As generative AI continues to find its way into advertising production, Prada has taken a more traditional approach to its new Christmas campaign, putting pencil to paper for a festive film brought to life through hand-drawn animation.
Titled ‘Drawing Prada: Animated By Hand’, the luxury fashion house has swapped computer-generated spectacles for traditional illustration, combining live-action footage with hand-drawn characters and fantastical winter landscapes.
Prada has enlisted veteran animator John Pomeroy to lead a team of artists in creating the illustrated world, with every character and animated environment brought to life by hand.
Pomeroy’s extensive animation credits include Disney’s The Land Before Time, Pocahontas and Fantasia 2000, bringing decades of experience in traditional animation to the project.
The resulting campaign places a cast of celebrity ambassadors including Sadie Sink, Maya Hawke, Chen Haoyu, Luther Ford and Kelvin Harrison Jr., inside a whimsical winter wonderland populated by illustrated woodland creatures.
Across the film and accompanying still imagery, the animated characters interact with the cast and Prada’s latest collections, with mice making off with designer footwear, foxes roaming snowy landscapes and animals encountering the brand’s handbags.
The campaign was developed under the creative direction of Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, with Ferdinando Verderi overseeing campaign creative direction. Photographer and director Glen Luchford shot the live-action elements.
For Prada, the decision to embrace a more traditional animation technique was an aesthetic choice. The fashion house has placed the creative process itself at the centre of the campaign, celebrating the time, skill and human involvement required to produce something that cannot simply be generated with a prompt.
In a behind-the-scenes film accompanying the campaign, Pomeroy explained his commitment to traditional techniques, describing how he learnt his craft with pencil and paper and wanted to carry that approach forward.
“There’s a very distinct and purposeful reason to do hand-drawn animation, and that’s to see that there’s value in the human touch,” Pomeroy said.
The emphasis on craftsmanship has arrived at a particularly interesting moment for the advertising industry, as AI becomes increasingly embedded in creative production.
Prada’s christmas campaign offers a different proposition, making the people and process behind the work part of the story. It is a statement in favour of traditional creative craft at a time when the industry explores just how much of advertising can be automated.
Interestingly, the move towards traditional production comes alongside Prada’s own exploration of AI. This week, the brand launched a new ChatGPT experience in partnership with Accenture Song, to allow consumers to discover Prada products through AI.
The pilot, is currently only available in the UK, US and Italy. It uses information from Prada’s own brand sources to help consumers navigate its collections and explore products.
So while Prada is embracing AI as a new channel for customer engagement and discovery, its Christmas campaign makes a compelling case for keeping the human hand firmly at the forefront of the creative process.
