If you know anything about experimental protein structure determination using techniques like X-ray crystallography, you know how time consuming it is and why DeepMind’s ground-breaking AI system, AlphaFold, is so revolutionary. But if that’s outside your area of expertise it might not be easy to understand its impact.

So, how do you turn a complex topic into a clear, emotionally compelling story?

DeepMind asked us to help them spread the word about AlphaFold. Here’s how we developed the multi-format content campaign, Unfolded.  

The challenge: creatively champion the impact of AlphaFold

AlphaFold is a huge deal. An AI system that predicts proteins’ crucial 3D structures, it has the capacity to catalyse progress in cutting edge research, from vaccine creation to plastic waste reduction to antibiotic resistance. But as a complex piece of science, it’s not immediately easy to understand its impact.

We needed to raise awareness of how important AlphaFold is and show how it’s helping scientists achieve their research aims.

So how did we approach this creative brief?

1. Find the emotional connection

People like people. It’s easier to relate to a person, their journey and their emotions, than it is to something abstract like a theory or a piece of data. 

We wanted to create case studies that demonstrated AlphaFold’s impact on important research, but instead of trying to explain that research in depth, we heroed the scientists who worked on it. We let their emotional journey, dealing with breakthroughs and setbacks, take centre stage. 

We interviewed scientists who were passionate about their work and great at talking about it, and we asked them how it felt when AlphaFold helped them solve a problem that they’d been working on for their whole careers, or finally settled a debate that had raged for years. These are stories anyone can get excited about, even if they don’t understand the ins and outs of plastic-digesting enzymes, or palaeoproteomics. 

2. The right format for the story

There are many ways to tell a story. AlphaFold’s impact varied across the case studies, leading us to create a three-pronged editorial strategy. Emotional, human stories are best told through video; but twisting, detailed stories can be best told through long reads, where audiences can go at their own pace through the scientific detail, augmented with documentary photography. Interviews, written up as first person shorter pieces, allowed us to easily and quickly add additional scientists’ viewpoints.

3. Assemble the right team 

Our working model at Flying Object means we have an ace pool of specialist freelancers to call on depending on the needs of a given project. 

In this case, we brought in biology specialists, including a film director and an editorial lead with Master’s degrees in biology. We also spoke with a team of writers and researchers with other relevant scientific backgrounds. They identified and read more than a hundred scientific papers and interviewed scientists all around the world.

The results: A cohesive campaign about scientific success supported by AI

You can see the content we made for Deepmind at https://unfolded.deepmind.com.

We also adapted this into a suite of versions and assets, to distribute the content on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

The resulting content campaign expressed the multi-faceted impact of AlphaFold in various entertaining, inspiring and informative ways, driving home the message that this technology is ready to catalyse success in science. 

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