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":
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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:
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"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:
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"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:
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Despite playing under shots of AI-generated Coke bottles, the song does still proclaim, "It's always the real thing."
Topics Artificial Intelligence
Anna Iovine is the associate editor of features at Mashable. Previously, as the sex and relationships reporter, she covered topics ranging from dating apps to pelvic pain. Before Mashable, Anna was a social editor at VICE and freelanced for publications such as Slate and the Columbia Journalism Review. Follow her on Bluesky.
