Australian Agency Ditches Traditional PSAs for AI-Powered Horror Films

An independent Australian creative agency just turned sexually transmitted infections into movie monsters. The result is one of the more unusual public health campaigns of 2026, and it carries lessons well beyond the condom aisle.

The campaign is called "The Rise of the STIs." Created for Four Seasons Naked Condoms by Sydney agency Emotive and AI film production company AiCandy Australia, the short film drops viewers into an ordinary moment between two young adults. Skip the condom, the film suggests, and giant kaiju-style creatures representing gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis start tearing through city streets. It runs on Snapchat, not TV.

The backstory matters. Australia recorded 101,742 chlamydia cases in 2024, with roughly half affecting people aged 20 to 29. Syphilis has doubled over a decade. More than 50% of young Australians say they did not use a condom the last time they had sex. Traditional public health messaging has been running for decades. It is not working.

Why the Old Playbook Broke

Public service announcements were built for broadcast TV. As fewer young people watch linear television, and as digital ad blocking rises, PSA reach has collapsed among the audiences who most need them. The problem is not just distribution. Research confirms a "boomerang effect": audiences who are already engaging in the targeted behavior tend to dismiss direct warnings aimed at them. You cannot shame people into different habits with a statistic.

Entertainment bypasses that reflex. Peer-reviewed research confirms that narrative storytelling works on emotion and identity in ways that data alone cannot reach. "Creativity has a big role to play in tackling real issues, but it only works if people choose to engage with it," said Simon Joyce, Founder and CEO of Emotive. "When the issue is serious, earning attention is what allows the message to land."

What AI Made Possible

The production was built almost entirely by AiCandy, Australia's first fully AI-powered film production company, co-founded by Marcus Tesoriero and Kent Boswell. The campaign took six months, including eight continuous weeks of intensive work. Roughly 90% was delivered pro bono by Emotive. Despite that modest budget, the visuals have the scale of a studio blockbuster.

That budget-to-output ratio is the signal for marketers. AI production does not just cut costs. It breaks the ceiling on what a mid-size brand or agency can actually make. Cinematic scale used to require Hollywood infrastructure. Now it requires AI tools and the right creative team. "AI allowed us all to think big and move fast," said Kent Boswell, Co-Founder and Head of Production at AiCandy. "At its core this is an epic, human-crafted idea shaped through performance, cinematic scale and obsessive attention to detail."

The APAC Opportunity

The Four Seasons campaign is an Australian story, but the production model is spreading fast. The APAC AI video market is projected to grow from US$0.37 billion in 2025 to US$6.48 billion by 2034, a compound annual growth rate of 46%. Branded video content in Southeast Asia nearly doubled year-on-year, with regional content marketing growing at 5 to 10% annually.

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Mission MediaMission Media

Emotive also launched a dedicated in-house AI production arm, Emotive Productions, while executing this campaign. That structural move signals something broader: creative agencies are absorbing production capabilities rather than outsourcing them. For brands across Asia, this means the distinction between a creative brief and a finished film is compressing rapidly.

The campaign rollout on Snapchat also introduces interactive extensions where the monster characters respond directly to audience comments. The film was not cut down from broadcast. It was built for feeds from the first frame.

"Campaigns like this show the power of meeting audiences where they're deeply engaged," said Ryan Ferguson, Managing Director at Snap Inc.

What the Four Seasons campaign demonstrates is not just that horror sells condoms. It is that AI production has made the entertainment-first approach viable for any brand willing to treat a serious problem as a storytelling opportunity.