​26.01.2026

UnitedSenses develops ARD’s first AI-generated trailer campaign

by Eyes & Ears of Europe

“Der große Traum” brings Olympic cloud athletes to life for the Milano–Cortina 2026 Olympic Games

To be part of the Olympics just once.

The great dream of every athlete — and that one moment when you look up and everything seems possible.

It is from this feeling that “Der große Traum” (“The Great Dream”) was born: a visual campaign that translates the fascination of the Olympic Winter Games into a poetic visual world. Oversized skiers, ice dancers, and biathletes form out of clouds, drift across the sky above the Italian Dolomites, emerge and dissolve — and are celebrated by cheering crowds. Set to catchy Italian music, a modern Olympic fairy tale unfolds between reality and vision.

The special twist:
The entire campaign is AI-generated.

The official ARD Olympic campaign was developed and produced by Munich-based creative agency UnitedSenses, which has specialized in sports and motion branding for many years and regularly works for ARD.

The project employed a novel combination of state-of-the-art AI language and image models — guided by precise prompts, creative intuition, and months of meticulous design work.

“From the very beginning, the idea was bigger than the technology available at the time,” says UnitedSenses Creative Director Markus Schmidt.
“When we first presented it ten months ago, we knew: this isn’t possible yet — but it will be. And we wanted to be there when the time came.”

UnitedSenses deliberately chose motifs that pose particular challenges for AI:
clouds in human form — a subject with hardly any existing training data — and large crowds, an area where even the most advanced models still reach their limits.

“This campaign is the opposite of ‘AI at the push of a button,’” Schmidt continues.
“Behind these images lie months of experimentation, thousands of discarded results, and an extremely high level of artistic control.
Here, AI is not a shortcut tool, but a new creative instrument — if you know how to play it.”

Only through this interplay of technology, perseverance, and classical design expertise were the individual scenes able to be combined into a series of trailers, idents, and interstitials — a production volume that would hardly have been feasible in traditional 3D animation.

“We are proud that such an emotional and forward-looking campaign is premiering on ARD,” says Stefan Ladwig, Head of Corporate Communications at ARD’s Program Directorate.
“‘Der große Traum’ shows how technological innovation and narrative power can come together — and how major sporting events can be experienced in new ways today.”

The campaign launches on January 22 and will run until the end of the Milano–Cortina 2026 Olympic Games. Immediately afterward, the campaign continues: from March 6 onward, the visuals will also accompany the Paralympic Games in Milan and Cortina.

Case study:
https://unitedsenses.tv/work/ard_olympia_2026/