#AI4M: Should Brands Lend Their Mascots to AI Videos?
“OpenAI Wants Brands to Allow Their Mascots to Appear in Gen AI Videos” (The Wall Street Journal, November 4, 2025) should they? OpenAI’s new Sora 2 text-to-video app’s “character cameo” feature lets users insert familiar brand characters into AI-generated scenarios—raising both new opportunities for engagement and serious concerns around copyright, brand integrity, and monetization.
Sora 2 has already been flooded with unauthorized uses of copyrighted characters, including controversial and parody videos. OpenAI’s new approach seeks to shift from reactive content takedowns to proactive brand partnerships. The idea is for brands to upload their assets, set rules for usage, and possibly earn revenue when their mascots are featured. This experimental model blends co-creation with control, presenting a fresh promotional channel—but also triggering new questions around legal use, fan engagement, and brand strategy.
Relevant Chapters in Essentials of Marketing
This might prompt some great classroom discussion when you introduce AI (perhaps Chapter 3) or when you cover Promotion (particularly Chapters 13, 15, and 16) . It is particularly relevant when covering user-generated content which we have in Chapter 16.
Class Discussion Ideas
The topic raises some interesting questions for marketing managers. And at first glance, I think many of our students might overestimate the benefits, while marketing managers may overestimate the risks.
In-Class Activity Ideas
- “Mascot Strategy Pitch”: Have students role-play brand managers deciding whether to allow their mascot in Sora 2 videos. Include cost/benefit analysis.
- “Policy Writing Workshop”: Ask students to create a usage policy that sets parameters for how a mascot could be used in AI-generated content.
- “AI Video Review”: Show real or mocked-up Sora videos (e.g., Ronald McDonald parodies) and debate the brand impact.
- “Let’s Debate”: Assign students to small teams. Tell them that they are product manager for a well-known brand (Taco Bell, Starbucks, or Nike). Have half the groups develop an argument in favor of allowing this and half oppose.
When I first heard about what OpenAI was trying to do, I thought of Chevy’s similar efforts to encourage user-generated content almost two decades ago. It did not go well. There are some funny McDonald’s parodies you could show in class (I have embedded one below, though I am not sure if it won’t be taken down at some point). You can find others by searching “Ronald McDonald and Sora 2” in YouTube. For some reason, Ronald McDonald draws a lot of parodies.
ChatGPT was used to create a first draft of this blog post and to create the image shown here.