Soft drink giant Coca-Cola has kicked off the festive season early with a shiny new Christmas advert that once again has already got everyone talking, though maybe not for the reasons the brand hoped.
The company has released its latest holiday spot, bringing back the famous red trucks and snowy landscapes that have become as much a Christmas staple as mince pies and bad cracker jokes.
The ad, which dropped this week, features the globe-trotting Coca-Cola trucks journeying through different wintry scenes while seals, pandas, and other animals look on. It all ends with a reimagined Santa Claus stepping out of one of the trucks, created from the original 1930s artwork by Haddon Sundblom: the very artist who helped shape the modern image of St. Nick. So far, so Christmassy.
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But after around 125 words of holiday cheer, here’s where the fizz goes flat: the ad was made entirely using AI. No sets, no actors, and no illustrators. Just a team of digital artists working with generative tools to bring the whole thing to life. Unsurprisingly, it’s caused a storm online.
That’s because this latest ad comes just one year after Coca-Cola’s first experiment with AI, a 2024 festive spot that was slammed across social media. Many critics accused the company of using artificial intelligence to cut costs and replace creative workers.
Hollywood writer Alex Hirsch was among those leading the charge, saying: “Coca-Cola is red because it’s made from the blood of out-of-work artists," as noted by The Hollywood Reporter.
Despite the backlash, though, Coca-Cola has doubled down, insisting that this year’s ad is far superior. Pratik Thakar, the brand’s global vice president and head of generative AI, said: “Last year people criticized the craftsmanship. But this year the craftsmanship is ten times better”.
He added: “There will be people who criticize — we cannot keep everyone 100 percent happy. But if the majority of consumers see it in a positive way it’s worth going forward.”
The company worked again with Los Angeles-based AI studio Secret Level to produce the ad. Its founder, Jason Zada, said, to The Hollywood Reporter: “The best compliment I get is when people say a video doesn’t look like AI.”
But over on Reddit, the mood was anything but merry. On a thread discussing THR’s article, one user fumed, saying: “Coca-Cola doesn’t want to pay working artists or to promote real creativity. They want to starve people, and feed digital slop to others to maximize profit.” Another simply wrote: “A slop ad for a slop drink.”
While some defended the technology, saying it’s still thought of as ‘inevitable’ and part of progress, most viewers weren’t buying it. As one commenter summed it up: “Boycott this b******t.”
FOODbible has reached out to Coca-Cola for comment.
Ben Williams