The newest social video attention magnet is animals doing things that would be improbable or impossible in real life. Peugeot has turned cars into cats. But it didn’t use the now ubiquitous SFX cheat, AI, to get that attention.

The campaign is set in a city where every car is a kitten, all to introduce the new Peugeot 308 as the lion who awakens – confident, commanding, and unmistakably dominant.

The film, Kittens, directed by Julien & Quentin and produced by HAMLET, nods to the specialist skill of handcrafted production design. The film was shot entirely in camera on a handmade miniature city set created by local artists with a cast of 30 kittens. Each kitten in the film symbolises a car from a competing brand, going about its daily routine. Then, the new Peugeot 308 is revealed. It ruffles some fur, disrupts the status quo, and roars into life.

Director, Julien Martorell, commented, “It’s always a pleasure to receive a brief built around a simple, powerful idea. From the start, our main approach was a bit of a gamble but one that felt absolutely essential to us: to work with real kittens. The ones who do silly things online, the cute ones, the ones who have that indescribable quality you simply can’t fake. We built all the sets in Poland at cat scale, and shot the car scenes in Warsaw. The level of detail and care brought by our art department in crafting these miniature sets was incredible. And then… we had to be patient and let our furry actors do their thing. (Or not do it.)

“To blur the lines even further, we also enhanced the film using post-production and AI tools. A real foundation first, then details that would have been impossible to achieve by hand alone. We’re proud to have explored this process that brings out the best of both worlds. In the end, nothing will ever replace starting from real life, from real things. That’s the very essence of what we do.”

The campaign is running across TV, press, digital, print and CRM channels across Europe.

 Watch the BTS film:

Credits
Production: HAMLET 
Directors: Julien & Quentin 
DOP: Steve Annis 
Executive Producers: Clément Martorell, Jason Felstead, Ruben Goots 
Line Producer: Gilles Pinaudeau
Production Coordinator : Manon Letorey
Production Design : Andrew Clark
1st AD : Franck Percher 
Post Producer : Chloé Juillard 

Service Production: Hexagon
Executive Producer: Arnaud Le Mene 
Line Producer: Andrzej Cichocki 
Production Design: Ola Żurawska & Katarzyna Filimoniuk
Animal handlers: Bartek Gadziomski & Karolina Labes

Post-Production: Monumental
Head of Post-Production: Laïla Hamdaoui
VFX Creative Directors: Mathieu Jussreandot & Eddy Choppy
Post-Producer: Célestine Gonzalez
Post-Production Coordinator: Ruben Rigodiat-Calciati
VFX Production Manager: Clémence Mange
Editors: Vincent Fleischmann & Léo Gatelier
Colourist: Gabriel Porier
VFX Supervisor on set: Greg Boccucci
Compositing: Thomas Jouenne