They dreamed of gold – but went to war instead: Among the many victims of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are athletes who had hoped to represent their country at the Olympic Games in Paris. With The Revived, we bring six fallen Ukrainian athletes back to life: a specially trained AI model recreates their appearance and voices, enabling them to share their messages and inspire donations during the Olympics. 

But how do we bring this digital campaign into high-reach media? Our idea: The medal ceremony is the defining moment of Olympic victory, but for the fallen athletes, that moment was stolen. We reinterpreted it by creating medal cases identical to official Olympic packaging – but instead of holding gold, they held the military service badge of a fallen athlete. The result: a jarring, unexpected unboxing moment that turned a missing medal into an unforgettable statement and created powerful images: featured in The Washington Post and Forbes, WELT, F.A.Z., and ARD. And, ultimately, in the minds of readers and viewers alike. 

On top of that, The Revived required a branding that left enough room for the images and video content, while still being highly visible in media coverage. It needed to be instantly decodable for a worldwide audience – and easy to remember so viewers could find their way to the campaign platform. We developed a minimalistic and purely typographic logo, based on Gard Mono, a monospaced typeface that conveys not only functional clarity but also cultural depth. Inspired by the typography of the historical Ukrainian book “Soldiers of My Legion”, it carries the aesthetic traces of a bygone era.

Campaign makers: 

• Brand Ukraine (ukraine.ua): Official brand of Ukraine
• The Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine
• TEAMBBDO with BBDO GmbH (Creative) Peter Schmidt Group (Design) Interone (Digital and Project management)
• Tektite (Production)
• Supreme Music (Music)