Cruzcampo has always been one of Spain's most popular brands. But also, one of the most controversial. Up until a few years ago, in the South, it was almost a religion. But over the past years, the brand was losing strength and also affecting its stronghold’s brand image.

After taking some time to fix the brand basics to strengthen itself and make sure it really is good product, Cruzcampo was ready to move two steps forward.

They challenged us to work on a new positioning that would modernize the brand with a more contemporary and relevant statement, "an iconic campaign" to:

• Recover its iconic brand status and return to being a leader in the beer category.

• Grow significantly in terms of brand power for Andalusian youth.

This new positioning had to work both inside and outside the brand’s stronghold and be especially focused on engaging a younger audience.

For our new campaign, "heavily accented" we were looking for a person who would reclaim the richness and diversity of accents. We needed to hear this from someone who could really elevate this statement, but we couldn't find anyone alive who could deliver the message. Until we came up with a crazy idea: what if we revived Lola Flores through AI and it’s her who speaks to the young people?

Lola Flores was our Aretha, our Edith Piaf. She was empowered before that word even existed, she embraced diversity without complexes. So we resurrected her with a deepfake, but we didn’t just want to create a basic deepfake, we wanted to express her accent through her grace. It was made with five thousand images extracted from recordings from eighties and nineties. A meticulous work of digital crafting to achieve a spectacular hyper-realistic result. We used a fake to reclaim authenticity.

Heavily Accented PR strategy was anchored in the following pillars:

• A relevant and timeless message that builds on a universal tension. “Our accent (what makes us different and unique) is our treasure, and we must never lose it.

• Lola Flores, an icon of diversity and authenticity, and proofed to be one of the biggest influencers even in the twenty-first century, comes back to life in the day of her anniversary.

• Lola Flores is revived with AI, a cutting-edge deepfake technology combined with the craft collaboration of Lola’s daughters to reach the most realistic result.

• And new generations of artists from the south that stand for their accent and authenticity help to break stereotypes: María José Llergo, Habla Tu Andaluz o Califato 3/4.

The deep fake of Lola Flores was made with five thousand images extracted from recordings from the eighties and nineties. A meticulous work of digital crafting to achieve a spectacular hyper-realistic result. In addition to reproducing her gestures and features, the other challenge was to reproduce her expressions when she spoke. But there was a problem: the AI Voice technology only worked with English. To do this, we had Lola’s daughters as the foundation for the voice reconstruction who served as the sound base, and with a huge amount of work on sound design, we managed to bring Lola back to the screens in image and voice. A painstaking work of digital goldsmithing.

No other brand has had the same impact in the last years.

The PR return in the first 5 days was 6.6 million euros.

The campaign has appeared in 706 media outlets (38 of them on TV), reaching a potential audience of 615 million and an average value to date of 9.3 million euros:

• TV and radio (news and top magazines: La1, La2, Antena3, Cuatro, Tele5, LaSexta, Canal Sur, TeleMadrid, Ser, Cope, Onda Cero, RNE, Canal Sur Radio)

• National newspapers (El País, El Mundo, La Razón, La Vanguardia, Expansión, El Economista, 20 minutos, Marca, As) and local (ABC Sevilla Diario Sevilla, El Correo, La Opinión, Sur, Ideal)

• Live interviews in tv&magazines.

• Many important political, journalists, musician, athletes and celebrities used social media to share the campaign pleasingly surprised, completely for free.

• It has generated a multitude of debates such as the accent as a way of reclaiming roots and legacy, the new generations with accent, the ethical debate on the image of deceased people, "andaluphobia", glottophobia, even becoming a flag of "Andalusianism" and its defense as seen on the Day of Andalusia; many of them covered in the televisión peak viewing time programs.

• Has transcended borders, achieving repercussion in other countries news.

• Some of the words in the ad such as "poderío" have been turned into t-shirts sweatshirts, tattoos...

…And most importantly, society now considers offensive to make fun of someone's accent, just as it would be if it were their race.