Dead Ukrainian athlete speaks out as a deepfake in Olympic ad drawing attention to the war

A new ad timed to the Olympic Games uses deepfake technology in an eerie but moving way.

The campaign tells the real stories of six Ukrainian athletes, each of whom had to put their Olympic dreams on hold to fight in their country’s ongoing war with Russia. But in a startling turn, each athlete was killed in the war and will never compete again.

The campaign, titled “The Revived,” was developed by TeamBBDO in Germany on behalf of Brand Ukraine, an organization committed to strengthening the country’s brand, and Ukraine’s Ministry of Youth and Sports.

The main spot, above, focuses on boxer Maksym Halinichev. What makes the ad compelling is he speaks about his own death, an impossibility made feasible through deepfake technology. TeamBBDO collaborated with AI film studio TEKTITE, which trained a model for each athlete based on photographs of them provided by their families. Once their likenesses were created, the studio leveraged motion capture technology and user interface tools to animate the visuals.

BBDO said the voiceover was a combination of AI and an actor’s voice. ElevenLabs AI was used to train on Halinichev’s real voice, while an actor’s voice was recorded for intonation. The two audios produced the speech used in the ad.

With the rise of generative AI, the ad industry is showing significant interest in deepfake technology. A spot from Publicis for French telecom Orange, which utilized deepfakes to promote women’s soccer, won the Film Grand Prix and the Entertainment Lions for Sport Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes festival. And like “The Revived,” a recent effort from non-profit gun reform organization Change the Ref used deepfake tech to resurrect children killed by gun violence.

But the content available through these tools is also being used to damage brands, such as Le Creuset.

“The Revived” premiered last week at an event in the Olympic Village, and is being shared online by international brand ambassadors. Each ad ends with a QR code linking to a Brand Ukraine donation page.

More Creativity coverage from Ad Age:

• The best ads of 2024 (so far).
• See this week’s top 5 campaigns.
• AMV BBDO made a striking new film for Bodyform.
• Nike’s Olympics campaign explores the winner’s mindset.
• Channel 4 made a hard-hitting Paris 2024 Paralympics ad.
• 15 hidden gems among the Cannes Lions winners.
• Meet the interns who won gold in Cannes for a poop joke.
• Nick Cohen looks back at Mads Dogs & Englishmen.

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