Toys R Us, the infamous toy brand, has announced that it has created the world's first real brand commercial using OpenAI's highly touted text-to-video tool, Sora

In the one-minute video, AI recreates the iconic toy brand's founder Charles Lazarus coming up with business ideas as a child, including dreaming up its mascot, Jeffrey the giraffe

Toys R Us Studios, the entertainment production arm of the toy brand, partnered with Native Foreign, a creative agency with access to Sola, to produce the "brand film" OpenAI released Sora in February of this year, but it is not yet available to the public, and access is restricted to a few professional filmmakers and industry professionals However, access may be available before the end of 2024

While not quite on par with the Super Bowl commercials, Toys R Us used Sora to create scenes that look realistic enough to generate a young Charles Lazarus, and to produce models of various types of toys

In a statement, Toys R Us revealed that Sora helped bring their concept to reality "in just a few weeks" However, the creators behind the project worked hard to get everything right, starting with hundreds of different shots, with only a few dozen making the final cut

Sora can produce clips of up to a minute, but most are only 10-15 seconds long, and most filmmakers using Sora say that dozens are needed for a single usable clip

"The branded film was produced almost entirely in Sora, with some corrected VFX and an original music score," Toys "R" Us stated

Native Foreign's chief creative officer admitted to CNN that while everything on screen was created using text prompts, some shots required more attempts than others He said, "Sometimes you get it almost right, and sometimes you don't"

Not surprisingly, reactions to the video were mixed, with some praising the ad as a "great piece of work" and others lamenting that Toys "R" Us used great technology in a "terrible way

The ad premiered at the 2024 Cannes Lions Festival in France Toys R Us is currently exploring advertising opportunities for AI promos