Psycho Bunny's new AI campaign brings fashion mystery to life
Titled The Bunny Was Here, the campaign launched in September uses AI-generated films and advertising to transform locations including Camps Bay, Umhlanga and Green Point into the backdrop for a fashion mystery.
Created by Paul Domanski and Domanski.AI, the campaign comprises four short films, 16 digital advertisements and four dedicated shopping pages on psychobunnyza.com.
Each execution links the featured product directly to an online shopping journey, allowing consumers to select the colour and size shown in the advertisement.
The approach highlights a growing opportunity for fashion brands to use AI not simply to create visual spectacle, but to connect creative campaigns more directly to e-commerce.
Turning real products into surreal experiences
The campaign features four Psycho Bunny products across recognisable South African locations.
The Tanner Bunny Graphic Tee appears against the rain-wet Camps Bay strip, with Lion's Head in the background, while the Samos Hydrochromic Printed Swim Trunk is positioned on an infinity pool terrace overlooking Umhlanga.
The Devon Bubble Stitch Knit Polo appears inside a private Cape Town room, with a mirror providing a clue to an unexplained after-dark encounter. Meanwhile, the Classic Pique Polo and cap are placed on a rain-soaked padel court in Green Point, with Cape Town Stadium behind them.
The creative premise allows the locations to become part of the campaign rather than simply serving as backdrops.
At the centre of each execution is a question: what happened here after dark?
But while the campaign plays with reality, it takes a deliberately conservative approach to the products themselves.
AI creativity, product accuracy
For fashion e-commerce, one of the challenges of AI-generated advertising is maintaining the connection between the image consumers see and the physical product they eventually receive.
Psycho Bunny's campaign puts that issue at the centre of its creative approach.
Every garment has been represented with attention to its stitches, cords, colours, textures and branding, with the products featured in the campaign corresponding to items available for purchase.
“In fashion advertising, AI should not be used to invent a product that does not exist,” says Domanski.
“Its real creative power lies in taking an authentic product and placing it inside a moment that would otherwise be impossible to create. The setting can become surreal, but the garment must remain true.”
That distinction is particularly relevant as online shoppers increasingly encounter AI-generated imagery. Creative flexibility can help brands produce distinctive advertising, but product accuracy remains fundamental to consumer confidence.
For Psycho Bunny, the strategy is therefore to make the world around the product extraordinary while keeping the product itself recognisable.
From campaign to checkout
The campaign also connects its creative execution directly to commerce.
The 16 digital advertisements lead consumers to four dedicated shopping pages, where the featured garments can be selected in the colour and size shown in the advertising.
This creates a relatively direct path from discovery to purchase: consumers encounter an unexpected visual, identify the product at the centre of the scene and can move directly to the relevant product page.
It is a model that reflects the increasingly blurred line between brand advertising and e-commerce, particularly on social platforms where inspiration and purchasing can happen within the same digital journey.
Rather than treating AI as a separate creative experiment, Psycho Bunny is using it within a broader retail funnel — from attention and storytelling through to product discovery and conversion.
Making South African places part of the brand story
The campaign's use of South African locations also gives the international fashion brand a distinctly local creative identity.
Its settings move between Cape Town's coastline and urban sporting culture and KwaZulu-Natal's Umhlanga coastline, with the campaign timed to run across Heritage Day.
Rather than presenting a conventional fashion shoot, the creative turns familiar environments into clues in a larger story.
The result is a campaign where the locations are recognisable, but the circumstances are deliberately impossible.
The Bunny Was Here does not explain what happened. Instead, it leaves consumers with visual evidence — and a product they can actually buy.
The campaign runs nationally across Facebook and Instagram until end of September 2026.
The Bunny Was Here. Wear the evidence.
