As AI enters local marketing, Huntsville businesses weigh creativity against convenience

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has been integrated into a variety of fields, as the technology has evolved to writing stories, creating art and singing songs.

On social media, Huntsville residents are divided on AI’s place in creative fields, as local businesses are turning to AI to generate flyers.

After noticing an increase in AI-generated flyers across social media, Dustin Payne, a local resident, turned to a Huntsville community group to ask about the public’s consensus on the use of AI as a marketing tool.

How do some Huntsville residents feel about AI-generated marketing?

Payne’s post mainly leaned toward an overall discontent with businesses’ use of AI. Some residents commented they tend to block or avoid businesses that engage with the technology.

Prompted partly by “personal curiosity,” Payne hoped the post would also raise awareness to the social media group’s moderators to potentially implement an anti-AI policy due to the community’s feedback.

Payne is personally “disappointed” in the use of AI, particularly, he said, as they are “willing to ignore the known environmental impacts of using AI.”

A 2025 report by the United Nation Environment Programme highlights how AI data centres consume large amounts of water and often result in the unsustainable mining of critical minerals and rare elements, and how their massive use of electricity spurs planet-warming and greenhouse gases.

The Huntsville community member added “it also is a little disappointing that they would rather use AI than stimulating our local economy by working with local talent and businesses.”

“It’s taking away from the feel of the community and is resulting in homogenization of local businesses who are more interested in just getting word that they exist out there than trying to make a name for themselves in the local sphere,” said Payne.

Sheridan Francis, local owner of Blue Thistle Dog Daycare, engaged with Payne’s post, expressing a discontent with the use of AI.

As a business owner, Francis has made the effort not to use AI, for the “obvious moral implication” regarding AI’s environmental impacts, and because it trains off of artists’ work.

Payne said the use of AI from businesses can create a “general distrust” from the public, as the businesses might be taking shortcuts beyond their marketing, but also in their products or services.

Instead of AI-generated marketing, Payne said a “quick flyer done up in a Word document” would be “less abrasive and off-putting.”

Noticing that some businesses neglect to fact-check their AI-generated flyers, Francis said it can often feel as though they are falsely advertising a product or a business and are simply “tossing things out for everyone to see.”

Hearing about AI from business owners who do and don’t use the tool

Although not needing to create many posters or flyers for Blue Thistle Dog Daycare, all of the content created for the business is originally photographed and edited by Francis.

With the rise in AI-generated flyers posted across community groups, Francis said there are some businesses who are trying very hard to be accomplished, while “there are people who are putting out images of products that aren’t real and who can’t come up with an authentic reason why you should go see their business.”

Jill Wirth, who owns The Throwback Thrift in Huntsville with her family, said they used to create AI-generated flyers for their marketing, but have recently decided to stop.

“Originally, we started using them just to have fun, colourful, easy, quick marketing,” said Wirth.

Overtime, Wirth and her family said, they noticed AI-generated flyers were becoming very common and very easy to spot, “taking away from the impact of marketing.”

Though the business hadn’t received pushback from the public on their AI-generated marketing, Wirth told the Forester the pushback was internal, motiving her family to move away from AI.

“I would never want to do anything that would take away actual human creativity,” said Wirth. “My background in schooling is actually in marketing, my son is phenomenal at marketing, so I’m actually taking the job away from ourselves and allowing us to actually be creative and show our personality.”

Returning to local artistry

Having owned The Throwback Thrift for over a year, Wirth said before using AI, she and her family would create their own content, either by taking pictures of the store or uploading videos.

“Actually, the feedback and the likes and comments were way higher on the (posts) that we created ourselves, which maybe were not as polished,” said Wirth.

“One thing that’s really nice about the area is there is so much creativity,” said Francis, pointing to the Group of Seven art movement from 1920-1933, where a collective of painters sought to create a distinct Canadian art style — much of it inspired by Muskoka’s natural landscapes.

‘There’s just something very special about that,” Francis said, adding that there is a “level of discounting that and disrespect” when businesses choose to not utilize and outsource.

Moving away from AI-generated marketing

As The Throwback Thrift is owned by a creative family, Wirth said she thinks AI is “lazy,” and in using it, she’s really going against her beliefs.

“We’re going to try to be more creative,” said Wirth about The Throwback Vintage’s efforts to move away from AI-generated marketing. “We will be doing it internally and really getting away from AI, 100 per cent.”

Wirth said AI-generated flyers have become “cookie-cutter,” and as a small business, The Throwback Vintage wants to “stand out, not be part of the crowd.”

Francis said some businesses have been public about their preference toward AI over artists, even when offered a cheap service fee.

“If that becomes the prevailing attitude, then it’s just going to be a really sad and bleak kind of space of people to have any kind of creativity,” Francis said. “It feels feudalistic, it feels sad.”

Rebecca Hudescu is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter writing for the Huntsville Forester. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.