called TuniVibe (which someone later commented “sounds like a ChatGPT-generated synonym for ManiLife”) had nicked our content – including a photo of me, which they had fed to AI and reposted. The result was so flagrantly lazy it was funny. Then I got the ick.
It might be because they’ve prompted ‘AI me’ to be slightly better looking. It might be because they didn’t even change the logo on our outlandishly stylish bucket hats. It might even be the AI hot cross buns in a hazelnut butter, which were clearly a reference to our Hot Cross Nut Butter!
Or, it could be their response once they got rumbled by the masses: “The bucket hat clearly says ManeUyg not ManiLife.” On closer inspection, it does, to be fair.
What really got me wasn’t just the copying. It was that weird mash-up of human and machine – the rip-off being so obviously fake, but also me? A real person, now AI’d into someone else’s marketing.
Then there was the fact this isn’t some AI slop farm. It’s a real business, selling real product, to ManiLife customers.
In this case, the execution is so poor to the point that it’s funny. But the execution will get better. TuniVibe’s decision to amend my features was, on reflection, courteous, but imagine if they didn’t. Imagine if they just robbed a picture and swapped out the jar – you’re now the face of TuniVibe. Then imagine if they did it with a picture of your kids.
A warning shot for creatives
It feels like a warning shot, partly to the ominous end in store for real-life creatives, shooting real-life scenes for real-life money (the strawberry was dipped and snapped in Manchester – it was delicious).
But it also feels like a warning shot on how AI blurs the lines of dishonesty. In the past month I’ve been approached by multiple agencies who are using AI to make ‘user-generated content’. Save money on sample sendouts and guarantee positive reviews. They’re pitching what is effectively hoodwinking consumers with fake video reviews. And they aren’t skipping a beat.
I get the AI hype train – it is almost definitely going to revolutionise everything. But humans have learned enough times what happens when we get caught up in the hysteria of technological advancement and don’t check ourselves.
We end up with microplastics in our testicles, forever chemicals in our drinking water and, dare I say it, chronically overweight and undernourished on ultra-processed ‘food’.
I’m not asking for draconian regulation, but a ‘made with AI, not real people’ badge on content feels like a light lift with plenty of upside.
Stu Macdonald is founder of ManiLife
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