Zvijezda: 110 years of life with taste
Case Study:
Overview
To mark its 110th anniversary, Zvijezda, one of Croatia's most enduring food brands, set out to tell a story no ordinary shoot could tell: a single family's love of food traced across four generations, from a 1910s kitchen to a present-day backyard birthday.
The brief was deceptively simple and practically enormous. One ad had to travel through the 191a0s, the 1960s, the 1980s and today, each era demanding its own period-accurate sets, wardrobe, cast, vehicles and, crucially, its own historically correct Zvijezda packaging, much of which no longer physically exists. Shooting this conventionally would have meant multiple period builds, location hunts across decades, vintage product fabrication and a cast spanning four generations, a budget and timeline far beyond the campaign's scope.
Kofein agency and More-Magnets™ answered with an AI-assisted production pipeline, but one built on traditional film discipline and a strict ethical framework. Every creative decision was made by people: a director directed, a director of photography designed the look, food and product were art-directed frame by frame, and every human likeness in the film was developed and cleared with rights secured. The result is a premium heritage spot.
Idea
"There are tastes we never forget."
The concept centres on taste as memory, the idea that the flavours of home are handed down, unchanged, from one generation to the next. Rather than a product demo, the film is a quiet family saga: the same warmth, the same table, the same Zvijezda, seen across ninety years.
Each era is its own short chapter, connected by a single voice-over line of feeling, the taste of home, the taste of carefree days, the taste of closeness, the taste of love that lasts. The 1910s open on a mother cooking as her son brings the oil bottle and father returns home; the 1960s bring the school-morning ritual of margarine on bread; the 1980s take the family to the Adriatic coast with a mayonnaise sandwich on the beach; today it all culminates in a bustling backyard birthday, the table full of Zvijezda.
This decades-spanning ambition is exactly what made AI the right tool, not as a shortcut, but as the right way to authentically resurrect eras, vintage packaging and period detail at the fidelity a premium brand demands. The creative team leaned into it deliberately: the ad is styled as cinematic memory, anamorphic glass, film grain, motivated light and era-specific colour science, so each decade feels like a photograph breathing back to life.
Delivery
The production was engineered around consistency and control, the two hardest things to get right in generative work, and around responsibility.
Reference-first asset pipeline. Nothing was generated ad hoc. For every scene the team first built a locked library of reference assets. Every subsequent shot was generated against these references so a character, a costume or a kitchen stayed identical from frame to frame and cut to cut. A written "asset bible" governed each scene, with fixed descriptions reused verbatim to stop any drift.
3D modelling for product articulation. The hero, the product, was never left to chance. Each Zvijezda pack was built and articulated in 3D so every label was pixel-accurate, correctly lit and fully controllable from any angle. This solved the single biggest risk in AI product work, invented or incorrect packaging, and let the team art-direct hero packshots with medium-format-grade precision. Where generative backgrounds were used, the real 3D product renders were composited in, guaranteeing brand-accurate packaging in every frame.
Real filmmaking craft…
Director Filip Fiković Philatz shaped the narrative, performances and emotional beats across all four eras. Director of Photography, Ante Cvitanović designed the cinematographic language: lens choices, motivated lighting, camera movement (sliders, push-ins, rack focus) and the era-by-era colour grade that gives the film its premium, shot-on-film feel. 3D / product artist handled modelling, articulation and packshot rendering. Food styling & art direction dressed every plate and product cluster to commercial appetite-appeal standards. Sound design built the fully diegetic soundscape.
Responsible AI, the non-negotiable foundation.
This ad was made with AI, not around the rules:
Likeness rights secured. Every human face in the commercial was developed as a designed character and, where based on real talent, used under licensed likeness rights and consent. No real, identifiable person's likeness was used without permission. Faces are cleared for the campaign's usage and term.
No third-party IP. No competitor brands, no real-world packaging, no borrowed logos or trademarks appear anywhere in the film, a rule enforced explicitly at generation and checked in post.
Brand accuracy guaranteed by 3D. Product truth was never left to a model's imagination; it was modelled, rendered and composited.
Human authorship throughout. Concept, direction, cinematography, styling, edit, sound and grade were authored by named creatives. AI was a production tool under their direction, not the author of the work.
Music & rights clean. The soundtrack is original diegetic sound design, avoiding any licensing ambiguity.
The outcome. A heritage anniversary film that looks and feels like a premium, film-shot commercial, spanning ninety years of Zvijezda in a single emotional arc, delivered faster and more flexibly than a conventional multi-era shoot, and produced to a clear ethical standard: cleared likenesses, respected IP, brand-accurate product, and human creative authorship at every step.
Credits
Client: Zvijezda
Agency: Kofein
Creative director: Alan Divković
Copywriters: Sonja Babić
Account manager: Anita Čančar
Production Company: More-Magnets
Director / Ai Artist: Filip Filković Philatz
Director of photography: Ante Cvitanović
Production Team: More-Magnets
Producer (More-Magnets): Margareta Brodić
Ai Synthetic Production: Filip Filković Philatz, Luka Sović, Ante Cvitanović, Haruka Kusano, Nikola Jovanović, Relja Živković
Color grade: Matej Subotić
Sound: Studio 45
Voice: Lucija Ćustić
Song: Vlaho Paljetak - Marijana