Channel 4’s in-house agency 4creative is promoting the new series of Open House: The Great Sex Experiment with a campaign brought to life by GenAI.
Open House explores whether monogamy is an outdated concept in modern relationships, following previously monogamous couples as they experiment in open sexual relationships for the very first time. To match up with the show’s provocative nature, the 4creative team decided they needed to think outside of the box.
In the promo campaign, 4creative pokes fun at the human instinct to resist sharing a partner with someone else by seeing how a GenAI tool would deal with the subject when prompted. The end result is a “barmy teaser clip suitably detached from reality.”
The promo campaign showcases seemingly ordinary couples on a romantic date. But each scene takes a surreal turn when a third lover is thrown into the mix. The unmistakable visual cues of AI’s involvement include partners spitting orange juice and popcorn over one another, and a man who is revealed to be half-dolphin flying out of a swimming pool. The promos all feature the legal disclaimer: “AI was used in the making of this advert… but the show itself features real humans”.
Using generative AI to help create a promo was a first for 4creative. It was treated as an experiment as the team played with tools that were right for the creative idea. The teaser was made with Adobe Firefly, with a focus on using trusted ethical software that avoids plagiarising the work of other creatives by using licensed data.
David Wigglesworth, executive creative director, 4creative, said: “Open House is an utterly bonkers show that more people need to be watching. So we set out to reflect its wild, anything-goes spirit with a campaign that’s just as strange, funny and thought-provoking. By taking picture-perfect couples and throwing a third person into the mix, we wanted to show — quite literally — how weird things can get when you open up your relationship. The result is bold, visually bonkers, and just a little bit messy.”
