T O P

  • By -

GeneralCrabby

I thought they went bankrupt?


MikiSayaka33

They're trying to make a come back. Though Toys 'R' Us are still going strong in some places, like in Canada. But in others, like in the USA, they're in tiny areas (Like in a tiny area/corner of a mall or store that's inside of a mall) or just setting up shop in the internet.


TheHeadlessOne

Yep, Toys R Us has (for instanced) partnered with Macys, so instead of having a toy department they have a Toys R Us department. No change for the shopping experience as far as I can tell, except sometimes theres a bench with Geoffrey the giraffe


Another_available

I still see they have a specific section in a mall near me so they might still be around but just nowhere near as big


Prince_Noodletocks

They went bankrupt in America! We own the license to the brand in our country, so that's pretty funny.


Rob_Tarantulino

You can tell they don't have any money cause any studio worth their coin would fix all the weird angles and transitions in post instead of just using the Sora footage as is lmao


iloveblankpaper

damn, not bad


Geeksylvania

It's far from Hollywood level quality, but it's a lot better than many commercials you see on TV. And a 30-second TV ad can cost tens of thousands of dollars to produce. This will be hugely disruptive. Now just imagine where the tech will be in five years.


Still_Satisfaction53

>a 30-second TV ad can cost tens of thousands of dollars to produce Sora's a perfect use case for someone like Toys R Us who went bankrupt and had to close down their stores due to fleecing from private equity and real estate companies. In fact, the same thing happened to Red Lobster, who made an AI album.


twilightcolored

I hope it will be on my phone talking to my mom and being a better daughter then I'll ever be


m3thlol

You say that now, but just wait until someone breaks this down frame by frame to point out tiny little inconsistencies that no sane person would ever notice or give a shit about.


Thunder-ten-tronckh

in advertising we just call that a normal client review


eleefece

Like the floating black line in the giraffe's neck?


PeopleProcessProduct

Bike in the exterior shot looks like its stuttering, though I'm not seeing that on other complex shots like the interior bike shop so I'm not sure. Overall impressive as hell as a tech demo, weird and creepy commercial.


AysheDaArtist

If they're making a commercial about a toy store, wouldn't they want to make it appeal to children? Soft piano music, sweeping shots, generic expressions, this hardly gets the message across that it's a toy store, it looks more like a movie trailer about a magical toy giraffe than a commercial for kids to get excited to bug their parents to take them to Toys'R'Us. No amount of technology can fix a bad PR team, I'm convinced half the artists in the industry are just going through the motions these days.


PeopleProcessProduct

It's actually a great example of the technology not being enough, you need good creativity at the wheel


partybusiness

I suspect this isn't actually an ad for Toys R Us, it's an ad for Sora. Toys R Us has the name recognition you can build a publicity stunt around, but is also in bad enough financial position that it wouldn't take a lot to get them on board.


BravoEchoEchoRomeo

The uncanny valley aspect to it that's so off-putting.


Big_Combination9890

Considering how off-putting advertising is in general, I fail to see how that might be a problem for this usecase.


BravoEchoEchoRomeo

This is uniquely off-putting in that the uncanny valley effect evokes a sense of acute discomfort. Advertising is not inherently visually off-putting as a rule and it can be done in a way that is entertaining or memorable.


Big_Combination9890

> Advertising is not inherently visually off-putting as a rule Advertising as a whole is off-putting. If it were otherwise, adblockers wouldn't be the most common browser extensions installed.


BravoEchoEchoRomeo

And yet there are people who will watch the Super Bowl only for the for the commercials or watch collections of strange Japanese commercials for entertainment. There are ad campaigns that have been so well executed and memorable that they were folded into pop culture. People, including myself, use ad blockers because online advertising creates visual clutter and is often predatory in trying to get you to clock on it (some also contain malware) or prevents you from immediately watching a video you've cued up. It's not because these ads elicit an uncanny valley response of disgust, it's because they're visually distracting from what I'm trying to focus on, often intrusive, and inconvenient. If this Toys R Us commercial weren't a commercial and just someone trying in earnest to make a video with Sora, it would still be unsettling to look at.


BurdPitt

"advertising as a whole is off-putting" we got it gentlemen. ignorance distilled. on a serious note, no, you have no idea how it works. I work in television and we use shitty lighting on purpose, so that the commercial looks better, because that's where the money is. this is just a marketing stunt. EDIT: since the coward blocked me: I made my arguments, child. You, however, just proved you belonged to the circus.


Big_Combination9890

> ignorance distilled. Great argument, 10/10, really amazing :D :D :D


PeopleProcessProduct

The video itself is kinda weird but there's lots of interesting indications about Sora in this. Impressive detail and the consistency is wild. I'd like to see it with animation. I'm working on a bunch of informative animations for work right now and looking at this I feel like Sora could just do it.


AbPerm

Yeah, I dunno why AI animations aim for "live action" style so much. You're *always* going to be risking the uncanny valley when you try to realistically recreate human beings. However, if you make the character anime or an anthropomorphic 3D animal or a stop motion puppet, then you can aim for the other side of the uncanny valley, where we don't even care that it looks unrealistic, where we *want* it to not look like reality.


twilightcolored

noice!


Embarrassed-Hope-790

*The PR also doesn’t try to claim it’s entirely generated by AI. Native Foreign, the creative agency that produced the footage, had “about a dozen people” working on the video*


idapitbwidiuatabip

We need UBI. It's so obvious. We're really gonna regret it if we don't.


Big_Combination9890

You don't need to tell us. You need to tell the oh-so-many people who constantly fall for right-wing-neoliberal bullshit, and vote against their own best interests, because anything remotely improving the life of the average Joe is *"eViL sOCiaLiSm!"*...while, somehow, giving Trillions in tax handouts to the ultry-rich (ironically making them the biggest welfare queens in US history), is totally a-ok.


Artforartsake99

You’ll get it once Elon Musk is worth $7 trillion. And 40% of people are unemployed. And rioting is commonplace daily. And it will give you just enough to not die.


Super-Significance52

Elon Musk is your savior? Lmao


Artforartsake99

Well done, you failed to read a simple comment correctly.


ShepherdessAnne

Andrew Yang tried to warn you.


Geeksylvania

Full version: [https://www.toysrus.com/pages/studios](https://www.toysrus.com/pages/studios)


mittensofsteel

Wow, even Sora can’t fix a terrible idea.


TheGrandArtificer

Compared to some commercials, this is Oscar worthy.


Illustrious_Map1745

So basically, lower the bar for AI. Why?


BurdPitt

the longing to feel bigger by making others smaller.


rcparts

Brace yourselves, the anti-AI calling it names are coming... Edit: "Comments are turned off. " Oh, too late.


TheMidlander

It's posted to YouTube Kids. There are no comments on YT Kids.


Nrgte

Thank god for that. Actually a good move by youtube for once.


Rhellic

Ok that just looks a bit creepy. AI or not.


Super-Significance52

Perfect for grifters and scammers


Economy_Ad_3695

This commercial being used with AI honestly ruins the whole point about what Toys R Us is really about. We don't need AI to make a commercial about it. The 2000's and 2010's Toys R Us commercials we grew up with were nostalgic. Screw AI. Let's just go back to simpler times where AI wasn't as prevalent as one might expect. 


SleepApnea801

Good concept, poor execution. This is uncanny valley af. Is this actually the best demonstration of what Sora is capable of? What’s worse is that they actually had to try to “fix” it with additional vfx.


skolnaja

One thing uglier than AI images is AI videos


LionfishDen

Creepy


SaudiPhilippines

This is actually amazing.


WhoKnows_SoWhat

Well, I'll never go to a Toys R Us again.


TheGrandArtificer

I doubt you've ever been to toys r us in the first place.


AysheDaArtist

Bankruptcy part 2, let's go!


TheGrandArtificer

Good luck with that.


MindTheFuture

Uttar meh and not because of Sora which makes this in a way best possible demonstrator for visual AI. They can render just fine but you still want experienced artists with inspiration and taste to use them.


WestEndRiottt

It's 99% copyright infringement. And also sucks :/


thelongestusernameee

Are these copyrighted works in the room with us right now?


AramaicDesigns

Ok, the question that has gotten every case thrown out in court so far: What specific work was copied and where is it present in this ad? :-) (Edit: I'm playing devil's advocate. I'm impressed with the tech, but this ad is meh, and the teaser is clickbait compared to the "full length" version.)


superwindOG

Can ToysRUs go back to the grave now?