| Title | MESSI MESSAGES |
| Brand | PEPSICO |
| Product/Service | LAYS CRISPS |
| Category |
D02. Innovative Use of Technology |
|
Entrant
|
PEPSICO Reading, UNITED KINGDOM
|
|
Idea Creation
|
180 AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
|
|
Production
|
UNIT9 London, UNITED KINGDOM
|
Credits
| Luke Purcell |
PepsiCo |
Marketing |
| Adam Warner |
PepsiCo |
Marketing |
| Kalle Hellzen |
180 Amsterdam |
Creative |
| Marloes van den Berg |
180 Amsterdam |
Production |
| Joe Craig |
180 Amsterdam |
Creative |
| Ed Ryder |
180 Amsterdam |
Creative |
| Jake Butler |
180 Amsterdam |
art director |
| Jessica Gunn |
180 Amsterdam |
Creative |
| Max Hurford |
180 Amsterdam |
account management |
| Suzanne Whittaker |
180 Amsterdam |
account management |
| Colin Pueschner |
180 Amsterdam |
Production |
| Sarah Gough |
180 Amsterdam |
Business |
| James Kibbey |
Unit 9 |
direction |
| Stephan Bischof |
Unit 9 |
Creative |
| Neal Bryant |
Unit 9 |
production |
| Harry Starkey-Midha |
Unit 9 |
production |
| Sophie Keyse |
Unit 9 |
production |
| Corneliu Ilisescu |
Synthesia |
media production |
| Yoan Petrov |
Synthesia |
Media Production |
| Jonathan Starck |
Synthesia |
Media Production |
| Martin Kingston |
Audio Archive |
sound Design |
Describe the creative idea
Imagine getting a personal invitation from legend Lionel Messi to watch the big Champions League game with your friend? Where he said your name? You wouldn’t dream of turning down the greatest-ever footballer, would you?
Introducing Messi Messages, the future of football invitations: a marvellously unexpected twist on the boring old text message.
Messi Messages is a deepfake-powered experience allowing fans from all over the world to generate their own personalised video messages from the legendary football star, spoken flawlessly in their own language – perfect to wow their WhatsApp groups.
It’s use of deepfakes for good – using the AI-technique to transform our very limited production-time with Messi into an almost limitless store of content, helping football fans deeply connect, all over the world. Maybe Messi can’t be in two places at once, but Messi Messages shows he can be in hundreds of thousands of places at once.
Describe the execution
Using an intuitive chat-based interface on our microsite, users could communicate with a digital version of Messi and provide key information to fill him in on their plans for watching the match. Seconds later, the footballer springs onto their screen with a personal invitation to watch the game, referencing them by name and including their submitted dates and places. With ten language options to choose from, users can generate over 650 million variations of bespoke invitations to share with friends all over the world on social media and messaging apps.
We got Messi in the studio for a quick shoot to capture basic phrases and simple movements. We then recorded over 8000 names with voiceover talent in different languages, adjusted in post to sound like Messi. The rest is all deepfake. Layering AI with machine learning to manipulate content, we created video messages from Messi tailored to each user, carefully crafted to ensure his mouth movements matched the audio and looked as authentic as possible. We chose a Cameo-style format for the messages to create an intimate feel, with Messi holding his camera up selfie-style to speak directly to the user.
A new bespoke API was specially developed to enable almost instant video generation, with the ability to handle a huge amount of data points, thousands of concurrent calls, and traffic spikes coinciding with Messi's own posts promoting the experience.
Deepfake technology allowed us to enhance creativity, help Lay’s get the most out of their sponsorship deal with Messi, and most importantly open up a personal dialogue between the brand and their customers.
The microsite is available on both mobile and desktop - combined with the range of language options, this makes the experience inclusive and accessible to users from all over the world.
The production timeline was 20 weeks.