AI-Powered Holiday Ad Earns Coca-Cola a Lump of Coal

There’s nothing like heading home for the holidays. But if that home happens to be generated by artificial intelligence, controversy is sure to follow.

Coca-Cola became the latest major brand on the receiving end of backlash for its use of AI in its marketing, catching heat for this year’s technology-fueled remake of its classic 1995 spot, “Holidays Are Coming.”

The 30-second spot features people walking through the streets in scarves and knit hats, holding bottles of Coke, while big red Coca-Cola trucks drive past, and deer, polar bears, and other animals frolic in the snow.

A second spot dives deeper into the animal universe, adding cats, monkeys, and owls to the mix.

As AI technology has become both more sophisticated and easier to access, artists and creative professionals have expressed concerns about their jobs being replaced by AI, and about AI models being trained on their work while they receive no compensation or credit.

The new Coke spot only added more carbonation to the bubbling outcry.

Alex Hirsch, creator of Disney comedy series Gravity Falls, wrote on X, “FUN FACT: @CocaCola is ‘red’ because it’s made from the blood of out-of-work artists! #HolidayFactz.”

Megan Cruz, host of podcast The Broad Perspective, chimed in, “This is always what (AI) was going to be used for btw. It’s not some great equalizer. It’s a way for already massively wealthy execs to add a few more mil to their annual bonuses by cutting creative teams entirely & having a machine vomit up the most boring slop imaginable instead.”

And Canadian voice actor KJ Burbank lamented, “Coca Cola using AI for an ad is genuinely so terrifying to me. Art is dying. Actors, replaced. Camera workers, replaced. Drivers, replaced. Designers, replaced. Soulless. This is affecting EVERYONE now. Whether you want to accept that or not. It’s going too far.”

Neeraj Arora, chair of marketing research and education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, believes the negative response to the campaign is due to the importance of Christmas to the beverage giant’s brand, telling NBC News, “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. But then you throw AI into the mix, that is not a fit with holiday timing, but also, to some degree, also Coke, what the brand means to people.”

While AI has advanced rapidly, it is far from perfect. Forbes pointed out inconsistencies in the Coca-Cola spot, such as truck wheels not spinning, bystanders appearing to be larger than the trucks, and “nonsensical shapes and patterns” in buildings and Christmas lights in the background.

Coca-Cola responded to the backlash with the following statement: “The Coca-Cola Co. 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. This year, we crafted films through a collaboration of human storytellers and the power of generative AI. Coca-Cola will always remain dedicated to creating the highest level of work at the intersection of human creativity and technology.”

Three AI studios worked on the campaign: Secret Level, Silverside AI, and Wild Card. They used four gen AI models: Kling, Leonardo, Luma and Runway.

PJ Pereira, co-founder and partner at Silverside AI and co-founder and creative chairman at parent company Pereira O’Dell, and Rob Wrubel, co-founder and managing partner at Silverside AI, spoke with ADWEEK last week about their role in the creative process.

Pereira said Coke asked Silverside for “a modern interpretation” of its Christmas truck earlier this year, and it used several gen AI platforms, including its own, to bring them to life. Wrubel added that doing so sped up the process and enabled the studio to send daily edits and updates to the client, rather than every couple of weeks.

Gen AI also enabled Silverside to fulfill a late request from Coca-Cola and deliver 110 different versions of the spot, with 27 market localizations featuring skylines customized to the cities where those versions would air.

Coca-Cola is no stranger to incorporating AI into its marketing, having worked with OpenAI on the March 2023 release of “Masterpiece,” which depicted a gallery where the art comes to life and passes around a bottle of Coke.

NBC News’ Today also pointed out that the company announced earlier this month that it would team up with artists to create artwork from its creative archives using AI, adding that Coca-Cola moved longtime executive Pratik Thakar to the role of vice president and global head of gen AI in June 2023.