What Exactly are Deepfakes? And What Do They Mean For Marketing?

More and more social media platforms are turning to the strange, silly and absurd – and marketers might well want to consider keeping up with the trend.

Deepfakes started as somewhat strange and arguably even sinister fake videos and images. These falsified videos and images featured celebrities’ heads expertly superimposed, giving the illusion that the celebrities had done or said a certain thing which they hadn’t.

They’re essentially very believable fakes.

But it seems that this year, they’re going mainstream. As reported by The Drum, TikTok and Snapchat are both working on software which allows users to superimpose images of their own face onto existing videos – and the results are very convincing.

So what does this mean for brands?

What is clear, is that as all online audiences are served with more and more content, heading off in all manner of unexpected tangents, the fight for their genuine attention becomes all the harder.

While quality with content and integrity was once king, it now appears that some audiences prefer silly distractions and offbeat tech.

While it’s hard to say exactly where this will lead, more and more social media platforms are turning to the strange, silly and absurd – and marketers might well want to consider keeping up with the trend.

Perhaps the quality of content will soon lose out to the appeal of the absurd.