‘Mona Lisa’, Van Gogh Deepfakes Tell Tourists To Ditch Them To Visit Denmark

Visit Denmark, the country’s tourism board, has partnered with advertising agency Brandhouse/Subsero to bring the Mona Lisa, Girl with a Pearl Earring, and a Vincent van Gogh self-portrait to life, using artificial intelligence in its latest campaign to encourage tourists to visit the nation.

Using a film script that was written by ChatGPT and having the paintings “talk” through deepfake technology, the advertisement informs travelers that lines to see these iconic artworks are long and time-consuming, and they should choose somewhere else to vacation.

It calls on viewers to “don’t be a tourist—be an Explorist,” with Denmark being the destination that bucks the trend of “bucket list tourism.” Louis Pilmark, Creative Director at Brandhouse/Subsero, told The Drum the campaign wanted to highlight the “absurdity of doing and seeing the same things as everyone else.”

Who better to convey such a message than some of the world’s most famous attractions that see millions of tourists annually?

One of the key components of the advertisement that stands out is the abundant use of AI. Kathrine Lind Gustavussen, Press Manager at Visit Denmark, said that all of the scripts featured were 100% generated by algorithms, with the organization only removing parts that were “too long or simply not true.”

According to Marketing Beat, the Danish tourism board tasked ChatGPT with this simple prompt: “Imagine that you are Mona Lisa. Write a speech on why people should visit Denmark instead of standing in line to see you.”

Gustavussen admitted it did feel “risky” to place the campaign’s entire messaging in the hands of an AI model, but chose to do so to place Denmark “at the forefront of the tourism industry,” and position itself as a country that uses cutting-edge technology to drive creativity.

As Fold7 strategy partner, Yelena Gaufman, told Marketing Beat, while Denmark may not yet be a “bucket list destination” on many traveler’s itineraries, it wanted to reach out to a different kind of adventurer, one it calls “the explorist” or “anti-tourist.”

[via The Drum and Marketing Beat, images via Visit Denmark]