At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France, 2024, Toys “R” Us unveiled a 66-second promotional film crafted by AI, showcasing the potential future of AI in video production. The AI tool employed for this project was Sora, developed by OpenAI.
Toys “R” Us is among the select few brands to have utilized Sora for promotional content creation, as the tool is not yet publicly available. Native Foreign, the creative agency collaborating with Toys “R” Us, had early access to Sora.
The AI-generated short film narrates the story of Toys “R” Us founder Charles Lazarus, who, inspired by the mascot giraffe Geoffrey in a dream, aspires to revolutionize the toy store experience. The film has elicited varied reactions; some envision it as the future of cinema, while Engadget finds it somewhat ‘uncanny’.
In an interview with CNN, Kim Miller, the Chief Marketing Officer of Toys “R” Us Creative Studio, revealed that the inspiration came during a brand storytelling workshop. She expressed a desire to integrate the founder’s story into the next project, aiming to do something fun and unique. Following Native Foreign’s early testing of Sora, its creative director, Nik Kleverov, proposed a collaboration to Miller.
Kleverov explained that each scene in the film was generated from text, with some shots coming together quickly and others requiring multiple revisions to achieve the desired effect. The positioning, appearance, attire, emotions, and backgrounds of the characters all needed to align perfectly. However, the film’s production also involved manual adjustments by the team, with Sora contributing approximately 80%–85% of the work.
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During its bankruptcy protection in 2017, Toys “R” Us began exploring new technologies to attract customers, such as launching an AR (Augmented Reality) app that allowed users to summon the iconic giraffe mascot and play mini-games in stores.
Miller, now the CMO of Toys “R” Us Creative Studio, continues to explore new technologies. An early adopter of Facebook Live, she believes the best way to understand technology is through hands-on use rather than second-hand accounts.
Miller shared with CNN that producing the promotional film through Sora was in line with this philosophy. While it’s uncertain if Toys “R” Us’s latest AI-generated promotional film will significantly draw consumers, the move certainly brings innovation to brand marketing and promotion. As more companies experiment with AI-generated content, we can expect ongoing transformations in marketing strategies.
**Sources:**
– The Verge
– CNN
– Engadget
