au x AI au’s new New Year’s commercial “So, what shall we do?”: New song sung by AI Santaro and the challenge of creating individual MVs January 1, 2024

CM Overview

au’s new New Year’s CM, which will be aired from January 1, 2024, is the “So, What Shall We Do?” edition, which celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Santaro series. The CM was created using illustrations learned by AI, and the song “Everybody’s a Hero 2024,” sung by AI, will be distributed. In addition, in the “So, What Shall We Do? Maker” linked to the CM, individual MVs will be created by a generation AI. These efforts embody au’s slogan “Towards a more interesting future,” and provide new experiential value.

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【CM Story】

　Demon (Masaki Suda) comes to Santaro (Shota Matsuda, Kenta Kiritani, Gaku Hamada) who is sitting on the veranda, pulling a kamishibai dolly. When the screen zooms in on the kamishibai, the “AI Santaro Story” begins, and highlights from past Santaro CMs are illustrated one after another by a generative AI that has learned the works of illustrator Bokkuri Matsumoto. The video concludes with the question, “So, what shall we do?”, looking back at the smiling scenes of not only Santaro, but also Oni-chan, Otohime, Kaguya-hime, Orihime, Oni-yome, Momohime, and other unique characters. As Santaro and his friends gaze at the sunset, the animation switches to live action, and the film closes with the brand message, “To an interesting future. au.”

au’s New Year’s CM “So, what shall we do?” episode production story
As we enter the 10th year of the Santaro series, we thought that it would be interesting to combine the Santaro, who are widely loved around the world and are a symbol of au, with generative AI, and so we came up with this production.

Creating a CM with generative AI was a challenge that could be called an “experiment.” The AI was fed the Santaro commercial footage, broken down into 12 frames per second, and over 200 illustrations by illustrator Matsumoto Bokkuri. The AI animates each frame, so the patterns on Santaro’s costume and facial expressions are different for each frame. Taking advantage of the strengths of this generating AI, we went through multiple rounds of testing and trial and error to create this work.