Ogilvy, CAA build AI ad pipeline for celebrity likenesses

By Tom Whitfield

Ogilvy and Creative Artists Agency expect their AI celebrity campaign system to produce more assets faster while cutting cost per asset by 65%-75%.

The WPP agency and CAA formed a partnership to create advertising featuring AI-generated versions of actors, athletes and high-profile creators on CAA’s roster.

Carol Reed, Ogilvy’s global chief innovation officer, said the system, called Echo, gives Ogilvy access to “The Vault,” an in-house digital scanning facility that Veritone built for CAA four years ago. Reed said the partnership took one year to develop.

“We are witnessing the ‘NIL moment’ between advertising and entertainment,” Reed said. She linked the term to the Name, Image and Likeness industry that has grown around U.S. college sports influencers. Reed said Echo lets the biggest stars license verified digital replicas safely, with unprecedented agility for brands and assured control for talent.

CAA said Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Terry Crews was among the actors who opted in. Reed declined to name clients using Echo but said several campaigns were planned. She said the agency was negotiating a few pilots expected to go live toward the end of the year.

What does Echo change for brands?

Reed said The Vault uses 204 cameras to capture each actor, athlete or creator’s voice, body language, facial expressions and walk. CAA clients refresh their scans every 3-5 years, Reed said. The material already supports de-aging and post-production fixes in films.

Ogilvy can pull the scans into WPP Open, the system behind WPP’s creative production, agentic media buying and self-service creative tools. Agency staffers can use the material for storyboarding, mock-ups or final creative assets.

Ogilvy and CAA said talent and client negotiations would continue as in conventional campaigns. Actors or creators, their representatives and brand clients would still negotiate each use.

David Raichman, Ogilvy’s executive creative director and global AI creative lead, called Echo “the next frontier of content… more of it, faster, and – for the first time – more trusted, not less.”

Gartner analyst Nicole Greene said digital capture and generative AI could fundamentally change celebrity endorsement economics.

Coca-Cola and Snickers launched campaigns earlier this year with José Mourinho’s digital clone, the soccer coach and CAA client. Reed said the partnership could extend to other talent companies, allowing Ogilvy to scale projects of that kind.

Five years ago, Ogilvy used digital scans of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan to advertise small businesses across India during Diwali. Reed called that project a prototype for Echo.

Reed said Echo should prove especially useful for sports talent because training and seasons leave athletes long stretches without availability. She said the system lets them work throughout a season and remain visible when sponsors can reach fans.

For brands, the practical gain is production volume: more usable celebrity creative at a lower cost per asset.

How does CAA govern talent and trust?

CAA’s framework governs when and how Ogilvy clients can use a talent member’s likeness. CAA and Ogilvy said clients own their digital likenesses and can choose the businesses and markets in which they appear or formally endorse.

Alex Shannon, CAA’s head of strategic development, said the partnership could let stars take more commercial work around acting or sporting commitments, allowing more brand deals overall. Shannon said the arrangement could also grow the pie by capitalizing on peak profile moments, such as a season’s climax or a film or television launch.

Shannon said brands could move at culture’s speed while athletes engaged fans at moments of peak relevance.

Reed said Ogilvy plans to use Echo initially for social assets. AI tools have become common in agency and in-house production, Reed said, but usually serve performance media for display, paid social and mobile apps rather than campaigns built around famous faces.

Reed said the partnership could extend those AI gains across the wider advertising-production spectrum. Gartner’s Greene said agencies need a first-mover advantage while the market develops.

Reed said talent will see and approve every final ad. Each video or image will carry a watermark identifying it as AI-generated and approved by the featured star. Reed said the mark reassures consumers that the asset is not a deep fake and helps Ogilvy prepare for future AI regulation.

The European Union has required generative AI providers to watermark content produced with their tools since August. CAA separately signed an agreement with YouTube in 2024 to remove celebrity deep fakes from the video platform.

Greene questioned whether watermarks would help consumers understand synthetic endorsements. She said talent’s value lies in scaling authentic relationships and credibility, which synthetic celebrities may weaken.

YouGov found that 49% of Britons hold a negative view of AI-generated actors in advertising. Another 92% said AI-generated content makes information online harder to trust in general.

Reed described Echo as an extension of Ogilvy’s creative palette, with human craft still directing the work. She said Ogilvy expects to recommend a traditional shoot when a campaign demands one, and said authenticity will become more important.

Visible approval and disclosure address trust and regulation, but they do not automatically make synthetic talent persuasive.

Where could Echo create the most value?

Reed said the partnership could make it easier for brands to use several lower-profile names and avoid scheduling conflicts rather than pay for one movie star. She said she hoped brands would open up to B-tier athletes.

Ogilvy pitches to chief marketing officers on their growing need to manage large creator rosters cost-effectively. The agency’s pitch could gain an edge when a TikTok personality or podcaster does not need to be on location.

The first test comes with the pilots Reed expects to go live toward the end of the year, when Ogilvy will try to reconcile lower production costs with star approval, visible AI disclosure and consumer trust.