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A screenshot from Orange's Les Bleus soccer ad.
A screenshot from Orange's Les Bleues soccer ad.

Orange

  • A French ad for the upcoming Women's World Cup went viral recently for its tricky use of digital editing.
  • The ad uses VFX techniques to make the women's team look like men.
  • The tactic undermines the notion that women's sports aren't as entertaining or fun to watch as men's.

As deepfakes, AI creations, and digitally manipulated content become increasingly difficult to identify, there's plenty of examples of bad actors taking advantage of unsuspecting viewers. But a new soccer ad that leans into digital trickery has generated praise for using technology in a way that drives the viewer to confront gender bias and preconceived notions about women's sports.

The two-minute ad, launched by the French telecommunications company Orange, starts with a typical compilation of soccer highlights. Stars Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappé, who play for the French men's national team, Les Bleus (The Blues), feature in a dramatic montage of dribbling, passing, and scoring against a backdrop of passionate commentary and fervent cheers from the crowd — the typical stuff of any sports ad.

Then the screen cuts to black, with text reading in French: "Only Les Bleus can give us these emotions. Yet it's not them you just saw."

Then comes the twist. All that action we just watched actually came from the women's national team, Les Bleues. The real footage is revealed, showing Sakina Karchaoui, Selma Bacha, Amandine Henry, and other leading players on the French women's team. The faces and bodies of the male players had been superimposed onto those of the female players in an elaborate deepfake. 

A still from the video. On the left is the original footage. On the right is a deepfake.
A still from the video. On the left is the original footage. On the right is the edited result that viewers first see.

Orange France

"We made the observation that women's soccer is underestimated, less followed and even mocked while the skills of the players are very impressive, and matches can bring as much emotion as those of men," Orange told Insider in an email. "We wanted to rectify the truth and change these ideas."

Orange estimates that in France, viewership for women's soccer is between 1.5 to 3 times lower than it is for men's. The Women's World Cup also hasn't been around as long: the Men's World Cup was founded in 1930, while the Women's was founded in 1991.

The editing for the video itself involved 8 Flame VFX artists from French agency Marcel working full time on the project, and over 500 hours of retouching — no fancy AI tool involved.

It seems that the work has paid off. The ad has close to 5 million views on YouTube, and hundreds of thousands more on social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, resonating with viewers globally ahead of the 2023 tournament, which, hosted jointly by Australia and New Zealand, kicked off on July 20.

The French team is scheduled for their first match on July 23, against Jamaica. 

"When we support les Bleus, we support les Bleues," read the ad's closing words.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Tech Insider, Advertising, World Cup, Soccer, Women's Soccer, Deepfake Technology
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