Pilgrims Chicken
Pilgrim’s Chicken –
The Crispiracy campaign
We were hired by Griz production to co-direct two ads for Pilgrims chicken. We helped lead the team while staying deeply hands-on throughout the entire AI production process, from early experimentation to final delivery.
The films play with an intentionally uneven emotional rhythm, driven more by obsessive pattern-seeking than traditional storytelling logic. What begins as quiet paranoia slowly builds toward a single, satisfying reveal, before breaking apart in a final glitch that leaves the viewer somewhere between belief and doubt, with the feeling of crunch lingering after the cut.
"All the Theories" drew inspiration from modern pop-culture conspiracies like lizard people, e-commerce witches, and the idea that birds are actually surveillance robots, while "Crunch Site" focused specifically on the mythology surrounding Area 51.
The goal was simple: answer the question everyone is secretly asking… how is Pilgrim’s chicken so crispy?
This narrative gave us the perfect excuse to explore conspiracy culture in a fun and visually unexpected way. During the world-building phase, we pushed each concept as far as possible while keeping everything grounded in photorealism.
After all, the world of conspiracies exists on the thin line between what feels real and what might just be imagined.
Like any AI project, look development was a critical phase to ensure a cohesive visual language. For "All the Theories," we ran extensive cross-platform tests, treating each shot as its own environment. This approach gave us the freedom to really push the creative direction while exploring the strengths and limitations of different models. The tests below were created using Nano Banana Pro, Seedream 4.5, and Flux 2.
One of the biggest challenges when working with AI on a product focused commercial is product fidelity. An organic product is even trickier and chicken? Even harder.
That said, it was a really fun process working closely with the client to define their ideal representation of the product, from the perfect golden crisp on the outside to the juicy texture inside.
Even though the protagonists didn't end up appearing on screen, defining who they were was an important part of the process because of the POV nature of the films.
Like any character-driven campaign, we had to start by asking a simple question: who is this person? What do they wear? What kind of music do they listen to? What do they do in their free time?
Building out these details helped ground the perspective and informed how they would see and interact with the strange worlds around them, making the point of view feel intentional and believable rather than generic.
