National Trust pauses all TikTok ads after AI ad error

The National Trust paused all of its TikTok advertising after an automated feature inside TikTok's ad system published AI-generated ads in the charity's name by mistake. The charity said so in a statement on LinkedIn, first reported by Civil Society.

The ads invited TikTok users to become National Trust members. Marketers flagged the videos as obviously artificial and out of step with a conservation charity that trades on photographs of real landscapes, gardens and historic buildings. The National Trust replied to one LinkedIn post to explain what had gone wrong.

"This was an automated feature from TikTok Ads which produced AI-generated adverts in error. We've now paused all our TikTok ads while we investigate how this happened."

A spokesperson told Arts Professional the content "was generated through an automated feature within TikTok Ads and was not part of the National Trust's approved creative." The charity is "working directly with TikTok to understand how this occurred and to put additional safeguards in place to prevent it happening again," the spokesperson said, according to Civil Society. The ads stay paused while the investigation runs.

What Is TikTok's Auto-Add Feature?

The setting lives inside TikTok Ads Manager, the platform's paid business tool. TikTok's own help documentation describes a Recommended Creatives tab that "displays recommended creatives, including historical videos, AI-generated content, and TikTok posts." An auto-add function refreshes a campaign's creatives during delivery, so a live ad group can pick up assets an advertiser never uploaded or approved.

That is what appears to have caught the National Trust. Harri Brown, co-founder of the TikTok agency Antler Social, told advertisers how to shut it off. Turn off the "auto-add newly generated assets during delivery" setting, Brown wrote, and delete any unexpected AI assets by hand inside the ad group.

"If you've opened your ad group and seen a bunch of AI generated assets, don't worry — you can turn them off/delete them," Brown posted on LinkedIn. "Just click the drop down toggle on your ad and it'll show you the variations that have been made without you realising."

Alex Pollard, managing director of Pollard Media, said the episode stood out because the National Trust has "one of the country's finest photo libraries." Charlotte Anstee, a digital marketing executive at Ocean, wrote on LinkedIn that the ads clashed with the charity's climate campaigning and that local teams had "previously been told by head office that there is an AI ban."

The National Trust has not said when its TikTok advertising will restart. TikTok has been contacted for comment, Arts Professional reported.

If you buy TikTok ads, open your ad group and check the creative toggles: turning off "auto-add newly generated assets during delivery" stops the platform from publishing machine-made variations you never approved.