STATE FARM
ESPN LAST DANCE DEEPFAKE
With the NBA season postponed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Translation worked with ESPN to completely rethink how we integrate State Farm into NBA content and position it as the standout sponsor for the highly anticipated sports documentary The Last Dance.
THE CHALLENGE
As a mainstay in NBA advertising, State Farm’s role in the space of basketball has been long established, with the brand consistently showing up contextually to the game. The brand’s integration into ESPN’s long-awaited documentary The Last Dance was already underway with a practical shoot planned – until the pandemic derailed those plans.
THE IDEA
The idea at first was to film faux man-on-the-street interviews with Bulls fans, sneaking in predictive facts to what otherwise appeared to be ’90s footage. We pivoted this idea to take advantage of ESPN’s large bank of existing footage, using cutting-edge technology to not only minimize live production, but also lean further into the theme of the documentary with authentic clips.
THE WORK
With the narrative of The Last Dance largely driven by vintage sports reporting, we used facial mapping and voice engineering to design the ultimate SportsCenter broadcasts, seamlessly blending them into the ’90s nostalgia of the documentary.
Working with ESPN CreativeWorks, we launched two :30 films of ESPN hosts Kenny Mayne, Keith Olbermann, and Linda Cohn delivering eerie premonitions of the future. State Farm was highlighted with authentic sponsorship then and now – proving again that like a good neighbor, State Farm is (and was) there.
THE IMPACT
The result was creative that was so well integrated into the documentary that fans did a double take, thinking they had missed the end of a commercial break. Fans then flocked to social channels by the thousands to share their reactions, making State Farm a central part of the cultural conversation surrounding the documentary.