Nut butter brand Pip & Nut has launched an AI-generated ad, which has been rated within the most effective top 1% of TV ads, according to System1 data.
The ad puts the squirrel from the brand’s static out-of-home advertising into motion: the creature becomes mesmerised by a jar of Pip & Nut’s peanut butter.
Despite relying heavily on AI as a production tool, the ad retained “full human creative direction”, the brand said.
The TV execution was developed collaboratively between Pip & Nut’s in-house creative team and Ali Dickinson, who scripted and directed the advert. It was produced by Scary Robots, a creative agency and AI studio.
All key visual elements were captured in real life, including the Pip & Nut red squirrel, originally photographed by a wildlife photographer in Sweden.
The use of AI meant the brand could avoid “working with live animals or relying on CGI” and enabled movements “that would not have been possible to capture in the wild”.
Product shots were also filmed in-camera and a 3D-printed squirrel was made to capture realistic shadows and reflections.
“This approach allowed the team to increase creative impact while working more efficiently within production budgets,” Pip & Nut said.
The advert will run across Sky, ITV and Channel 4, and reach 52% of UK adults across April and May, supported by Pip & Nut’s out-of-home campaign in the capital, which reaches 44% of London adults. It goes live from 20 April.
“We’ve always known that once people try Pip & Nut, they become a bit obsessed – and our squirrel has become the perfect expression of that,” said Jacq Ellis-Jones, marketing director at Pip & Nut.
“Bringing that character to TV was the opportunity, and the challenge. We wanted to stay true to what people already love, while creating something that felt simple, distinctive and full of personality. AI played a role in helping us do that, but it was never the idea. The idea came from the brand, from the behaviour we see in our fans, and from the creative team behind it,” Ellis-Jones added.
AI-generated fmcg ads have had mixed response from consumers.
Last year, an Original Source shower gel advert majority generated by artificial intelligence – understood to be the first from a UK brand to put AI visuals “front and centre” in a mainstream TV campaign – helped boost the brand’s value sales by 4.5%, PZ Cussons revealed.
Last Christmas, Coca-Cola ran an AI-generated Christmas ad for the second year in a row. While it scored highly on System1’s rating system, many pointed out the changeable axle configurations of the featured Coca-Cola branded lorries, with some on social media saying the resulting work “feels strangely hollow”.
“We were very clear that AI should support the process, not replace it,” Ellis-Jones said. “The balance between real craft, human direction and new technology is what made the advert work – and ultimately what drove such a strong response in testing.”
Daniel Wimborne, co-founder & executive producer at Scary Robots, said: “We didn’t set out to make an ‘AI ad’, but a great ad. The ideas, craft and direction are human-led, with AI applied only where it genuinely adds value.”
Director Ali Dickinson, who was creative director for Waitrose’s 2024 ‘Whodunnit’ Christmas ad and writer for the 2024 John Lewis ad, called the assignment a “dream brief”.
“I love that we kept the honesty of the original wild nature photography, then pushed the squirrels into performances that would have been almost impossible to capture. It all stays grounded in truth, capturing behaviour that feels exactly like a real squirrel, just without anyone having to spend six months in a hut in the woods trying to negotiate with one,” he said. “To me, this felt like the perfect use of AI, bringing Pip & Nut’s beautiful photography to life, while keeping all the delicious bits, from the food photography to the sound design, hand-crafted by real people.”
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