Coca-Cola’s 2024 Christmas ads are AI-generated, a decision that is being criticized across social media. The company commissioned three companies to remake its iconic Holidays Are Coming commercial, and the results are predictably terrible.
Coke commissions AI-generated ads, alienates everyone
Coca-Cola is catching flak for its AI-generated remakes of its Holidays Are Coming ad. Viewers almost universally hate them despite Coke’s marketing research indicating the contrary would happen. X and YouTube comments are filled with vitriol and promises to boycott the company’s products.
But why did Coke feel the need to update the classic? According to AdAge, Jason Zada, founder of Secret Level, one of the three companies Coke commissioned to make an AI ad, stated it was to “re-imagine it for a whole new generation.” Coke’s European CMO Javier Meza says the company wanted to bring the 30-year-old ad to “today’s times.” However, when Coke ran the original 1995 version of Holidays Are Coming last year, it was ranked as the UK’s second most effective holiday ad overall by System1. It would seem that indicates that the new generation likes the old ad just fine.
Meza’s idea of bringing the ad up to date is that the crowd shown in the ad is more diverse than in the original. However, that’s not actually the case. Those aren’t real people in the ad. They’re AI-generated hallucinations. Pratik Thakar, Coca-Cola’s VP and global head of generative AI, stated that the people seen in the commercial are based on real actors who gave permission to use their likenesses, but that doesn’t change the fact that the human aspect has been almost entirely removed from its creation.
Some might argue that Coke has used CG animation in its ads before, and that’s not so different from what we see here. However, at least CG involves artistry and human labor, which comes through in the final product. With this AI-generated slop, Zada complained that for the Secret Level version of the ad, “We must have run that squirrel [through AI] in the beginning of that video a couple hundred times,” a process that consists of typing out a prompt and waiting for a computer to generate content.
The fact that Coke decided to release these commercials to the public is a sign of marketers’ extreme detachment from audiences. Meza stated that the AI version of Holidays Are Coming was pre-tested with consumers who “loved” it, which gave the company confidence to proceed with the release.
Of course, like others who have used AI in ads, Coke probably won’t take the hint. The monetary and time savings from using AI are too significant for marketers to ignore, and we should expect its use to become more widespread regardless of how negative it’s perceived.
