Infamous toy brand Toys'R'Us has announced that it has used OpenAI's buzzworthy text-to-video conversion tool, Sora, to create the world's first authentic branded commercial.
In the one-minute video, AI recreates how the iconic toy brand's founder, Charles Lazarus, came up with the business idea as a child and dreamed up its mascot, Jeffrey the Giraffe.
The toy brand's entertainment production division, Toys'R”Us Studios, partnered with Native Foreign, the creative agency with access to Sora, to produce the “branded film.”
OpenAI launched Sora in February this year but it is not yet available to the public, with access limited to a select few professional filmmakers and industry insiders, though it could become available by 2024.
Behind the Scenes
While not on par with a Super Bowl commercial, this ad for Toys R Us used Sora to create a realistic-looking scene, generating a young Charles Lazarus and creating various models of different types of toys.
Toys R Us said in a statement that Sora helped them bring the concept to life in “just a few weeks,” but the project's creators worked hard to get everything perfect, starting with hundreds of different shots before only a few dozen made it into the final cut.
Sora can generate clips up to a minute long, but most are around 10 to 15 seconds, and most filmmakers who use Sora say they need dozens of clips for every one they can use.
Toys “R” Us released the first branded commercial generated with OpenAI SORA. See the use of generative AI in commercials here. pic.twitter.com/rfbHC3NQRDJune 25, 2024
“The brand film was produced almost entirely in-house, including some corrective VFX and an original music score,” Toys R Us said.
Native Foreign's chief creative officer told CNN that everything you see on screen was created using text prompts, but acknowledged that some shots required more tries than others. “Sometimes we got it almost right, and sometimes we got it not quite right,” he said.
Naturally, reactions to the video were mixed, with some praising the ad as “brilliant work” and others lamenting that Toys R Us had used a brilliant technology in a “terrible way.”
The ad debuted at the 2024 Cannes Lions festival in France. Toys R Us is currently exploring advertising opportunities for AI promotions.
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