Tis’ the season of Coca-Cola! The beverage brand released its first Christmas advertisement this year, featuring the iconic jingle “Holidays are Coming.” But it’s not just another advertisement! This time Coca Cola has launched an AI-generated Christmas advert marking the holiday spirit. It is the recreation of a 1995 Coca-Cola commercial but with a twist.
The 2024 Coca-Cola commercial features a convoy of brightly lit red Coca-Cola trucks traveling across a town. It shows polar bears and a bunch of kids who are excited to see the trucks. The ad shows what is presumably Santa’s hand (given the red and white sleeves shown in the ad) handing over a bottle of Coca-Cola to a kid. A small disclaimer at the bottom of the ad reads - “Created by Real Magic AI.”
According to Coca-Cola, the original ad featured three real 40ft trucks, weighing two tonnes each. They were covered with 30,000 light bulbs.
However, the ad which was made with hopes of evoking nostalgia among the people has sparked controversy on social media as the fans are disappointed. They feel that the advert lacks creativity and reflects a bunch of unrelated scenes put together in a frame.
How have fans reacted to the Coca-Cola Christmas commercial?
Many fans took to social media to slam the AI-generated Christmas commercial. Some called it the “fakest” and “most talentless” ad of all time. Few others called it “dystopian.”
“Feels painfully ironic that they’re using “real magic” as a slogan while making the fakest, most talentless ad of all time.” A user wrote.
"real magic " and it's AI this is so dystopian i hate it here” One user wrote.
"let's make something worse by using AI" Another user wrote.
Some wrote that it was not something “technically unachievable” that Coca-Cola had to switch to AI for its content.
“The sad thing is that AI wasn't used to generate something technically unachievable, it was used to create regular people in a very simple scenario to film. Very sad, this was completely pointless.” One user said.
Some also wrote that they will be buying Pepsi this season instead of Coke.
“Welp, I’m not buying coke anymore. Good thing Pepsi tastes exactly the same.”
How has Coca-Cola responded to the backlash?
In their response to the backlash, Javier Meza, the EU chief marketing officer at Coca-Cola, said the company was looking forward to adapting to “today’s times” with the use of AI technology.
In an interview with Marketing Week, Meza said:
“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.” He added.
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Another spokesman of Coca-Cola told The Telegraph:
"Coca-Cola's exciting venture into AI-generated storytelling demonstrates Coca-Cola's commitment to embracing innovation, leveraging our collaborations with top creative and technology partners, while staying true to its core values: spreading happiness and creating real magic!"
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