Glenlivet Whisky Uses AI to Write Its Father's Day Campaign

The Glenlivet's latest campaign scripts were written by AI. Pulling down from what’s known about a fathers relationship with their children (assuming that Dad’s only chat to their sons). Naturally the inputs are all based on times gone by when fathers were stoic, distant worker drones, more concerned with other matters than their relationship with their children. 

OB didn’t tell the cast what content or scripts they would be reading, until the day, or more importantly who wrote it! OB cast the net far and wide to find ‘real people’ who it felt would provide an interesting counterpoint to the typical image of the ‘Dad’ and also interject with informed commentary on what they were presented with.  

The casting process was lengthy and in depth, with Trevor putting them totally at ease so as to get the most honest responses, whilst also driving the conversation forward. 

When OB and Trevor Gourley first started chatting with Dave Day at CP+B London, they felt that the project was timely not just because of the AI component, but because it was also making a point about masculinity at a moment when people are starting to really examine what that is, especially in its more toxic forms. And while we've seen a ton of recent campaigns using nascent AI technology, like ChatGPT and Midjourney, Trevor was drawn to this project because it took the piss out of AI a bit. He thinks we should make fun of AI for as long as possible, as it's only a matter of time before it can fight back and vaporise us. 

Trevor who usually directs comedy; at the outset of this project he and his team all thought that this would be a case of pointing and laughing at AI's shortcomings in a way that was more broadly funny. But as you can see when you watch the finished piece, it really evolved into something that had a ton of layers and different emotional notes. There's certainly some fun to be had when you look at the antiquated scripts that AI spat out when asked to write a whiskey commercial, but there's also some moments of warmth, honesty, vulnerability and reflection that we, or at least Trevor, didn't necessarily anticipate from the start. That's the nature of working with real people, though - and credit to Dave Day and Helen Cliffe at CP+B, and the client for riding that wave and letting them  reveal the direction of the film to the OB team. 

Trevor Gourley said, “OB and I are incredibly happy with the finished product and we’re equally pleased with the process.  A big thank you to our service company in New York, Deep Cut Films and EP Jeffrey Schroeder. Also a huge shout out to our editor Chris Walker from MSE who joined us on set and worked so quickly and diligently to start to piece together each group's narrative before we had even wrapped. He was a great partner and so many of his initial instincts around the cut are what you see in the finished film. 

And a final parting thought, not from me but from David Berman, whose lyrics were ringing through my head as we made this thing, “Robot walks into a bar, orders a drink, lays down a bill. Bartender says "We don't serve robots". Robot says, "Oh but, some day you will". - The Frontier Index by Silver Jews 

Sam Holmes, EP and head of production at OB said, “Trevor Gourley will try and steal the show with a really nicely written quote thanking everyone. He’ll probably chuck in an obscure lyric or something as well to add an air of mystery. Don’t let him  do it.”