Inside the buzziest campaign at Cannes—Marcel’s deepfake women’s soccer film

It’s the campaign that swept the major ad award shows this spring and stormed into Cannes Lions as a favorite: Paris agency Marcel’s brilliant film for French telecom Orange, which uses deepfake technology to reveal the true greatness of women’s sports. Cannes Lions coverage See all of the Grand Prix winners here Top 5 Grand Prix campaigns The first half of the two-minute film shows what appear to be highlights of the French men’s national soccer team—one brilliant move, pass, cross and shot after another. But the second half has an unexpected reveal: it’s actually footage of the women’s national team—doctored, with help from AI, to look like the men. Created for last year’s Women’s World Cup, “WoMen’s Football” is a classic case of “show, don’t tell.” Rather than preaching about the quality of the women’s game, it shows you that quality—and makes viewers who have questioned it confront their biases. The result is one of the most celebrated pieces of advertising in recent memory, one that’s already picked up one Grand Prix here at Cannes—in the Entertainment Lions for Sport contest—and is poised for more. A practical problem to solve Ad Age caught up on Tuesday with Marcel’s three top leaders, who said the project was inspired by one simple and depressing fact: Despite the soccer fanaticism in France, FIFA struggled even to lock in a broadcaster to air the Women’s World Cup in the country. (In the end, France Télévisions and M6 did air the games.) “Imagine you’re in France. It’s the World Cup. We are a two-time world champion [on the men’s side]. Football is like a religion here. But the Women’s World Cup is not even broadcast on TV? That says everything about the problem,” said Gaëtan du Peloux, co-CEO and co-chief creative officer at the Publicis-owned agency. Also read: Inside the rise of women’s sports marketing agencies The agency’s challenge: show the world the greatness of women’s soccer, in a way that would actually change minds. Soon, they landed on the idea. And with production company Prodigious, they brought it to life—painstakingly manipulating the players’ faces, body shapes, hair and jerseys to achieve a seamless illusion. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ad Age (@adage) AI wasn’t just critical in the production process. Peloux said it was also an inspiration during the conception phase, even before they knew if it was technically possible to make such a film. “AI helped us a lot, but more in our minds than as a technical tool,” he said. “Everybody was talking about AI at this time—we launched the project one year ago. ... And it put our mind into ‘everything is possible’ mode, you know? So I think we can thank AI for inspiring this idea because maybe before we would have been in a mode to say, ‘No, that’s impossible to do.’ And it was possible, in fact.” Also read: Why an AI marketing platform hired its first CMO The power of the rug pull Léoda Esteve, managing director at Marcel, said the ad’s twist ending served two purposes: It helped the campaign go viral, and just as importantly, it instigated actual behavior change in viewers in a way that other messaging could not. “The [knock] on women’s sports is that it’s less entertaining, less interesting, less technical,” she said. “But if we had taken a traditional approach, saying, ‘Why don’t you like women’s football? Look, it’s so technical, it’s entertaining,’ it would have not worked. Because those biases are really ingrained. And you need to kind of blow people’s minds in real life [to change that].” “I think when you watch this, you are a different person before and after,” added Peloux. “As it is just the truth—and 100% truth—that makes you think. And maybe you rethink about what you were thinking before.” Along with helping to change the viewer’s perspective, the twist also made the video hugely sharable. It quickly went viral, and when the agency saw young people posting reaction videos to TikTok, they knew they’d struck gold. “People love to be tricked,” said Youri Guerassimov, Marcel’s other co-CEO and co-chief creative officer. “They love to share to friends, to family, and see their reaction about how they were tricked. So this is something really powerful. When you do something that people love, it makes the perfect connection with your topic and with your brand.” Lion hunting and beyond Expectations for the campaign are sky-high in Cannes this week. Marcel entered the work into six regular categories, plus Titanium—the maximum allowed by the festival. Along with the Grand Prix in Sport, it won gold and silver in the main Entertainment Lions category on Tuesday. It’s among 20 campaigns shortlisted in Titanium. It’s also considered among the front-runners in its other four categories: particularly Glass (which honors work addressing issues of gender inequality or prejudice) but also Film, PR and Social & Influencer. Cannes Lions coverage See all of the Grand Prix winners here Top 5 Grand Prix campaigns Titanium is considered the most coveted Lion at Cannes, and the agency is excited for its prospects there. But Esteve said she is particularly hopeful about the Glass Lions contest, which honors work that has a real-world impact on women and girls each year. “The woman who’s leading Orange [CEO Christel Heydemann] is in charge of like 200,000 engineers, which is a very male-led job. I think this is very important also for her to show that everything can be shifted when it comes to gender bias,” Esteve said. “I think this project is going to have a really long-term impact on little girls. ... That would be the dream.”

Inside the buzziest campaign at Cannes—Marcel’s deepfake women’s soccer film

Featured Stories