Coca-Cola's AI-Generated Holiday Ad Sparks Controversy and Backlash

Coca-Cola responds to backlash over AI-generated Christmas ad:...

Coca-Cola has issued a statement after copping huge backlash for creating an AI-generated Christmas commercial that fans labelled "disastrous." Paying homage to the iconic drink's 1995 "Holidays Are Coming" campaign, the new 15-second advert depicts a fleet of cherry red trucks driving down a snowy road to deliver ice-cold bottles of Coke to customers in a festively decorated town. But it's a tiny disclaimer in small print on the video that reads, "created by Real Magic AI," that has left people outraged. The brand has since defended its use of the controversial technology, stating it was a collaboration between humans and AI. "The Coca-Cola Company has celebrated a long history of capturing the magic of the holidays in content, film, events, and retail activations for decades around the globe," the spokesperson said. "We are always exploring new ways to connect with consumers and experiment with different approaches. This year, we crafted films through a collaboration of human storytellers and the power of generative AI." Consumers quite literally weren't buying it, blasting the ad as a "creepy dystopian nightmare." "The world is so over if the Christmas Coca-Cola advert is made with AI," one user wrote on X, per The Independent. "Sad to see this was made with AI generated program," another added in the YouTube comments. "I feel like I'm watching the death of art and our planet unfold in front of my eyes and no one IRL seems to care." Others described the video, which has since gone viral for all the wrong reasons on social media as "garbage", "ugly", and "lazy." But why has this short video sparked so much controversy? Aside from the "unbearably" choppy commercial (there are 10 shots in just 15 seconds), many commentators argued it's a poor attempt to cheapen labor in the film and technology industry and kill jobs, Forbes reported. The quality of the production doesn't hit the mark either, according to critics. Plenty of details are "off," such as the truck wheels gliding across the ground without spinning, and the distinct lack of Santa Claus onscreen, with only his out-of-proportion hand, clutching a Coke bottle, seen. But Jason Zada, the founder of the AI studio Secret Level, one of the three Coca-Cola collaborated with on the project, argued that there is still a human component that creates the "warmth" in the clip. Zada told AdAge that harnessing generative AI for something as complex as a commercial is not as easy as just pressing a button, and Pratik Thakar, Coca-Cola's vice president and global head of generative AI, explained that the company is bridging its "heritage" with "the future and technology" with the next-gen campaign. Using the technology, he argued, saves money -- and, not to mention, time. "More than cost, it's the speed," Thakar told the outlet. "Speed is I would say five times, right? And that is a huge benefit. The production time would have taken, traditionally, much longer. So that is a huge benefit." "And then you can do more, more variety, and more customised and more personalised," he continued. "And that's the way to go, with resources, rather than doing less and spending less."

Coca-Cola's 'real magic' holiday ad, made with artificial intelligence, sparks backlash

Coca-Cola's annual holiday commercial has dropped, but many consumers and artists aren't thrilled with its artificial-intelligence production. Coca-Cola launched its holiday commercial, "The Holiday Magic is coming." on Monday. The 30-second video is a tribute to the company's 1995 holiday commercial, "Holidays Are Coming." Both commercials feature Coca-Cola trucks, decked out in holiday lights, brightening up the world around them. While human actors "light up" in excitement in the '95 commercial, AI-generated polar bears snuggle up in an igloo in the latest rendition. The holiday commercial was created using Real Magic AI, Coca-Cola's artificial intelligence platform powered by OpenAI. The platform, which functions similarly to image generator DALL-E, allows artists to access Coca-Cola archives for their projects. Tech news:DOJ proposing forced sale of Google Chrome, could fetch $20 billion if judge OKs: Report AI backlash: Artists, consumers question Coca-Cola's intent Several artists have taken to social media this week to share their views on the advertisement. Alex Hirsch, creator of Disney's television series, "Gravity Falls," commented on an X (formerly Twitter) post of the commercial, "FUN FACT: (Coca-Cola) is 'red' because it's made from the blood of out-of-work artists! #HolidayFactz." The post garnered more than 631,000 views, as of Thursday morning. Of its social media platforms, Coca-Cola only posted the advertisement on its YouTube channel. The more than 1,300 comments on the video largely display aversion. The top comments read, "Pepsi, now is your chance to make a live action ad bashing on Coke for using AI" and, "Nothing like celebrating the spirit of Christmas with the most soulless commercial possible." In response to the advertisement, Shelly Palmer, a professor of advanced media in residence at Syracuse University, wrote in a blog post on Thursday that it "truly sucks." He compared the video to the 2004 film, "The Polar Express" on "bad acid." "In practice, Coke wasn't breaking new creative ground; they were trying to use technology to reduce production costs and see if they could figure out how to save millions of dollars on what would otherwise be a multi-million dollar animation project," Palmer wrote. "It turns out that in 2024 ... you can't. Maybe this will be possible in 2025 or 2026, but not today." Coca-Cola did not immediately return USA TODAY's message seeking comment about the holiday advertisement on Thursday. Others express excitement over the holiday commercial Some expressed excitement about the commercial. Chris Barber, an AI developer at Silverside AI, shared a slightly different version of the Coca-Cola commercial on X. In his post and an accompanying reply, Barber said Coca-Cola commissioned three artificial intelligence partners to create and pitch the advertisement. Silverside AI was one of the partners; however, their product was not selected. Barber's video attracted more than 18.4 million views as of Thursday morning. Several X users took to the video's comments to share their distaste for the use of artificial intelligence in advertising. One comment stated, "I hate it. AI has no place in creativity." In response, Barber replied, "All good that you don't like it, but I do think there is room for AI in creativity when these tools are used in conjunction with human vision and emotion." Not Coca-Cola's first AI endeavor "The Holiday Magic is coming." is not Coca-Cola's first advertisement made using artificial intelligence. Last year, the company released "Coca-Cola Masterpiece," which launched the Real Magic AI platform. The nearly two-minute video features a Coca-Cola bottle flying through an art gallery, "falling" into different famous artworks, including Vincent Van Gogh's "Bedroom in Arles" and Johannes Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring." The video received mainly positive feedback. One of the top comments on the "Coca-Cola Masterpiece" YouTube video on Thursday morning read, "This is so much better than that Christmas ad. This is actually good." Other companies dip into AI waters Coca-Cola may be getting recent heat for its use of artificial intelligence, but it's not the first company to utilize the technology. Last year, Toys 'R' Us released its own advertisement made with artificial intelligence, featuring the company's founder, Charlies Lazarus, as a child. The commercial sparked controversy for its inconsistencies, as Lazarus' boyhood character appears a bit different in each new shot. Perhaps a more widely accepted use of artificial intelligence was in Nike's eight-minute tribute to tennis player Serena Williams. The project, "Never Done Evolving," used archival footage of Williams and artificial intelligence to generate more than 130,000 games of 2017 Williams playing against her younger, 1999 self. The project has received several awards since its release in 2022, including "Digital Craft: Curation of Data" from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Coca-Cola causes controversy with AI-generated ad

The video was meant to pay homage to a classic 1995 Coca-Cola commercial. Coca-Cola is facing backlash online over an artificial intelligence-made Christmas promotional video that users are calling "soulless" and "devoid of any actual creativity." The AI-made video features everything from big red Coca-Cola trucks driving through snowy streets to people smiling in scarves and knitted hats holding Coca-Cola bottles. The video was meant to pay homage to the company's 1995 commercial "Holidays Are Coming," which featured similar imagery, but with human actors and real trucks. Forbes reported that the video was created by three AI studios -- Secret Level, Silverside AI and Wild Card -- using four different generative AI models. Silverside AI's AI Developer Chris Barber wrote in a reply on X that each of the AI studios created a different version of the advertisement, with the viral one not belonging to Silverside AI. The video drew criticism from many creatives who argued that it was distasteful for the company to use AI technology to create the video instead of the work of artists. Alex Hirsch, the creator of the Disney series "Gravity Falls," commented on an X post that showed the new commercial, which has amassed over 56 million views, "FUN FACT: @CocaCola is 'red' because it's made from the blood of out-of-work artists! #HolidayFactz." Many artists and creative professionals have pushed back against the use of AI in creative works, arguing that the technology may be used to replace human workers and that many AI models were trained on artists' work without proper compensation or credit. This isn't the first time that Coca-Cola has used AI technology in its marketing strategies and programs. In March 2023, Coca-Cola collaborated with OpenAI to release one of its first AI-generated commercials, called "Masterpiece," which showed paintings and sculptures in an art museum come to life and pass around a bottle of Coca-Cola. The company also announced in a news release that month that it would be partnering with artists to create artwork using Coca-Cola's creative archives and AI technology. The company even has its own global head of generative AI. Neeraj Arora, the chair of marketing research and education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the reason why the company faced backlash for this specific advertisement, and not for "Masterpiece" last year, could be because many consumers recognize Christmas as an integral part of the company's brand, and AI technology acts as a disruption. "Your holidays are a time of connection, time of community, time to connect with family, and that's sort of a big part of what the holidays are about," Arora said. "But then you throw AI into the mix that is not a fit, that is not a fit with holiday timing, but also, to some degree, also Coke, what the brand means to people." Toys R Us faced similar backlash online over the summer for an AI-made commercial that depicted the company's late founder in a bike shop alongside the brand mascot. Despite the controversy, the company said that it was "successful" and that the technology would be an addition to its "tool kit" for the future. Tim DeStefano, a research professor at Georgetown University McDonough School of Business, told NBC News that using AI technology means a significant drop in the price of creating commercials. He added that as the technology improves, he believes more people will become receptive to it. "Most of the time, when we see the deployment of new technologies, you see the creation of a bunch of new jobs that never existed before," DeStefano said, addressing the focus on how AI is affecting the job market. "Although there's some skepticism and acceptance, reluctance to accept these types of ads by consumers, I think that the benefits sort of outweigh that, and I believe that companies are going to continue using it over time."

Coca-Cola's A.I.-Generated Holiday Ads Receive Backlash

The company's nostalgia-filled commercials are a holiday tradition, but this year's ads are facing backlash for dipping into the uncanny valley. With temperatures dropping, nights growing longer and decorations starting to appear in store windows, the holidays are on their way. One of the season's stalwarts, however, is feeling a little less cozy for some people: Coca-Cola, known for its nostalgia-filled holiday commercials, is facing backlash for creating this year's ads with generative artificial intelligence. The three commercials, which pay tribute to the company's beloved "Holidays Are Coming" campaign from 1995, feature cherry-red Coca-Cola trucks driving through sleepy towns on snowy roads at night. The ads depict squirrels and rabbits peeking out to watch the passing caravans and a man being handed an ice-cold bottle of cola by Santa Claus. "'Tis the season," a jingle chirps, "it's always the real thing." The tag line, pushing Coke's "real thing" slogan, is juxtaposed with a disclaimer: "Created by Real Magic AI." The internet pile-on arrived swiftly as consumers decried the commercials as uncanny valleyesque perversions of the company's classic ads. "Coca-Cola just put out an ad and ruined Christmas," Dylan Pearce, one of the campaign's many critics, said on TikTok, adding, "To put out slop like this just ruins the Christmas spirit." "This is legit heartbreaking," another user, De'Vion Hinton, posted on X. "Coca Cola has been the gold standard in branding and advertising for decades." Alex Hirsch, an animator and the creator of the Disney series "Gravity Falls," expressed a sentiment that other creative professionals have shared online, noting that the brand's signature red represented the "blood of out-of-work artists." The company, however, is sticking by the ads. "The Coca-Cola Company has celebrated a long history of capturing the magic of the holidays in content, film, events and retail activations for decades around the globe," a spokesman for the company said in a statement provided to The New York Times. "This year, we crafted films through a collaboration of human storytellers and the power of generative A.I." "Coca-Cola will always remain dedicated to creating the highest level of work at the intersection of human creativity and technology," the statement added. Pratik Thakar, a vice president of Coca-Cola and the company's global head of generative A.I., discussed the project in a recent interview with Ad Age, which previewed a screening of one of the spots at its Emerging Tech Summit last week. He cited the budgetary advantages of the project along with the speed at which the work could be created. "We keep our roots in our heritage and what Coke is all about as a brand, but then connect the dots with the future and technology," Mr. Thakar told Ad Age. "And that was kind of a starting point." "A.I. is always good at creating fantastical, hyper-realistic stories, and that's where the whole imagination went into next level," he added in a follow-up story about the consumer reaction. "If I want to go very realistic, maybe it's difficult, but if I want to go hyper-realistic and fantastical, A.I. is actually a much better tool." Coca-Cola worked with three A.I. studios to produce the ads: Secret Level, Silverside AI and the Wild Card. Coca-Cola is not the first legacy brand to draw backlash for using generative A.I. in its ads. Toys "R" Us received criticism in June for a commercial created with OpenAI's tool Sora that portrayed a boy walking through a toy aisle with wonderment until he was joined by the company's mascot, Geoffrey the Giraffe. But Coca-Cola, which is a major force in advertising, appears to be pushing headlong into A.I. despite any ruffled feathers. Last year, the company released a limited edition drink, Coca-Cola Y3000, that boasted on the can's label: "Co-Created with AI." "We hope that Coca-Cola will still be as relevant and refreshing in the year 3000 as it is today," the company said in a statement at the time. "So we challenged ourselves to explore the concept of what a Coke from the future might taste like."

Coca-Cola ripped for 'ugly' AI-generated Christmas commercial:...

AI is coming to town this holiday season -- and soda lovers aren't feeling festive about it. Coca-Cola is receiving backlash online after creating an AI-generated Christmas commercial, which has been slammed as a "creepy dystopian nightmare." Paying homage to Coca-Cola's 1995 "Holidays Are Coming" campaign, the new, 15-second advert depicts a fleet of cherry red trucks driving down a snowy road to deliver ice-cold bottles of cola to customers in a festively decorated town. The video has a disclaimer in small print, "created by Real Magic AI," referencing Coca-Cola's AI software. While the campaign offers a snapshot of what the future of commercials might look like, many consumers were not feeling the holiday spirit, criticizing the beverage brand's clip as "garbage," "ugly" and "lazy." "The world is so over if the Christmas Coca-Cola advert is made with AI," one user wrote on X, per The Independent. "Sad to see this was made with AI generated program," another added in the YouTube comments. "Just saw an AI generated Coca Cola commercial on TV... genuinely how are we letting this happen?" one X user asked, per Daily Mail. "I feel like I'm watching the death of art and our planet unfold in front of my eyes and no one IRL seems to care." But Jason Zada, the founder of the AI studio Secret Level, one of the three Coca-Cola collaborated with on the project, argued that there is still a human component that creates the "warmth" in the clip. Zada told AdAge that harnessing generative AI for something as complex as a commercial is not as easy as just pressing a button, and Pratik Thakar, Coca-Cola's vice president and global head of generative AI, explained that the company is bridging its "heritage" with "the future and technology" with the next-gen campaign. Using the technology, he argued, saves money -- and, not to mention, time. "More than cost, it's the speed," Thakar told the outlet. "Speed is I would say five times, right? And that is a huge benefit. The production time would have taken, traditionally, much longer. So that is a huge benefit." "And then you can do more, more variety, and more customized and more personalized," he continued. "And that's the way to go, with resources, rather than doing less and spending less." However, it's still left some Coca-Cola fans feeling far from festive, saying the video lacks emotion. The Post has reached out to Coca-Cola for further comment.

Coca-Cola's AI-generated holiday ad falls flat with consumers

"It's less festive, more creepy holiday vibes," said one person on TikTok. You can't generate the holiday spirit with artificial intelligence -- at least, according to social media. On Nov. 12, the brand dropped its latest "Holidays Are Coming" commercial. Since 1995, the holiday-themed ads depict folks in snowy surroundings happily welcoming festive lights and a big rig full of ice-cold soda pop into town. This year, though, some of the ads were made with generative AI. One 30-second ad shows digital polar bears, deer and other animals scampering in the snow as computer-generated trucks, pine trees, bridges and even hot-air balloons are lit up with Christmas lights. People young and old in the ad all share smiles -- as well as the fact that they aren't real people. A second, more animal-heavy ad imagines a place where polar bears, house cats, owls and monkeys exist in the same climate. In addition to the commercials, Coca-Cola launched CreateRealMagic.com, which allows people to use AI to reimagine some of Coca‑Cola's iconic holiday imagery and characters. The site, which was first created in March, allows users to make digital greeting cards which can be downloaded, emailed to loved ones or posted to social media, save online galleries and browse through other AI-generated images. As it ushers in the holiday season with this AI-heavy content, the brand has also opened itself up to quite a bit of criticism. "Coca Cola using ai for an ad is genuinely so terrifying to me. Art is dying," wrote one user on X. "Actors, replaced. Camera workers, replaced. Drivers, replaced. Designers, replaced. Soulless." "we're living in the worst timeline," added another. "It shows how lifeless that Christmas commercial is," one TikToker said. "It has no idea what the Christmas feeling is all about. It has no idea how to reproduce that type of joy that we get in the December season. "It's less festive, more creepy holiday vibes," another TikToker said. "Honestly the worst part is them saying 'real magic' at the end of the ad," said another TikToker, adding that the ad "ruined Christmas and their entire brand." "AI is going to steal so many jobs, and a company like Coca-Cola actually using it and endorsing it is very bad for the rest of the world," the same TikToker continued. "Why hire any animators or directors when you could type whatever you want into the real magic AI and get an entire commercial?" A Coca-Cola spokesperson tells TODAY.com that this year's holiday ads were crafted with a collaboration of human storytellers and the "power" of generative AI. "Coca-Cola has long been at the cutting-edge of advertising, marketing and innovation, and we remain dedicated to creating the highest level of work at the intersection of human creativity and technological advancements," the spokesperson says. They also point out that the AI-generated ad is just one of the ads Coca-Cola plans on debuting this season, sharing a more traditional holiday ad called "Holiday Road," which includes real actors and surroundings. This isn't the first time Coca-Cola has used generative AI in its advertising. In 2023, it released "Masterpiece," a nearly two-minute commercial where paintings in a museum toss an ever-changing bottle of soda between framed artworks. Coca-Cola is also far from the only brand to use generative AI in its advertising. In June, Toys "R" Us drew online backlash for an AI commercial created using OpenAI's text-to-video tool Sora. In response, Toys "R" Us Studios president Kim Miller Olko said the test was "successful."

Has Coca-Cola's AI ad destroyed the spirit of Christmas?

Coca-Cola's new AI-generated Christmas ad has sparked significant online backlash, with critics labeling it "soulless" and lacking genuine creativity. Released recently, the video pays homage to the company's iconic 1995 "Holidays Are Coming" commercial but substitutes human actors with AI-generated imagery. Crafted by three AI studios -- Secret Level, Silverside AI, and Wild Card -- the ad has drawn millions of views on social media, Forbes reports. The controversial promotional video features key holiday imagery, such as Coca-Cola trucks in snowy landscapes and people holding drinks, reminiscent of the nostalgic 1995 campaign. Criticism primarily stems from a perception that AI lacks the human touch essential to holiday advertising. Industry professionals and creatives, including Alex Hirsch, creator of Disney's "Gravity Falls," have voiced their discontent on platforms like X, arguing that using AI for such campaigns undermines the work of artists. Hirsch pointedly remarked, "FUN FACT: @CocaCola is 'red' because it's made from the blood of out-of-work artists! #HolidayFactz." Reports indicate that the ad was produced using four generative AI models among the collaborating studios. Chris Barber, an AI developer from Silverside AI, noted that the viral version of the advertisement is not attributed to his studio, further complicating the scandal. Many creatives worry that the adoption of AI technology could diminish opportunities for human talent, asserting that these models often learn from uncredited artistic work. In a statement reflecting its long-standing advertising approach, a Coca-Cola spokesperson said, "The Coca-Cola Company has celebrated a long history of capturing the magic of the holidays in content, film, events and retail activations for decades around the globe. We are always exploring new ways to connect with consumers and experiment with different approaches." The spokesperson emphasized the company's goal of merging human storytelling with advanced technology like generative AI. This ad is not the first instance of Coca-Cola leveraging AI technology. Earlier this year, the company collaborated with OpenAI to produce a different commercial titled "Masterpiece," which featured artwork and animations of museum pieces that came to life in a whimsical setting. Coca-Cola introduced an initiative inviting digital artists to create work using their archives alongside AI tools, showcasing an ongoing commitment to integrating technology into creative processes. How Coca Cola Creations crafted Y3000 with AI Experts have noted the distinction between the general perception of Coca-Cola's holiday brand and previous AI applications. According to Neeraj Arora, chair of marketing research and education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the backlash is more pronounced for this Christmas ad because the holiday season resonates deeply with consumers, making the AI's presence feel inappropriate. Arora stated, "Your holidays are a time of connection, time of community... But then you throw AI into the mix that is not a fit." Similar backlash has arisen for other companies using AI in promotional campaigns. Toys R Us also faced criticism this summer for an AI-generated advertisement featuring its late founder. Despite the controversies surrounding these AI-generated ads, companies have described their initiatives as "successful" and see the technology as a valuable addition for future projects.

Coca-Cola's New AI-Generated Holiday Ad Slammed as 'Soulless' and 'Embarrassing': 'This Is Such Slop' - IGN

When it comes to famous Christmas commercials, there aren't too many that are more iconic and nostalgic than Coca-Cola's 1995 "Holidays Are Coming" spot. The company's latest take on that ad, however, isn't inspiring the Christmas spirit in a lot of fans. You can watch the 16-second spot here, which in some ways is largely similar to the original, from the soundtracks to that big, lit-up truck. But if something feels a little off, it's because it was Coca-Cola's first ad to be fully generated by artificial intelligence. The company's European CMO, Javier Meza, explained the decision in an interview with Marketing Week, saying Coca-Cola wanted to bring this year's holiday commercial to "today's times." "We didn't start by saying: 'OK, we need to do this with AI,'" he said. "The brief was, we want to bring Holidays Are Coming into the present and then we explored AI as a solution to that." It's safe to say that a lot of people on the internet would've preferred Coca-Cola modernizing the ad in another way, however. The reaction online has been overwhelmingly negative, with comments on the YouTube video and across social media calling it "slop," "embarrassing," and "creepy." Or, as one commenter put it: "This is as heartwarming as an aluminum tree." "Over 14 years ago, people were recreating the Coca Cola Christmas ad in GTA San Andreas and it still came off as more authentic than this tripe," wrote one X/Twitter user. "Coca Cola decided to have its polar bears take a giant AI shit under the Christmas Tree," wrote @joerussotweets on X/Twitter. "It's actually soooo concerning that a brand as big as Coca Cola is doing this," added another X/Twitter user. "Surely they could've afforded to hire actors/designers/editors/etc. to make this?" Others expressed similar concerns: "This is such slop bro. If a billion dollar company like coca cola cant pay real artists, actors, directors, etc to promote their product what precedent does this set for the rest of the market?," wrote one person on the YouTube video. But, most importantly: "Coca Cola is banned from Ba Sing Se." In fact, the reception is so harsh that it's actually pretty difficult to find any positive sentiment. But Jason Zada, founder of one of the three AI studios Coca-Cola worked with to create the ad, touted the efficiency of using the technology to craft the spot. "More than cost, it's the speed," Thakar told Ad Age. "Speed is I would say five times, right? And that is a huge benefit. The production time would have taken, traditionally, much longer. So that is a huge benefit." Coca-Cola has responded to the backlash yet, but it might lose some soda drinkers to Pepsi in the meantime. AI remains a hot-button topic in creative industries, emerging as a major point of contention in last year's Hollywood writers' and actors' strikes and in the current video game actor strike. For more on the issue, check out IGN's full AI Week coverage from last year, including a report about how it's become the new battleground in the animation industry.

People really don't like Coke's AI holiday commercial

AI-generated videos already proliferate on the internet -- and now brands are getting in on it. Coca-Cola "reinvented" an old-school holiday-time ad using artificial intelligence, and to say it's not exactly filling social media with good tidings of comfort and joy would be an understatement. The video is a new spin on Coke's "Holidays Are Coming" ad from the 1990s. The original ad features a fleet of Coke trucks decked out in Christmas lights, spreading the holiday spirit as they drive through a snowy town. A namesake song soundtracks the ad, proclaiming, "'Tis the season, it's always the real thing." The ad has been reproduced before, such as this one from the UK and Ireland in 2020. This year, however, the company used AI to create a new version of "Holidays Are Coming": The concept is the same: Coke trucks come to town to bring the magic of the holiday season. These ads include generated animals, including polar bears, a famous Coke holiday symbol in their own right. Multiple versions of the AI-generated ad appear to exist. The ad is what you might come to expect from an AI-generated video: an unnatural sheen to everything, and features and movements looking slightly off. People online immediately expressed their dislike of the ad: "This looks like a poor imitation of the typical Coca-Cola Xmas commercial," X user Brenden Gallagher wrote: "i feel like im watching the death of art and our planet unfold in front of my eyes and no one irl seems to care [sic]," wrote X user @MoistyJc: "With this creepy AI spot, Coca-Cola can no longer claim 'It's always the real thing,'" wrote James Vargas-Maclean on X, calling for a Coke boycott: Despite playing under shots of AI-generated Coke bottles, the song does still proclaim, "It's always the real thing."

Coke's AI Commercial for the Holidays Has Us Wondering If We Live In a Fallen World

Coke is cashing in on your nostalgia by remaking one of its best-known commercials with all new tech: generative AI. 'Tis the season indeed. The Coca-Cola Company's recently unveiled ad for the holidays is a twee callback to its 1995 ad "Holidays Are Coming," which for many has been a staple of this time of year ever since it first aired. We don't recommend having emotional attachments to marketing ploys, but defiling the nearly thirty-year-old original with AI has upset many among the Coke-ad fandom. "Why would you replace such a memorable ad with AI slop???" tweeted one user on X. "Crazy that this is the company that literally made Santa red because of how iconic their adverts were, now they're just making slop," wrote another. This is the company's first fully AI-generated ad. The version of the commercial that Coke first shared -- and is receiving all the negative attention -- is only fifteen seconds long, but is instantly recognizable through its AI-generated recreation of the shots of Coca-Cola trucks driving across snowy landscapes, along with the re-used song. A full-length version was revealed in the trade public Adweek on Friday. Both look very AI-generated. Faces are uncanny, shots are noticeably short, and everything looks like an even kitschier version of a Thomas Kinkade painting put through a cheap HDR filter. Coke ads are a big deal, a cultural status that Coca-Cola spends billions of dollars a year to maintain. As such, you might take it as a bad sign that one of the world's biggest advertisers is snubbing human creatives in favor of AI. According to Coca-Cola's European chief marketing officer Javier Meza, one of the reasons it used a machine learning model was because it was "efficient," saving both time and money. But he also tried to spin using the tech as some artistic choice to bring the classic ad in tune with "today's times." "We didn't start by saying: 'OK, we need to do this with AI,'" Meza told Marketing Week. "The brief was, we want to bring Holidays Are Coming into the present and then we explored AI as a solution to that." If Coke's endgame was to get rage engagement, it worked. But as for fostering holiday spirit and good cheer, some might start turning to another soda for that.

Coca-Cola turns to AI for its Christmas ad in 2025 -- sparking mixed reactions

Every year there are a few signs Christmas is coming including Mariah Carey's now infamous TikTok posts showing her "thawing out", houses strewn with festive lights and the iconic Coca-Cola red truck returning to TV screens. Coca-Cola's "Holidays Are Coming" commercial was first seen on TV screens in 1995 showing a fleet of illuminated red trucks. It was replaced with a campaign around "needing more Santas" in 2020 but thanks to AI, "Holidays Are Coming" is back for 2024. Coca-Cola worked with three AI studios: Secret Level, Silverside AI and Wild Card to create three distinct versions of the festive ad. Each made use of distinct Coca-Cola branded assets and followed the same concept. They used a range of AI models, including Runway which I recently used to send myself on AI adventures. They drew the usual criticism on YouTube from people concerned about generative AI replacing filmmakers. According to Marketing Interactive, a survey by media intelligence firm Truescope found most didn't seem to care about the use of AI in the commercial, with 83% expressing "neutral" sentiments. AI video has come a long way in a year, going from barely recognizable two-second clips of a person to near-full realism. Some models are close to 20-second initial clips, especially when going video-to-video, and tools now allow for embedding brands. However, no two AI video models are alike so you need to be able to utilize a range of models to get the best overall outcome. That is what happened with the Coca-Cola AI commercials and they even included human work. According to Silverside, it took two months to create the commercial, something that would have taken a year using traditional CGI and filming techniques. It involved 10,000 frames and 5,000 video segments made using mostly AI tools including Runway, Kling, and Luma Labs Dream Machine. They also used their own technology to seamlessly integrate Coca-Cola branding. The true power of using AI to create the project comes from how quickly it will allow it to be changed. According to Silverside, it can enable "rapid customization for different regions in real-time -- showcasing that AI, combined with human creativity, can elevate storytelling to new heights." Secret Level Founder Jason Zada said they found Kling the most helpful in terms of making human motion More Realistic. Speaking to Ad Age he said: "When a new model comes out and you look at running some of your old shots through it, all of a sudden it changes everything." Customization is the main point here. AI video is changing and improving faster than almost any other area of generative AI technology. These projects were started three months ago and a lot has improved since then. We've seen upgrades to Runway, Hailuo MiniMax launch, the open source Mochi arrive with impressive customization and we're still waiting on Sora from OpenAI, Veo from Google DeepMind and Meta's Movie Gen. If this experiment were to be repeated in a year -- nobody would be able to tell it was AI generated and it may even be possible to create it from a single prompt.

Coca-Cola Uses AI Video to 'Reimagine' Its Classic Christmas Ad

Coca-Cola has controversially remade its iconic Christmas ad featuring Santa and wintry scenes using artificial intelligence video tools. The soft drinks giant commissioned three companies to come up with an AI recreation of the ad and it's the version made by Secret Level that is on TV. The ad is reminiscent of Coca-Cola's very first Christmas spot which was made in 1995. It features large trucks, polar bears, and happy, shiny people. Secret Level founder Jason Zada tells AdAge that the spot "borrows from the original, in terms of tonality and musically, but able to re-imagine it for a whole new generation." Coca-Cola uses the AI platforms Leonardo, Luma, and Runway but as the team was working on the AI commercial, the Chinese video platform Kling was released which became integral to the final piece. "When a new model comes out and you look at running some of your old shots through it, all of a sudden it changes everything," Zada tells AdAge. Zada says that Kling made human motion more realistic and Secret Level was the only company to include humans in their ad. The humans that appear are based on real actors who gave permission for their likenesses to be used. Zada admits to AdAge that the AI ad saved "several million dollars and a lot of time in the cold" than if they had shot it for real. "And we were able to do all of that, you know, from the comfort of everyone's home, we have global artists all over the world that we worked with," says Zada. "I think a lot of people feel like you just press a button, and you get something like that [Coca-Cola commercial] out. "And I think that it's so much of the human side of it that makes that warmth that you see in that spot." Coca-Cola's VP and global head of generative AI Pratik Thakar tells AdAge that it wasn't about saving money but doing things more creatively. "More than cost, it's the speed. Speed is I would say five times, right? And that is a huge benefit. The production time would have taken, traditionally, much longer. So that is a huge benefit," says Thakar. "And then you can do more, more variety, and more customized and more personalized. And that's the way to go, with resources, rather than doing less and spending less." Thakar adds that Coca-Cola won't be using AI for all of its commercial work.

Coca-Cola's iconic 'Holidays Are Coming' ad is now a soulless and creepy dystopian nightmare made by AI

Coca-Cola CMO Javiet Mexa says, "we want to bring Holidays Are Coming into the present." Holidays are coming... but this time Coca-Cola has opted to strip the soul out of its iconic 1995 UK TV ad and use generative AI to recreate it. The 16-second ad, which is set to run in the UK instead of the beloved original, has been entirely created using AI without any human input. The ad shows the famous Coca-Cola truck driving through a snow-covered landscape and arriving in a town, and Santa's hand passing out bottles of the fizzy drink to happy people excited at the thought of the taste of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar. Coca-Cola's European CMO Javier Meza told Marketing Week, "We didn't start by saying: 'OK, we need to do this with AI'. The brief was, we want to bring Holidays Are Coming into the present, and then we explored AI as a solution to that." Interestingly, and unlike the original ad, Coca-Cola's new AI version omits Santa's face entirely. Whether this was intentional, or because AI's recreation of Santa Claus was deemed too eerie, we're not quite sure. Meza added that Coca-Cola tested the AI-generated ad with consumers prior to release, and said they "loved" it, leading the multi-billion dollar company to push on with the idea. The advert was generated using Coca-Cola's own Real Magic AI, which was launched last year in collaboration with Bain & Company and OpenAI. The AI model combines the capabilities of OpenAI's GPT-4 and Dall-E, and learns from Coca-Cola's creative assets created over the brand's 138-year history. The 'Create Real Magic' campaign from last year invited digital artists to use the AI model to create digital billboards for the brand, with the winners appearing in New York's Times Square and London's Piccadilly Circus. At the time, I don't think anyone expected Coca-Cola to use the same technology for a TV ad, but then a lot has changed since March 2023, and now Coca-Cola wants to show that it's evolving with the times. AI can be incredibly useful and often magical, but many people - myself included - will feel that some things, like Coca-Cola's cozy and magical holiday ad, should remain untouched by technology.

Coca-Cola's New Christmas Commercial Was Made With AI And Looks Bad

It's mid-November, which means it's practically Christmas according to every store I've entered lately. And as is tradition during November and December, our TV commercials are all Christmas-themed, too. There are some classics out there, but Coca-Cola's newest ad won't be joining those ranks as it's an ugly, AI-generated mess that is embarrassing to watch. First, before we go any further, here's the horrible AI slop: I don't have enough time to go over how ugly and terrible this AI-generated commercial is, but a few standouts: The trucks don't have moving wheels and instead glide across the ground; houses in the background look like they're melting; and everything feels static in every shot. Anyway, it's terrible, but what made me laugh was reading an article from AdAge about the creation of the commercial. Apparently, Coca-Cola paid for three of these ads to be created by different "AI studios." Here's a bit about the squirrels that appear in the ad posted above: There was an opening shot in the commercial with an AI-generated squirrel, which took multiple attempts to get right, [Secret Level AI studio founder Jason] Zada said. "We must have run that squirrel [through AI] in the beginning of that video a couple hundred times." Here's the shot that took them so long to get "right." Good job everyone, you wasted your time and a lot of electricity to create ugly squirrels instead of just licensing some footage of real ones or -- and here's an idea -- going outside with a camera and filming some. Keep in mind that many shots in this ad were likely touched up by a human, too. You can tell that all the Coca-Cola logos that appear in this were likely added after the videos were generated because they're all so perfect. Oh, and because they wobble around, as if someone quickly covered up garbled Coke logos with nice PNGs. Anyway, look, I know I shouldn't get too upset about this. It's a fucking Christmas ad from Coca-Cola. But what scares me is the thought that this could be the future because a lot of people just won't notice. I imagine a lot of people who are too busy to really look at this stuff will see this ad appear on their TV as they chat with family and friends over the holidays and someone might say, "Oh I love Coke's Christmas ads!" and everyone will agree and move on. How many will realize that AI-generated slop was just served to them by one of the biggest corporations in the world, who decided that instead of letting real people make something, they would save a buck and generate some ads that look like shit? The future sucks.

AI Coke Ad Shows We'll Argue About Advertisements While the World Burns

Coca-Cola just revealed three new holiday ads created with generative AI. One for Coke Zero is on its YouTube page, unlisted. The comments below the video are a war zone. People hate the ad. They love the ad. As things turn to shit on the internet and real life, people are consumed with a conflict they feel they may be able to control: whether or not a corporation will use AI to generate the ads it uses to sell us a sugary drink. The ad does suck. It’s a riff on the beloved 1995 Coca-Cola ad that features a convoy of lit-up Coke trucks delivering Christmas cheer to a suburban landscape. The new ad features some of the hallmarks of AI-generated “art†that makes people uncomfortable. The hands are correct, but no single shot lasts more than a few frames. The human beings seem wrong like they’re animated mannequins. There’s a sense that things are almost correct here, almost right, but different enough to make someone uncomfortable. “The beginning of the end of creativity,†one commenter said below the unlisted YouTube video advertising soda. “Call me crazy now but you’ll see â€|†“Why are you destroying my childhood with this slop, are you mad everyone drinks Pepsi and Dr. Pepper now?†Said another. “TRASHâ€"soulless and lazy corner cutting, why not innovate and do something new instead of just rehashing using AI to replicate what you already did,†said a third. In our fallen world, not even our advertisements are genuine anymore. At least we can fight about that. Multiple news outlets covered not just the ad, but the backlash to the ad. “Coca-Cola ripped for â€~ugly’ AI generated Christmas Commercial: â€~Dystopian nightmare,’†said the New York Post. “Coca-Cola’s iconic 'Holidays Are Coming' ad is now a soulless and creepy dystopian nightmare made by AI,†said Techradar. But advertisements have always sucked. Coca-Cola and other corporations have so thoroughly and completely dominated our culture that the realistic nature of the ads they use to sell us stuff has, somehow, become a topic of debate. The YouTube comments are also full of people excited to be reminded that Christmas is upon us, people that associate the Yuletide with Coca-Cola as well as family. “In my house it’s not officially Christmas ğŸ...🼠until I see that advert on t.v or YouTube,†said one comment. “Gotta love the Coca Cola Christmas advert ever since being kid I remember there adverts at Christmas time ğŸ...ğŸ¼ğŸ",†another said. For me, this is more depressing than anything Coca-Cola could ever do with AI advertising. If you’re upset about the quality of the art people use to sell you something then you’ve already lost. And, according to The Drumâ€"an advertising newsletterâ€"people love this ad if you don’t tell them it's AI before they watch it. “We measured the branded emotional reaction to the ad. The usual fare for us with one tiny difference,†The Drum said in a recent post. “We didn’t tell them they were watching an AI ad or that they were to compare it to the beloved original. That’s no doubt baggage you had when you clicked the headline to watch the ad the first time as an advertising practitioner of some sort. So we predicted its creative effectiveness potential, and it scored top marks beating all previous Christmas truck ads over the years.†The simple truth is that companies care about the bottom line and that generative AI has the potential to be cheaper and faster at producing ads. To make the original ad, Coca-Cola had to hire crew, actors, drivers, and hundreds of other people. This time it paid an AI shop that licensed the likeness of some actors and did everything with computers. The math is easy. This is the future. Arguing about AI ruining the nostalgic feeling of a soft drink ad during a holiday season that never gets cold.

Coca-Cola Airs AI-Made Holiday Ad to Tidings of Bad Cheer

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications are improving so rapidly they're making critics rethink their views on computer-made art. Only a year ago, skeptics pointed to AI's limited ability to produce drawings, images, movies, and other creative works as proof the technology will never match human capabilities. But even as some former detractors revise their opinions, Coca-Cola has demonstrated there's one thing AI clearly still isn't able to do -- create the holiday season spirit without generating sour tidings of scorn.

Can we all just calm down about Coke's AI holiday commercials?

Subscribe to the Design newsletter.The latest innovations in design brought to you every weekday Overall consumer reaction, however, is less apocalyptic. Andrew Tindall, senior VP of global partnerships at market research firm System1 Group, posted on LinkedIn, "We've tested the new AI version with real people, and they love it. The 15-second cut has managed to score top marks. 5.9 stars and 98% distinctiveness. Huge positive emotions and almost zero negative." For its part, Coke is confident that its early experimentation is not only fun, but a meaningful investment that -- despite the negative reviews in the short term -- is setting the company up for long-term marketing success. I called Coke's head of generative AI, Pratik Thakar, to find out what the brand was thinking, and what he makes of the cauldron of hot takes. It should be said right away, that this isn't Coke's first rodeo with AI. Last year, the brand launched an art contest challenging creators to create new ads combining GPT-4 and DALL-E output with content from its vast advertising archives. It got more than 120,000 artworks from participants in 17 countries, all of which generated 300 million social media impressions. It also launched the two-minute film Masterpiece, created with the open-source AI platform Stable Diffusion, and teamed with OpenAI to create a new flavor "from the future": Y3000. In April, the company announced a five-year strategic partnership with Microsoft, and made a $1.1 billion commitment to the Microsoft Cloud and its generative AI capabilities.

Someone Made a Deranged Version of Coke's AI Holiday Ad and It's Way Better

Coca-Cola drew criticism for rolling out an uninspired and lazily AI-generated holiday advertisement this year. The ad is pretty much exactly the kind of insipid corporate sludge you'd expect from AI: predictable, unimaginative and vaguely uncanny. Fortunately, Redditors took matters into their own hands, celebrating tooth-rotting soft drinks with a far more "unhinged" take on Coke's concept. The result harkens back to the glowy days of AI gore, when Will Smith glitchily "eating" a bowl of spaghetti went mega-viral, with unsettling mishmashes of morphing body appendages and explosions. At one point, a polar bear even yeets its offspring into an icy lake for no discernible reason. "Brilliant," one Redditor assessed. "No notes." Coke contracted three separate AI studios for its cheap-looking ad, and it didn't take long for netizens to call out the company for brazenly replacing human artists with bland AI. "FUN FACT: Coca-Cola is 'red' because it's made from the blood of out-of-work artists!" Alex Hirsch, the creator of the Disney TV show "Gravity Falls," tweeted in a tongue-in-cheek post. It's only the latest in a string of companies relying on cheap generative AI for its ads. Earlier this year, the corporate husk of Toys "R" Us was flamed for a similar effort. Perhaps it would've served Coke better to lean into the limitations of the tech. During this year's Super Bowl half-time, after all, its sports drink brand Bodyarmor released a nausea-inducing generative AI ad in an attempt to make a point about offering its customers a "real" product. At least, the ad passed the low bar of being somewhat entertaining to watch, which can't be said of its latest cringe-inducing attempt. "They should've made it more self-aware and comical, it would've had a better reception IMO," one Redditor argued. "Tough for the marketing department to make a self-aware ad when they are all out of touch in the first place," another replied.

Coca-cola kills off Santa with AI Christmas advert

Brand says it had to adapt Holidays are Coming to 'today's times' but the 15-second ad still has the catchy soundtrack as the 1995 original Coca-cola solely used artificial intelligence to generate this year's Christmas advert instead of casting a person to play Santa Claus. The 15-second recreation of its famous "Holidays are Coming" ad is the fizzy drink brand's first extensive use of generative AI in a television Christmas campaign. The famous Coca-cola Christmas trucks first trundled their way through a wintery landscape and onto TV screens in the brand's 1995 original "Holidays Are Coming". For the original advert, three real 40ft trucks were used, each weighing two tonnes and clad with 30,000 light bulbs, according to Coca-cola. This year, Coca-cola has used AI to create an "efficient" advertisement, saving the $100 billion company both time and money. Javier Meza, the EU chief marketing officer at Coca-cola, said the brand had set out to adapt the advert to "today's times", using a more diverse cast and incorporating AI. "We didn't start by saying: 'OK, we need to do this with AI,'" he told Marketing Week, adding: "The brief was, we want to bring Holidays Are Coming into the present and then we explored AI as a solution to that." He told the trade publication that using AI had been an "efficient" way of saving time and money. This year's advert follows the festive trucks around pine-lined lanes and through a cosy town, peppered with close-up shots of woolly hat-wearing revellers holding Coca-cola Zero Sugar.

Coca-Cola's AI-Generated Holiday Ads Approach A Creative Tipping Point

The Coca-Cola Company released three new AI-generated Holiday ads inspired by the beverage giant's classic 1995 "The Holidays Are Coming" commercial. Produced entirely with AI video models like Runway and Luma Dream Machine, this represents a step forward in photorealism for AI-generated video. Predictably, the commercials have sparked some controversy among creators, who criticize the "AI sheen" and lack of realism with the AI-generated people and objects. Creator criticism is understandable given fear of job loss and frustration for impact on their craft. Yet, these commercials and a growing list of others - including Dove, Under Armour, and Toys R Us - move the marketing industry closer to the point where AI content and advertising production becomes normalized. This means complex choices beset brands and executives looking for the best ways to leverage AI. The collective opinion among agencies and marketing services providers is that video tools like Sora, Runway and Dream Machine aren't quite ready for prime time - citing the need for incremental improvements in quality and the critical need for indemnity. The announcement of Adobe's Firefly Video model promises to extend commercial indemnification to video as the company trains its models using Adobe stock and other right available material. Once indemnification is available for video models, marketers should anticipate others to follow suit, clearing the path for more production use cases. AI creates a new polarity, machine-produced marketing assets and campaigns opposed to human-generated ones. Mark Sinnock, Chief Strategy Officer for Havas articulated this as a synthetic versus authentic tension. But, like the marketing tensions that came before - brand or performance, acquisition or retention, television or digital - this new one is not a mutually exclusive decision. There's a place for automated, machine-made marketing in social feeds, web sites, apps and games, just as there's also a place for intuitive, human-produced marketing experiences at retail, events, and in products. In fact, the Coca-Cola AI "The Holidays Are Coming" ads are part of a broader Holiday campaign by The Coca-Cola Company that includes its 2023 "The World Needs More Santas" television commercial, a multi-city truck tour, an AI digital experience, and an on-package promotion. Coca-Cola's AI commercials aren't the brand's only expression of Holiday. Nor are they the end of creativity as we know it, rather part of a combination of machine automation and human intuition that Forrester calls Intelligent Creativity. Most interestingly, the Coca-Cola AI commercials have sparked both controversy among creators AND delight among consumers unaware of AI's contribution to production. The context of knowing AI's role activates bias among those who stand to lose or feel threatened by AI. But consumers shown the commercials without AI context in System1's creative testing tool rated the ads a 5.9 out 6, illustrating that the commercials shear strength. This suggests removing the AI-awareness context could improve the efficacy of AI-created commercials, allowing brands to realize the efficiency of their AI and automation investments. Resist this temptation. Most brands don't enjoy over a century of Holiday equity built into the Coca-Cola brand that enables consumers to oversee or overlook AI's uncanny valley. And once advertising technology starts down the path of omission, it becomes more susceptible to abuse and misuse, contributing to the already eroding trust of the 21 century digital media environment. Among the most exciting prospect for brands and marketing executives is the potential to realize the "do more with less" remit. More content, more iterations, more relevance for less time, less cost, less effort. By all accounts, some agencies leveraging brand AI systems are removing 25% or more of the costs for building campaigns. But fast, cheap content creation is worthless if not manifested as effective, engaging content outputs. Alas, this is a process requiring models to learn the brand and audiences and creators to learn the models and systems. Training, experience, experimentation are all necessary to build an AI-powered marketing operating system to produce experiences consumers want, while yielding the cost reductions brands need. I've recently added generative AI for visual content (images, video and motion graphics) as part of my coverage. If you are a Forrester client interested in discussing AI marketing, schedule an inquiry with me.

Expert Available to Comment on AI-Generated Coca-C | Newswise

Coca-Cola's AI-generated Christmas ads have sparked a backlash from consumers, who feel that the commercials lack the authenticity and holiday magic of past years' human-generated ads. Now, a consumer behavior researcher at New York Institute of Technology explains why. "AI is a new territory for brand marketers, but what we do know is that consumers highly value authentic interactions with brands," says Colleen Kirk, D.P.S., professor of marketing at New York Institute of Technology, who has published research into how consumers respond to AI-written, textual content. "With the increasing use of AI-generated content, we see that people are becoming ever more skeptical of the human origin of marketing communications." Kirk's research reveals that when brands use AI to create emotionally charged marketing content, it often backfires. Consumers are more likely to adopt a negative view of the brand and, as a result, have less desire to interact with it. In some cases, they may even switch brands.