Cruzcampo Lola Flores deepfake ad draws ethics complaints

Occurred: January 2021

An advert by brewer Cruzcampo that used AI to bring back to life celebrated Spanish singer Lola Flores prompted compaints about poor ethics.

According to El País, Flores' voice, face, and features were recreated for the ad using deepfake technology and hours of audiovisual material and over 5,000 photographs.

Devised and created by advertising agency Ogilvy and production firm Metropolitana, the spot encouraged people to be proud of their roots. Flores hailed from Anadalucia and died in 1995. 

The campaign was praised for its relevance and realism. 

However, others complained it was unethical, in poor taste and crassly commercial. 

Deepfake

Deepfakes (a portmanteau of 'deep learning' and 'fake') are images, videos, or audio which are edited or generated using artificial intelligence tools, and which may depict real or non-existent people. They are a type of synthetic media.

Source: Wikipedia 🔗

Operator: Cruzcampo

Developer: WPP/Ogilvy; Metropolitana; DeepFaceLab

Country: Spain

Sector: Consumer goods

Purpose: Imitate Lola Flores  
Technology: Deepfake - video; Machine learning 

Issue: Ethics/values

Page info
Type: Incident
Published: January 2021
Last updated: January 2022