Deep fake, deep impact: Orange and Marcel go viral with women’s football

It looks like a montage of the best-known French footballers of our time, as we see Mbappe and Griezmann performing skilful moves that send the crowds wild.

But it turns out that the male players’ heads have been digitally imposed onto the bodies of two of France’s top female players, Delphine Cascarino and Sakina Karchaoui. The ad, by Publicis Groupe’s Marcel for team sponsor Orange, has understandably gone viral.

It all tallies with a recent study from the University of Zurich showing that the quality of men’s and women’s football is judged to be pretty similar when the gender of the players is hidden.

It’s another good example of human creativity using technology for its own ends. The AI global takeover is still a way off.

MAA creative scale: 7.5