Mastercard celebrates the UEFA Champions League with the new film with Lionel Messi

To celebrate the historical sponsorship with the UEFA Champions League, Mastercard presented a new advertising film starring its global ambassador Lionel Messi. We report it below.

Mastercard celebrates the UEFA Champions League

The film, unveiled by the Argentine footballer himself through the own Instagram accountwill be launched in various international markets, including Italy.

Characterized by a high emotional impact, thanks also to the use ofArtificial intelligence (IA), the film focuses on player career – today four-time winner of the UEFA Champions League. The footballer, looking back on his past, traces the role that football he had and continues to have in his life, remembering the popularity of a real one collective passion for such a powerful and stimulating sport.

According to Mastercard Sport Economy Indexquasi seven out of ten Europeans they saw a live football match in 2021 and 32% took part in a match in first person. The same move to see a game is considered exciting by Italian fans, in 34% of cases. In fact, the data shows that well al 50% of the fans was missing amazing match atmospherecombined with the possibility of stay together to your friends or family.

Furthermore, half of the respondents strongly believe that the popularity of football will increase further this year. However the research clearly reveals how football is confirmed as the king of sports in terms of popularity among Italians in the forecasts for 2022 (53%), with 60% of Italians eager to return to see it live.

Innovation applied to marketing

Giving a voice to Lionel Messi’s younger self was one of the biggest challenges in creating this film. To make this possible, the production team used a nuovo metodo VFX (Visual Effects): il Neural Rendering.

The team also developed a Synthetic Render exploiting the benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

This process involves thePower supply and thedata entry on an AI platform with thousands of references to a very young Lionel Messi. Photos, videos and even sound data of his appearance and movements were provided to the AI. This is then managed to use the data to generate digital imageslater integrating them into the live action footage of the spot.

Thanks to Thiago Portopioneer of The Mill’s VFX, an incredible result has been achieved.

To conclude, we remind you that the advertising film will also be available on the platform of Priceless.