Real magic: Why is French supermarket Intermarché's Christmas advert going viral worldwide?

A French supermarket’s Christmas advert has become a viral sensation and is being praised worldwide for doing something other companies simply can’t get right anymore: connecting with people, all without a single frame of generative AI.

The ad, “Le mal aimé” (“Unloved”), for Intermarché, opens with a young boy who is scared of a toy wolf. His father tells him the simple story of a lonely wolf who is feared by other animals. Transition to animation. We see how the wolf tries hard to connect with his forest neighbours but fails to assuage their fears. He then decides to change and starts to cook vegetables. The story ends when the reformed lupine shows up to a Christmas feast with a homemade dish.

Set to a 70s French hit, ‘Le Mal Aimé’ by Claude François, the ad has racked up hundreds of millions of views beyond France. Understandably: it’s warm, it’s big-hearted, and it’s all about the value of belonging, acceptance and looking beyond appearances. It’s everything a Christmas ad should be.

Check it out for yourself:

The advert was conceived and produced by the Romance advertising agency. It took a year to make by a team of 80 people, led by the Montpellier-based animation company Illogic Studios and produced by the Wizz studio in Paris.

From Europe to the US, viewers are sharing versions with subtitles, posting praise and, in some cases, saying they wish “Unloved” were a full feature rather than a two-minute advert.

Fans have praised the painterly, animated world of this children’s fable, cheering the fact that it doesn’t rely on soulless AI shortcuts but instead promotes traditional artistry in order to tell a story with an emotional core.

Quite the contrast compared to Coca-Cola's yuletide slop of an advert, which garnered critism for its “creepy” use of AI.

Victor Chevalier, Romance’s senior copywriter, said: “AI cannot create stories. We create stories.” He added that “what makes the success of our commercial is that we took time.”

Thierry Cotillard, the chairman of Les Mousquetaires, Intermarché’s parent company, said the chain had shown that human intelligence can create “a different emotion than a robot”.

Indeed, at a time when more companies and brands resort to AI to deliver the sort of eye-assaulting slop that has people voting with their anxieties for Words of the Year, Intermarché has proven the value of human-made animation.

The positive reactions to the ad also prove that audiences are not as dumb as companies think they are; we may be confronted with low-quality AI-generated garbage online, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it. Much less be moved by it.

The ad sends a clear message: in troubled times for creatives faced with the existential crisis AI represents when it comes to employment and copyrights, there are still companies out there who recognise the power of actual creation.

Of course, some viewers were quick to complain that the advert is about promoting vegetarianism and decided to go on the warpath. Woke this, woke that. You know the drill.

But Cotillard gave the best comeback to those who will never pass up an opportunity to whine about... well, anything and everything.

“It’s not about encouraging people to stop eating meat,” said Cotillard. “The idea is that no one should be excluded, not the wolf, who is not going to eat his new friends.”

Moral of the story: anyone can change and real connection is possible. Unlike with algorithms, which tend to promote division. Viewers are increasingly savvy when it comes to visuals and the message companies send out with their advertisements. Even when you’re selling something, if you want to generate a sense of empathy, humans just do it better.

As Merriam-Webster put it when announcing their Word of the Year: The word ("slop") sends a little message to AI: when it comes to replacing human creativity, sometimes you don’t seem too superintelligent.”