Long Live the Prince
Kiyan Prince Foundation
Issue 59 | June 2021
Agency
ENGINE Creative
Creative Team
Chief Creative Director: Billy Faithful Creative Directors: David Dearlove, Richard Nott, Orlando Warner
Production Team
Executive Producer: Katie Farmer Agency Producer: Seb Roskell Director/ Production: David Dearlove Post Production: Framestore
Other Credits
Client Managing Director: Ed Norrington Business Director: Matt Kiernan Account Manager: Leo Birch Content Strategist: Leo Birch
Date
May 2021
Background
Kiyan Prince was a football prodigy when at the age of 15 he was fatally stabbed outside the London Academy on May 18th 2007.
His father Mark established the Kiyan Prince Foundation to work with at-risk children and help them in order to lead them away from knife crime and towards achieving their full potential.
Idea
On the 15th anniversary of his death, Kiyan Prince was brought back to life in a ground-breaking anti-knife crime campaign.
He made headline news by signing for his former club, Queens Park Rangers when he was given the squad number ‘30’ to reflect the age he would be today.
Kiyan was also to be introduced as a playable character in the world’s biggest video game, EA SPORTS™ FIFA 21.
In addition, Match Attax issued a Kiyan Prince playing card and major brands, including Adidas, announced sponsorship deals with him.
The intention was not to remember the tragedy of Kian’s death but to celebrate his potential and hopefully inspire other kids to be the best version of themselves too.
With help from the University of Bradford, cutting-edge software created an accurate image of how Kiyan would look today. This was used by Framestore in a short film created to engage vulnerable kids across social and earned media.
EA SPORTS added Kiyan to the QPR team in FIFA 21, where he was developed as the superstar he would’ve been.
Influencers including Raheem Sterling and F2Freestylers spread the word with #longlivetheprince.
Money raised by the campaign will help the foundation to take its message to schools nationwide and set up a permanent base for the charity’s activities.
Our Thoughts
This sort of image manipulation is generally referred to as deepfake, which suggests subterfuge and trickery. Indeed, there are already calls for legislation to prevent scammers from using the technology to mislead or to misappropriate. Our trust in the news and what we see online has been damaged. Yet, as this touching campaign shows, deep learning can be used positively. In film production it has already saved ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’ by bringing back Peter Cushing who died halfway through production. Elsewhere, there are experiments in creating news presenters who would personalise their reports to their viewers.
Here, deepfake creates a powerful sense of what might have been. If it persuades any teenagers to stop carrying and using knives in a city where 12 young people have been killed in the first four months of 2021, it has been a success.