Heartbeats

over

Algorithms:

Lessons

from

‘Dying

for

Sex'

Okay, let's recalibrate. Pause your incessant doom scrolling, ditch the earbuds for a moment, grab the remote. We need to talk about what hit me in the feels last week, something raw, vital, and utterly, profoundly human: the TV adaptation of Dying for Sex.

If you somehow missed the buzz around the original podcast, the series brings Molly's story – diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer, leaving her marriage, embarking on a final, fervent journey of sexual exploration – to visual life. It’s confronting, darkly funny, heartbreaking, and performed with a vulnerability that makes you lean in, maybe squirm a little, but absolutely feel all the things. In the words of Bernard Black “you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, it'll change your life”.

And it feels a little trite to somehow connect this incredible example of storytelling back to advertising, but in the face of the enshitification isn’t it the feels that we are all about. That visceral, complex, sometimes uncomfortable thump in your chest? That's the gold standard of connection. It's the polar opposite of the optimised, the predictable, the algorithmically safe. It’s everything that the rising tide of AI-generated content, for all its efficiency, fundamentally lacks.

We're swimming in think pieces about AI transforming our industry. It's the efficiency engine, the content multiplier, the bot that never needs a coffee break. And look, AI is undeniably powerful. It can generate campaign variations faster than a junior creative, optimise headlines for clicks, even cobble together surprisingly competent visuals. It can produce volume and it can replicate.

But watching Molly grapple with mortality by embracing vitality, seeing the messy, awkward, sometimes glorious encounters played out, witnessing the profound intimacy and grief in the friendship between her and her best friend Nikki... you're smacked in the face by what AI cannot do. It cannot replicate the lived experience etched onto a human face. It cannot generate the specific, contradictory nuances forged in decades of friendship, love, and loss. It cannot truly understand the desperate, biological imperative behind seeking connection when facing the void. AI can mimic patterns it's been fed, but it hasn't lived through joy and despair. It hasn't felt the clock ticking.

This slams us right into the harsh reality of the "cost of dull." We know, instinctively and increasingly through data, that forgettable advertising isn't just ineffective, it's actively expensive. Wasted media spend is just the start. It's brand erosion by beige. It’s training audiences to tune us out. AI, if deployed merely as a content sausage machine, risks amplifying this, churning out ever-more-perfectly-calibrated blandness at unprecedented scale.

Cue the recent studies showing a correlation between increased heart rate and ad effectiveness. Groundbreaking, right? Like saying water is wet. But it confirms a fundamental truth: work that makes you feel something – surprise, tension, empathy, joy, even a jolt of uncomfortable recognition – literally gets the blood pumping. It bypasses the cynical filters and lands somewhere deeper, more primal.

"Dying for Sex," the *series*, would likely send cardiograms into overdrive. Not through cheap narrative tricks or jump scares, but through the sheer force of its performed emotional honesty. The tension in Molly’s quest, the intimacy of vulnerable moments, the dark humour that catches in your throat, the sheer life force radiating from the screen – it grabs you. It makes your heart do something.

Now, contrast that physiological response with the likely reaction to the average piece of AI-generated brand content. A flatline. Maybe a brief flicker of cognitive processing before dismissal. It’s the visual equivalent of hold music – technically constructed, utterly devoid of a pulse.

So, what’s the strategic imperative here? It’s not about rejecting AI wholesale. That’s like trying to put the printing press back in the box. AI is a formidable tool for the heavy lifting, for optimisation, for generating starting points, for making the machine run smoother.

But the soul? The story? The translation of profound human experience into something that connects on screen, that makes someone *feel* seen, understood, or simply alive? That still requires human beings. It requires writers who wrestle with words, actors who inhabit emotion, directors who frame vulnerability, and strategists who understand the messy, beautiful chaos of the human heart. It requires the courage to tell stories that risk specificity, that embrace imperfection, that dare to have a pulse – the kind of pulse that thrums through Molly’s story.

Brands need to find their own version of that unflinching honesty. They need the bravery to resist the siren call of infinite, easy, perfectly mediocre content.

Because the chasm between a story like "Dying for Sex" brought to life on screen, and the most sophisticated output of a generative model, is vast. And in that chasm lies the entire value proposition of human creativity, empathy, and strategic insight. Our job isn't just to avoid the cost of dull; it's to create resonant value through genuine, heart-rate-raising connection.

Let the algorithms optimise the delivery pipes. We need to focus on crafting the stories worth watching, the ones that remind us what it means to be alive, even – especially – in the face of death. Because no machine can truly capture that beautiful, terrifying, vital mess, especially when it’s played out right before our eyes. And thank goodness for that.