Apple’s new holiday ad is a wonderland of puppets and practical effects

In Apple’s new holiday ad, “A Critter Carol,” a group of woodland puppets frolic in a wintery forest to a wildlife-themed parody of the Flight of the Conchords’s song Friends. Every element, from the puppets to the set and even the ad’s typography, was rendered using practical effects.

The ad was directed by TBWA\Media Arts Lab (MAL)—a bespoke global agency that partners only with Apple—and shot on an iPhone 17 Pro. It appears to be building on a larger marketing theme for Apple. Just this November, MAL worked with the company to create a new visual identity for Apple TV using real glass props and colorful lighting. 

This kind of work stands out in a marketing landscape that’s become saturated with CGI and AI-generated content. Coca-Cola, for example, has now released not one but two AI-generated holiday ads, both of which have been met with considerable backlash. As consumers are inundated with AI slop across their social media feeds, it’s becoming less and less common to encounter an ad that makes anyone stop and think, Huh—I wonder how they made that? 

Apple’s “A Critter Carol” signals that a new marker of quality in marketing will be the ability to show real evidence of the creative work that made it possible—not just the final product.

A Tactile Process

For MAL, creating “A Critter Carol” was a tactile process from beginning to end. It started with conceptualizing the cast of raccoons, foxes, birds, bears, moles, rats, and others who populate the ad’s fantastical forest.

Every animal on camera was designed and built by a dedicated team of artists. Each puppet needed to be both expressive enough for emotional close-ups and durable enough for manipulation by multiple puppeteers behind the scenes. That meant an intense focus on every possible detail.

The puppets were constructed using a combination of internal armatures, foam bodies, synthetic furs, hand-painted surfaces, and carefully crafted glass or resin eyes. Internal mechanisms were added to give each character its unique personality. Before the shoot, a puppet stylist was on hand to tweak body shapes, fur, coloring, and allover shading to give the animals a “lived-in” look. The final result is a ragtag crew of friendly faces who look like they’ve lived in the forest all their lives.

On top of handcrafting the puppets, MAL also made the forest setting using practical effects almost exclusively. The team created a tactile, miniature woodland world 3 feet off the ground that the puppeteers could physically inhabit beneath the set. Handmade trees, snow, and ground textures were built at a scale, allowing the puppets to interact naturally with their environment, while the set was configured in layers to help puppeteers navigate through it while remaining hidden.

In the end, digital effects were used only to remove the puppeteers when the shot couldn’t conceal them, and to extend some backgrounds. 

As a final detail, even the typography that appears on-screen at the end of the ad was created by hand specifically for this project. It’s called SF Wood, and it’s a mishmash of various sizes and weights of Apple’s official font, SF Pro. The name SF Wood comes from the fact that this font was hand-printed using custom woodcuts, then scanned and touched up in post. Irregularities in the ink density and wood texture are preserved in the finished version.

The entire ad is an ode to what’s possible when artists commit their time and energy to a single project. It hits all the right emotional notes of the season—not because it’s purposefully tugging on viewers’ heartstrings, but because it feels so deeply human.

Why practical effects might get an AI-induced comeback

For ad agencies and film studios, there’s no doubt that generative AI tools are poised to become integral elements of the creative process. But it’s possible that these shifts may also make practical effects more sought-after among viewers experiencing digital effect fatigue.

Aside from Apple’s recent ads, other projects have also brought practical effects back into popular consciousness. In James Gunn’s Superman film released over the summer, the ice fortress was painstakingly built using real props rather than CGI. And the highly acclaimed 2024 film The Substance relied almost entirely on practical effects despite its surrealist concept.

As AI begins to make polished final products more easily attainable, it stands to reason that the gritty, hands-on, behind-the-scenes details of creation will become more valuable to viewers. Apple seems, at least on some level, to understand that growing interest in process. Alongside “A Critter Carol,” it also published a behind-the-scenes video that allows viewers to watch the puppeteers gearing up, production designers arranging the set, and actors cracking up onstage. 

“Puppeteers dressed like blueberries. Individually placed whiskers. An entire forest built 3 feet off the ground. And so much more,” the video’s caption reads. “Take a look behind the scenes of our new holiday film to see how we handcrafted a cast of woodland puppets and brought them to life on iPhone 17 Pro.”

There are plenty of downsides to AI’s encroachment on the creative sphere, but one positive might just be that the value of the human touch becomes more clear—and for advertisers, the behind-the-scenes process becomes part of the spectacle.

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