This elaborate ad rolls back time to find out if the chicken or egg came first

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? French retailer U Shops tackles that age-old question in a fun new spot out of TBWA/Paris. While it might not find the answer, it has a lot of fun doing it.

The ad rolls back time, putting hens, chicks and eggs into reverse through scenarios from different decades centuries; an egg rolls past soldiers in the First World War trenches, a chick runs out of the skirts of an 18th century aristocrat, and we see the Vikings and cavemen (each charmingly recreated by directors Hungry Beards) with the egg periodically popping back into the chicken (that's gotta hurt). 

Finally, we reach a prehistoric chicken, but we don't get an answer; the whole spot is just an entertainingly long-winded way of pointing out that all of U Shops' eggs come from free-range hens. The long-form film will be followed by four shorter versions focusing more on the origins of different products: milk, a baguette and frozen green beans as well as the egg.

The spot is just the latest example of food retailers' attempts to highlight their commitment to animal welfare in recent years—the U.K.'s Waitrose for example put webcams on farm animals a few years ago.