It happened during the 2024 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. While the world's top ad execs were sipping rosé, Toys R Us dropped a bomb. It wasn't a toy. It was a film—or a "brand film," as they called it—created almost entirely using OpenAI's Sora. People lost their minds. Some called it the future of cinema. Others said it looked like a fever dream where the "uncanny valley" became a permanent residence.
Honestly, it’s weird.
The Toys R Us AI commercial isn't just a 66-second clip about a kid and a giraffe. It’s a line in the sand. It represents the first time a major legacy brand used generative video at this scale for a high-profile marketing campaign. Whether you love it or think it looks like a digital hallucination, you can't ignore what it means for the people who actually make commercials for a living.
What Actually Happens in the Toys R Us AI Commercial?
The story is simple. It follows a young Charles Lazarus, the real-life founder of Toys R Us, in a bike shop. He’s dreaming of something bigger. Then, Geoffrey the Giraffe appears. Not the cartoon version we grew up with, but a hyper-realistic, slightly shimmering version of the mascot.
They used Sora to generate the core visuals. OpenAI’s text-to-video tool is famous for being "invite-only," and Toys R Us’s creative agency, Native Foreign, was one of the few with early access. They didn't just type in one prompt and call it a day, though. Nik Kleverov, the Chief Creative Officer at Native Foreign, has been open about the fact that it took hundreds of iterations.
The tech behind the "magic"
Sora can create minute-long videos that look shockingly realistic. But look closer. In the Toys R Us AI commercial, notice the way the light hits the floor or the way the child’s hair moves. It’s almost right. But "almost right" is exactly why the internet went into a tailspin. You’ve got these surreal transitions where the background shifts in ways physics shouldn't allow.
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It’s polarizing. Some viewers find the dreamlike quality charming. Others find the slightly distorted faces of the background characters deeply unsettling. It’s the visual equivalent of a word being on the tip of your tongue but you can't quite grab it.
The Backlash: Why the Creative World Went Nuclear
If you want to start a fight in a room full of animators, just bring up this ad. The criticism wasn't just about the aesthetics. It was about jobs.
The commercial was produced with a very small team. Usually, a spot like this—with period-accurate costumes, a bike shop set, a realistic giraffe, and a child actor—would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. You'd need a director, a DP, lighting techs, a VFX house, and a wrangler for the giraffe (or a very expensive CGI team).
- Speed: They turned this around in weeks, not months.
- Cost: It was a fraction of a traditional shoot.
- The Human Element: This is where the anger lives.
Critics on social media pointed out that by using Sora, Toys R Us bypassed the very artists who built the brand's visual legacy. There’s a bitter irony in using "innovation" to tell the story of a founder’s "vision" while using a tool that many feel steals from human creators. The debate isn't just about whether the ad is good. It's about whether it's ethical to replace a set full of people with a GPU farm.
Is It Actually Good SEO-Friendly Content or Just a Gimmick?
From a business perspective, the Toys R Us AI commercial was a masterstroke of earned media. Every major news outlet covered it. CNN, Variety, and The New York Times all weighed in. For a brand that has struggled through bankruptcy and is trying to claw its way back into the cultural zeitgeist via Macy's store-in-stores, this was free advertising on a global scale.
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But does it sell toys?
That’s the $64,000 question. Marketing is supposed to evoke emotion. For many, the emotion evoked here was "confusion" or "mild dread." If the goal was to show that Toys R Us is a tech-forward company, they succeeded. If the goal was to make kids want a Lego set, the jury is still out. The "dream" sequence feels more like a tech demo than a heartfelt story about childhood wonder.
Breaking down the visual glitches
If you pause the video at certain frames, you'll see the classic AI "tells."
- The bicycle wheels sometimes merge with the floor.
- The number of spokes on the wheels changes as they spin.
- The young Charles Lazarus has a shifting facial structure in a few transition shots.
These aren't dealbreakers for a casual viewer on a phone screen. But for the "Cannes Lions" crowd? It was a glaring reminder that AI still struggles with spatial consistency.
The Reality of AI in 2026 and Beyond
We have to be honest here. This isn't going away. The Toys R Us AI commercial was the first, but it won't be the last. Brands are looking at their bottom lines and seeing a way to produce "good enough" content for 10% of the price.
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However, we are seeing a shift. Consumers are starting to develop "AI fatigue." When everything is hyper-polished and generated by an algorithm, the stuff that is actually shot on film—with real sweat and real lighting—starts to look like luxury.
Toys R Us took a gamble. They chose to be the "AI brand." It’s a bold move for a company that sells physical products meant for tactile play. There’s a weird disconnect between a child playing with wooden blocks and a commercial generated by billions of parameters of data.
Practical Insights for Navigating the AI Creative Era
If you’re a creator, a business owner, or just someone trying to make sense of this, here is the ground truth. The Toys R Us AI commercial proves that the barrier to entry for high-end visual storytelling has collapsed. You don't need a $1 million budget to tell a story that looks like a movie anymore.
- Focus on the prompt, but value the edit. The Native Foreign team didn't just take the first result. They used traditional editing and color grading to make the Sora clips feel like a cohesive film. AI is a tool, not a "set it and forget it" button.
- Be transparent. Part of the backlash was the "surprise" factor. If brands are upfront about using AI as a stylistic choice (like a dream sequence), audiences tend to be more forgiving.
- Humanity is the new premium. As AI content floods the market, "Human-Made" will become a high-end certification. If you want to stand out, lean into the things AI can't do: genuine weirdness, specific local cultural references, and physical stunts.
- Understand the legal gray zone. Right now, AI-generated images cannot be copyrighted in many jurisdictions, including the US. This means if you make an entire commercial with AI, your competitors might technically be able to use those same assets without the same legal repercussions as stealing a filmed shot.
The Toys R Us experiment was a success in terms of PR. It was a fascinating failure in terms of traditional "warm and fuzzy" branding. It showed us exactly what Sora can do—and exactly where it still falls short. We are living in the "glitch" era of AI, where the images are beautiful but the souls are missing.
Moving forward, expect to see "Hybrid Production." This is the real future. You'll have real actors on real sets, but the backgrounds or the fantastical elements (like Geoffrey) will be handled by tools like Sora or Runway. This balances the cost-saving power of AI with the emotional grounding of a real human performance.
The bike shop in the commercial might have been a dream, but the disruption it caused in the advertising industry is very, very real. Watch the ad again. Look at the giraffe's eyes. Then look at the kid's hands. The future is here, it's just a little bit blurry around the edges.
How to adapt your own content strategy
- Experiment with tools like Midjourney or Sora for storyboarding, not just final output.
- Maintain a "Human-in-the-loop" workflow to catch the uncanny valley errors that turn off customers.
- Prioritize storytelling over tech specs; a bad story told with Sora is still a bad story.
- Stay updated on the copyright rulings regarding AI-generated commercial works to protect your brand's assets.