Almond Breeze is tapping into its target Millennials audience’s love of music and the Jonas Brothers to kick off the new year. Created by agency McKinney in partnership with CYLNDR Studios, this three-minute film follows the Jonas Brothers’ fictional “brand partnership agents,” Nate and Jane, who pitch the trio a series of wildly misaligned concepts for their partnership with Almond Breeze. First, there’s Kevin Jonas battling intergalactic “milky monsters” in a hyper-stylized AI action epic. Then the brothers transform via “generative” enhancements into fragrance-ad heartthrobs presenting Almond Breeze with awkward sensuality. The last idea shows the brothers in a throwback milkman fantasy that misses the mark entirely. After wading through the AI-fueled chaos, the brothers propose ditching the AI gimmicks and just delivering a straightforward truth about Almond Breeze being “really good.”
In collaboration with McKinney, the AI-driven sequences were executed by CYLNDR Studios, with early creative involvement shaping the AI scenes to play to the strengths and weaknesses of the platforms, guided by artistic sensibilities, creative direction, and design skills. The result is a long-form ad made from ads that poke at the cultural conversation around AI “slop,” using humor to highlight how easy it is to generate content today, but how rare it is to make something that actually resonates. The long-form film and the series of :30s, :15 :06s AI spots debuted last week, running across OTT, OLV and social.
This launch also kicks off the next phase of Almond Breeze’s partnership with Jonas Brothers, inviting influencers to develop their own AI Jonas Brother ads for the brand. Select submissions will be featured on Almond Breeze’s social channels, and a lucky few may even get a reaction video from Jonas Brothers themselves.
Omid Amidi, co-chief creative officer at McKinney, said, “Right now, everyone’s racing to use AI, and a lot of what’s landing feels interchangeable. We wanted to go the opposite direction and use AI in a way that disarms people instead of impressing them. By poking fun at bad, overblown AI ads, we were able to land on something very human and very Almond Breeze. The product is genuinely good, and that realness matches the energy of the brand. AI was just the tool, not the point. And when the product is good and the brand is confident, you don’t need to over-engineer the story.”
