Apple’s holiday film finds festive magic in handmade storytelling

Apple’s Christmas advertising has rarely been about loud gestures. This year is no exception. Its latest holiday film opens in a frost-laced forest, where a band of endearingly imperfect woodland creatures gather to stage a musical performance that feels closer to a fireside tale than a high-tech showcase. Titled A Critter Carol, the spot leans into warmth and texture, choosing an old-fashioned storytelling rhythm at a time when much of seasonal advertising is racing towards ever-more elaborate digital spectacle.

Directed by Australian film director Mark Molloy, the film follows a small animal choir as they belt out a cover of Friends, the song by Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie. The conceit is lightly comic. The performance is captured on an iPhone 17 Pro, which becomes both a narrative device and a reminder of what the ad is ultimately selling. Yet the phone never dominates the frame. Instead, attention is drawn to the performers themselves, their stitched faces and slightly awkward movements giving the film a lived-in, almost storybook quality.

The project was created by TBWA\Media Arts Lab and produced by SMUGGLER. 

The nine animal characters were constructed by hand using traditional puppetry techniques, resulting in figures that carry visible signs of human involvement. 

This human-led creative which could have easily been emulated with AI, arrives amid a wider industry discussion about artificial intelligence and automation in advertising. For instance, Coca-cola’s recent AI-assisted festive film quickly became one of the season’s most talked-about releases, until it was eventually pulled. Against that backdrop, Apple’s reliance on practical craft reads as a deliberate tonal choice, though not an overt critique. The film does not reject technology; it simply refuses to let it lead the conversation.

Digital intervention is present, if discreet. Puppeteers wearing blue suits operated the characters on set, later removed during post-production. The final result is polished, but never slick. That restraint is notable given that the ad promotes a smartphone whose capabilities far exceed those of the computers that once guided astronauts into space. Here, technological sophistication works quietly in the background, supporting an illusion rooted in analogue methods.

Apple has also released a behind-the-scenes film that documents how A Critter Carol came together. 

The campaign sits comfortably alongside Apple’s previous festive work, which has often privileged in-camera techniques. From stop-motion projects such as the Emmy-winning Fuzzy Feelings to the brand's yearly churn out of Chinese New Year films, the brand has repeatedly returned to physical processes as a way of shaping its visual language.