A bitesize deconstruction of social media content from big brands.
📅Newsletter edition – Thursday 4th March.
📷 MyHeritage, Ancestry website, is the leading global discovery platform for exploring family history. It recently launched a controversial new photo feature giving users the ability to bring their deceased relatives “back to life”. It may be lovely to see this photo of your great-great-grandmother, but seeing her smile at you and look around is a whole different story.
📷 The campaign is called ‘Deep Nostalgia’ – the remarkable technology for animating photos was licensed by MyHeritage from D-ID, a company specialising in video re-enactment using deep learning. MyHeritage integrated this technology to animate the faces in historical photos and create high-quality, realistic video footage.
📷 It’s been described as magical by some, but creepy by others. It is the latest example of brands putting AI-powered deepfake technology to creative use.
🔗Click on the image to view. You have to see it to believe it – prepare to be freaked out.
🤦♂️Maldon District Council, based in Essex totally owned this error. The freshly-painted road sign with the ‘T’ letter missing went viral, with the council responding, “someone is having a worse day than you,” with a facepalm emoji and #oops. 🤦♂️One cheeky resident suggested the staff were “on a T break“. It went viral as people don’t expect ‘boring councils’ to poke fun at themselves.
🚅Avanti West Coast, train operating company in the UK, taps into #LondonFashionWeek in a totally unexpected yet quirky way. Trains and fashion go together like chalk and cheese, but yet the brand manages to pull it off, in style.
🚄Avanti is Italian for “Forward!” and reflects its mission to deliver an innovative railway service. The innovative tone of voice in this post, which depicts seating as a fabulous outfit, certainly reflects how serious they are about delivering a first-class (and stylish) service!
⭐Tom Cruise – American actor and producer, like you’ve never seen him before. A series of ‘deepfake’ videos of Tom Cruise went super viral, clocking up millions of views.
⭐The ‘deeptomcruise’ TikTok account is the handiwork of Chris Une, a video visual effects specialist from Belgium who claimed credit for the videos on his LinkedIn page. He morphed the face of Miles Fisher (impersonator) into a deepfake of Tom Cruise.
🔗The videos have since been deleted on TikTok, but you can still catch them on Twitter. Are we ready for this?!
@DigitalVinGill 