Sports were coming back, but we still couldn’t shoot athletes due to COVID protocols. Not wanting to do another Zoom spot, we scoured the dark web and got into the deepfake business (and yes, we were petrified).

We used this emerging technology first to tell the story of athletes giving up their quarantine hobbies once they hear that Hulu Has Live Sports Again. Later, we followed that up with a spot featuring football stars Baker Mayfield and Saquon Barkley leaning even more heavily into the deepfake aspect.

Deepfake videos represent one of the scariest technological developments of our lifetime. Their potential for misinformation is unmatched. And while all that is true, we saw deepfakes as the perfect way to create new work during a global pandemic.