Deutsche Telekom's 2023 #ShareWithCare campaign used an AI deepfake film, A Message from Ella, to confront sharenting risks and reached 51 million views
ARCHIVEDeutsche Telekom Turns Deepfake Technology Against Itself to Fight Sharenting
Deutsche Telekom's #ShareWithCare campaign is a 2023 German public-interest initiative that uses an AI-generated deepfake film, titled "A Message from Ella," to confront parents with the long-term consequences of posting their children's photographs and personal data online, a behaviour known as sharenting.
Launched on July 3, 2023, in Germany, the campaign was developed by Deutsche Telekom in partnership with creative agency adam&eveBERLIN, with media planning handled by Mindshare GmbH and data partnership support from emetriq GmbH. The campaign's central mechanism is as striking as it is deliberate: artificial intelligence, the very technology enabling the risks the campaign describes, is deployed to dramatise those same risks. In the hero film, a digitally aged adult version of a nine-year-old girl named Ella addresses her parents directly, revealing what becomes possible when years of childhood photographs, location data, and family moments are shared publicly and without restriction.
The strategic objective extends beyond a single film. In Germany, where questions of digitalization and data privacy carry particular cultural and regulatory weight, Deutsche Telekom sought to position itself not merely as a network provider but as a responsible guide through the digital world. Chief Brand Officer Uli Klenke described the ambition plainly, stating that access to a secure network must be accompanied by the knowledge and tools for safe and responsible handling of data online, according to telekom.com. The campaign sits within Deutsche Telekom's broader brand platform, "Connecting your world," formally introduced on September 20, 2023, according to telekom.com, which frames the company's communications around digital responsibility rather than connectivity alone. Cinema screenings began in Germany on September 7, 2023, according to telekom.com, extending the campaign's reach beyond digital channels into shared public spaces where the film's emotional force could operate at scale.
ARCHIVESharenting describes the habitual practice of parents sharing photographs, videos, and personal details of their children's lives on public digital platforms. The behaviour is widespread, emotionally motivated, and largely unreflective of its long-term implications for children's digital identities and data security. Deutsche Telekom identified this gap between emotional impulse and informed consent as the precise tension a technology brand with credibility in data privacy could address.
In Germany, consumer sensitivity to data privacy has long been higher than in many comparable markets, shaped by both historical context and a robust regulatory environment under the General Data Protection Regulation. This context made the sharenting issue a natural fit for a campaign that sought to move Deutsche Telekom's brand positioning from functional network provider toward what telekom.com describes as responsible stewardship of the digital world. The campaign's use of deepfake technology to illustrate the misuse of personal images reflected an acute reading of the German market's appetite for substantive, rather than reassuring, communication about digitalization.
Competitive context sharpens the strategic logic. Rivals including Vodafone Germany and Telefónica's O2 Germany have invested in broad lifestyle-oriented brand platforms, according to telefonica.com's published brand communications, positioning their offerings around connectivity and entertainment. Deutsche Telekom's decision to foreground data privacy and parental responsibility represents a deliberate differentiation, claiming authority in the space of digital safety that neither competitor had occupied with comparable directness. The global telecommunications services market is a growing and highly competitive sector, and within Germany, Deutsche Telekom's investment in purpose-led advertising reflects an understanding that brand trust, particularly around data, is an increasingly decisive factor in consumer choice. The campaign's planning infrastructure, managed by Mindshare GmbH, ensured that this strategic intent was matched by media reach sufficient to shift public awareness rather than simply generate industry recognition.
"A Message from Ella" operates through a single, sustained creative idea: the tool of harm becomes the instrument of warning. adam&eveBERLIN constructed the film around a scenario that the agency describes as a staged social experiment, one that could have occurred in precisely the same form because the technology enabling it has been commercially available for years. That framing — not speculative, not futuristic, but present and operational — gives the film its particular pressure.
The creative execution centres on an AI-generated, digitally aged version of a nine-year-old girl named Ella. The deepfake renders Ella as she might appear as an adult, and in that form she speaks directly to her parents about what the years of shared photographs made possible: the reconstruction of her identity, her location patterns, her relationships, and her face, all assembled from content her parents posted with affection and without caution. The film does not lecture; it demonstrates. The emotional architecture depends entirely on the gap between parental intention — love, pride, the desire to include family and friends — and the consequences that accumulate invisibly over time.
Production credits for the broader #ShareWithCare campaign as released publicly attribute creative development to adam&eveBERLIN, operating in conjunction with DDB Germany. The campaign's media and data infrastructure was managed by Mindshare GmbH and emetriq GmbH respectively, according to telekom.com. The decision to deploy deepfake technology not as spectacle but as argument reflects a level of creative confidence that is relatively rare in brand-led public-interest advertising: the medium and the message are identical, and the audience is invited to feel the technology's capability before they are asked to reflect on its implications. The film's visual tone is domestic and recognisable, calibrated to produce unease through familiarity rather than through horror.
Deutsche Telekom reported more than one million views for "A Message from Ella" by September 4, 2023, according to telekom.com. WARC reports that the campaign ultimately achieved more than 51 million views and generated 119 million contacts in Germany, with distribution extending across 71 countries. According to gwa.de, the campaign received recognition at the GWA Effie Awards Germany, one of the German market's most rigorous effectiveness competitions, which evaluates campaigns against documented behavioural and commercial outcomes.
No verified granular conversion or sales data for the #ShareWithCare campaign is publicly available beyond the figures attributed above. What the available evidence does confirm is structural effectiveness at scale. A campaign that began with a single deepfake film on July 3, 2023, in Germany reached an audience measured in tens of millions within two months, entered cinema screens nationally on September 7, 2023, per telekom.com, and generated international distribution without being designed as a global campaign. According to lsnglobal.com, four in five people who encountered the campaign reported a change in their behaviour regarding the sharing of children's photographs online, representing a direct connection between creative exposure and the specific behavioural shift the campaign was designed to produce.
The campaign also reinforced a brand platform trajectory documented by adamandeveberlin.com, which notes that Deutsche Telekom's earlier MagentaTV work with the same agency generated 95 percent more sales than anticipated and achieved 89 percent brand awareness, per gwa.de. Clapboard rates the #ShareWithCare campaign 86 out of 100, reflecting exceptional creative clarity, demonstrable reach, and rare alignment between a brand's commercial identity in data and network services and a public-interest message with measurable real-world impact.
Deutsche Telekom's #ShareWithCare campaign is a 2023 German public-interest initiative addressing the risks of sharenting. Developed by adam&eveBERLIN, it launched on July 3, 2023, in Germany with a deepfake film called "A Message from Ella," in which an AI-aged version of a child warns her parents about the consequences of posting children's photographs online.
"A Message from Ella" is the hero film of Deutsche Telekom's #ShareWithCare campaign. It features an AI-generated adult version of a nine-year-old girl named Ella who addresses her parents directly about the risks created by years of sharenting. The film was created by adam&eveBERLIN and launched in Germany in July 2023.
Adam&eveBERLIN created the Deutsche Telekom #ShareWithCare campaign in 2023, working alongside DDB Germany. Media planning was managed by Mindshare GmbH and data partnership support was provided by emetriq GmbH, according to telekom.com. The campaign launched in Germany on July 3, 2023, as part of Deutsche Telekom's broader digital responsibility platform.
Deutsche Telekom reported more than one million views by September 4, 2023, according to telekom.com. WARC reports the campaign achieved more than 51 million views globally, generating 119 million contacts in Germany and reaching audiences across 71 countries, beginning from its launch date of July 3, 2023, in Germany.
According to lsnglobal.com, four in five people who encountered the campaign reported changing their behaviour regarding the online sharing of children's photographs. This behavioural shift represented the campaign's primary objective in Germany and aligns with Deutsche Telekom's stated goal of promoting responsible personal data handling in the digital world.
The Deutsche Telekom #ShareWithCare campaign received recognition at the GWA Effie Awards Germany, according to gwa.de, one of Germany's most rigorous advertising effectiveness competitions. The campaign launched July 3, 2023, earned a Clapboard Score of 86 out of 100, reflecting its creative clarity, measurable reach, and documented behavioural impact on sharenting awareness.
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