Author: Kimeko McCoy

Brands used to rent a celebrity’s likeness for a campaign. The TV spot was shot, photos were taken and the rental agreement ended when the cameras stopped rolling. Now, marketers are turning talent into always on, hyperpersonalized digital personas using AI.

Take The Coca-Cola Company. Ahead of the FIFA World Cup, Coca-Cola announced the launch of a “José vs. Mourinho” social content series. But instead of featuring José Mourinho, the incoming manager of the Real Madrid soccer team, the series will be hosted by Mourinho’s AI clone.

From celeb rentals to always-on digital personas

Mourinho’s so-called digital twin is the brain child of Coca-Cola, Footballco media company, and entertainment studio and management company GRAiL. It’s powered by Google Cloud. The team worked directly with Mourinho to capture new audio and video to build the technology, said a spokesperson for the brand.

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Chris Hassell launched Ralph in 2010 wanting to make cool things and get paid for it. Fifteen years of running an independent shop in advertising made that harder than it sounds. Now he thinks he’s found a way through.

The way Hassell sees it, entertainment is the one part of the creative business that can’t be procured, optimized or automated. You can’t put a kids’ TV show through a procurement process the way you can a display campaign. You can’t performance-market your way to a hit. And whatever AI does to production costs, it can’t generate the rights, the talent relationships or the distribution that a genuine entertainment property requires.

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