What you will find in the article:
- Czech advert revived nostalgia, quickly gaining internet popularity.
- Original advert from the late 1990s remade using AI technology.
- Mixed reactions from viewers, ranging from joy to skepticism.
- O2 celebrates 20 years by reviving Eurotel's iconic campaign.
- AI-generated landscapes raise questions about authenticity in advertising.
There are adverts that you recognise before you’ve even finished your cup of coffee. This one is certainly among them, because it once got under the skin of so many people and, years later, resurfaced like an old familiar tune on the radio. Indeed, a brand survey showed that nearly a third of people aged between thirty-six and forty-four still remember the original advert to this day.
Just a few notes on the flute were enough for the viewer to realise exactly where they were. It was interesting to see how varied people’s reactions were. Some were moved and reminisced, whilst others wrote that something about it didn’t sit right with them. I watched the video twice in a row myself, and it was only the second time round that I realised exactly what was striking me.
Nostalgia works its magic on us
Memories are a powerful weapon, and brands know this all too well. Tapping into something the viewer associates with their youth or with more carefree times is a shortcut straight to the emotions – one that a new and ordinary advert would struggle to match. Psychologists talk about a ‘nostalgic bond’, because the brain associates past experiences with a sense of security and likes to return to them.
The return of an old advert therefore rarely leaves people unmoved, whether it evokes joy or a slight sense of scepticism. Today we’re taking a closer look at a advert by the mobile operator O2, which, to mark its twentieth anniversary on the market, has revived Eurotel’s cult advert from the late 1990s, entitled ‘More from Life’. The key twist is that the breathtaking Czech plains that move us so deeply do not actually exist in the real world this time round, as they were created from scratch using generative artificial intelligence.
Eurotel was the very first mobile operator in the Czech Republic in 1991, and following its merger with Český Telecom in 2006, it became what is now O2. The original was filmed by Ron Fricke, the cinematographer behind the cult documentary *Baraka*, with music composed by Ondřej Soukup, who wrote the score for the Oscar-winning film *Kolya*, and production costs at the time ran to as much as twenty million crowns.
The only things that remain authentic in the revived advert are the actors’ faces and voices. For the operator, these represent a line that, despite all its enthusiasm for technology, it did not wish to cross. Whilst the camera once hovered from a helicopter, today’s shots merely simulate a drone’s flight, even though no drone actually took off.
Soukup has, however, retained the original flute motif and added a more modern arrangement, whilst pointing out himself that without a trained human ear, every composition remains nothing but an empty shell. Even the snippets of telephone conversations in the background have ultimately been altered by artificial intelligence.
Can we be moved by a landscape that doesn’t actually exist?
Is it even right to feel moved by the beauty of our homeland when we know that no such meadow or hill actually exists anywhere? Behind the remake is the Free Andy agency and its newly assembled hybrid team, which includes not only filmmakers but also artificial intelligence specialists; according to researchers, the advert performed above average in testing.
The creators emphasise that this wasn’t simply a case of trying out a new toy, but a advert that would have taken many times longer to produce using traditional methods, and the brand is continuing to refine it throughout the campaign based on viewer feedback. O2 is by no means alone in riding this wave. Rival T-Mobile also turned to AI advertising this year when promoting its fibre-optic broadband, and similar experiments are rapidly on the rise.
Yet this new advert is certainly no cheap spectacle; the operator flooded TV screens with it for the entire quarter, emphasising that the main saving apparently lay in time rather than money. At the same time, I’d like to remind you of something: the rules of the game are changing, because since July Google has started labelling adverts produced by machines, and in August European regulation of artificial intelligence will come into full effect.
After all, a survey from this spring showed that Czechs don’t mind AI in adverts at all, but the overwhelming majority want to know clearly when they’re looking at something created by a machine.
Have you seen this advert yet, which, according to reports, took the internet by storm after just 20 seconds?
Source: tvguru.cz