Toys "R" Us AI Commercial

About

The Toys "R" Us AI Commercial refers to an AI-generated short film made by the toy store company Toys "R" Us with the AI video system Sora from OpenAI. The film shows a boy falling asleep in a retro bike shop where a world of toys appears in his dream. It was supposed to represent the origin of the Toys "R" Us brand. The video went viral on Twitter / X in June 2024. Discourse ensued thereafter concerning the commercial's aesthetics, morals and ramifications.

Origin

On June 25th, 2024, Toys "R" Us posted a video to the brand's Instagram^[1] account that was described as, "A short film that just premiered during @cannes_lions film festival in France… It is the first brand film ever created using OpenAI Sora." The video gained over 1,000 likes in a day.

The company also shared a blog post about the film on its website,^[2] sharing a further description of the film:

We are thrilled to partner with Native Foreign to push the boundaries of Sora, a groundbreaking new technology from OpenAI that's gaining global attention. Sora can create up to one-minute-long videos featuring realistic scenes and multiple characters, all generated from text instruction. Imagine the excitement of creating a young Charles Lazarus, the founder of Toys“R”Us, and envisioning his dreams for our iconic brand and beloved mascot Geoffrey the Giraffe in the early 1930s.

On June 25th, X^[3] user @Mr_AllenT tweeted the short film, calling it, "the first OpenAI SORA generated brand commercial," gaining over 3.9 million views and 7,100 likes in a day (shown below).

Spread

The abovementioned tweet inspired viral reactions on X going into late June 2024. For instance, on June 25th, 2024, X^[4] user @syndrowm criticized the commercial in a reply, sharing four screencaps captioned, "Just like a weird dream it is a different person each time you see them," gaining over 350 likes in a day (shown below, left).

Others shared moral critiques, like X^[5] user @zachsilberberg on June 25th, who said in a quote, "there's something so cynical about creating an ad about the limitless imagination of a child and then rendering it with soulless AI slop," receiving over 49,000 likes in a day (shown below, right).

Others joked about Toys "R" Us' then-recent bankruptcy filing, like X^[6] user @yardleyart on June 25th, 2024, who wrote, "Fuck toys r us. Go back out of business," gaining over 4,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Similar discourse ensued on other social platforms. For instance, on June 25th, TikToker ^[7] @realjamesarcher posted a video about the AI film, gaining over 56,500 plays and 2,300 likes in a day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

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External References