PARIS, Dec 16 — A French supermarket group astounded by how viral its Christmas ad featuring a cartoon wolf has become said yesterday it regrettably would not be able to sell soft toys of the lupine character any time soon.

“The truth is, we were just totally caught out” by the success of the commercial, which in just a week has been viewed a billion times around the world, the CEO of the Mousquetaires/Intermarche group, Thierry Cotillard, told France 2 television.

“There is a real ‘wolf-mania’,” he said.

The online ad features an “unloved” wolf who takes to cooking vegetarian dishes to get along with his forest companions.

French shoppers had been clamouring for the Intermarche supermarkets to make a plush-toy wolf available in time for Christmas, and Cotillard had previously vowed to do his best to make that happen.

But yesterday, he admitted that that only “a hundred” could be produced by the end of the year.

“We took the choice to be consistent and to not import them from China,” he said.

The hundred soft toys that will be made will be given away to children’s charities, he added.

But Cotillard promised that “next year under 2026’s Christmas tree there will be a soft toy, made in France”.

The supermarket boss also warned French consumers about knock-off soft toys resembling its famous wolf appearing, saying “there obviously will be scams, even fraud”, given the phenomenon.

The ad has been embraced by internet users, many of whom said that its animation technique—computer renderings of hand-drawn cartoons—far surpassed AI offerings from some of the world’s biggest companies, including Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, in their Christmas adverts. — AFP