French supermarket’s ‘vegetarian wolf’ Christmas advert is worldwide hit
Clip has been viewed millions of times after version with English subtitles spread
The viral advert has been praised for its animation style
Pixel-Shot/Shutterstock/Romance Agency/Screen capture of YouTube video
A French Christmas advert has gone viral and is being praised as a piece of marketing genius, attracting millions of views across social media.
First shown on French TV on December 6, a clip of the advert went viral after English subtitles were added to it and it was posted on various social media sites.
It appeared on the feed of one of the Connexion team members yesterday.
The full advert for supermarket giant Intermarché sees a child receive a present of a toy wolf at Christmas, but he is scared of the animal and does not want it.
To cheer him up, his family concoct a story of a sad and lonely wolf living in a snowy forest at Christmas, switching the advert to an animated fairytale setting.
Other inhabitants of the forest run from the wolf whenever he comes near, leaving him without friends. A hedgehog tells him this is because of his reputation for eating the other animals.
Determined to overcome their perception, a hilarious montage of the wolf learning to cook vegetarian food – a particularly French form of ‘vegetarian’ seeing as the wolf is eating fish – follows.
The wolf becomes an expert in cooking purées, omelettes, and pies, joining the forest Christmas party with a vegetarian quiche and finally accepted by the other creatures.
Finally, the advert switches back to real life, and sees the child sleeping with the wolf toy in his arms.
The advert uses the well-known Claude François hit ‘Le Mal-Aimé’, instantly recognisable to the older generations in France.
You can watch the full advert, which is about two and a half minutes long, below.
French company behind ad
Further praise has been given for the highly-stylised cartoon animations, particularly after companies such as McDonald’s pulled their own Christmas adverts following backlash for using AI to make them.
The animated portion of the advert was created by a Montpellier-based studio, with another French advertising agency behind the wider production.
It took around a year to make, and replaces the former series of Intermarché Christmas adverts that were running for eight years.
“The question of AI never even came up,” said Intermarché’s brand and communications director Anne Guivarc’h to outlet Influencia.
“We’re focused on raw emotion, and we’re not sure AI can create that today,” said workers at the advertising agency behind the release.
