By Brittaney Kiefer
Copyright adweek
Anthropic’s first major brand campaign for its flagship AI chatbot, Claude, takes an optimistic view of the technology’s potential to address the world’s big problems.
Today, Anthropic launched “Keep Thinking” to position Claude as the top AI tool for problem solvers. The campaign, created by independent agency Mother, represents a multimillion-dollar media investment and Anthropic’s first entry into paid advertising, according to the brand.
The stakes are high for Anthropic, valued at $183 billion, to differentiate itself amid the generative AI boom. Rivals such as Perplexity and OpenAI, which ran its first Super Bowl commercial in February, have also pushed into mainstream advertising over the past year.
In March, Anthropic expanded into web search. And earlier this month, the company agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a copyright infringement class-action lawsuit over its use of pirated books to train large language models.
The new Claude ad, directed by Daniel Wolfe through production company Love Song Films, begins on a negative note, with the line, “There’s never been a worse time,” playing over a montage of images evoking various challenges. The voiceover then switches into an upbeat invitation: “There’s never been a better time to have a problem.”
The subsequent scenes illustrate issues, from medical diagnoses to lack of education, that Claude can help tackle.
The campaign will include prominent media placements such as broadcasts during live sports events, streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu, print in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, podcasts, and influencer partnerships. Out-of-home ads feature Anthropic researchers Kamal Ndousse and Grace Han, as well as poems-to-images AI engine Poetry Camera creators Kelin Zhang, Ryan Mather, and Evan Kahn. Initiative was the media agency.
Speaking to business customers
Claude’s target audience is “problem solvers,” such as developers, researchers, and business owners. Anthropic’s own research found that Claude.ai and Claude API are primarily used for work-related tasks including coding, research, and education. The company said it has over 300,000 business customers, up from fewer than 1,000 two years ago.
“‘Keep thinking’ is intended as both a rallying cry and a promise: to the industry, that we must build AI responsibly; to problem solvers everywhere, that what once seemed impossible is now within reach,” Andrew Stirk, head of brand marketing at Anthropic, said in a statement. “Claude is for those who see AI not as a shortcut, but as a thinking partner to take on their most meaningful challenges.”
Mother won Anthropic’s creative business earlier this year. The agency used Claude in the development of the ad by researching usage scenarios, a Mother spokesperson said.
“The film acknowledges our problem-filled present but reframes AI as the solution rather than another threat,” Felix Richter, Mother’s global chief creative officer, said in a statement.
