Coca-Cola has an indelible connection to the holidays here in the United States. The company’s portraits of Santa Claus in the 1930s helped popularize the Santa Claus character as we know it today, and Coca-Cola commercials have become a staple of the holiday season. Now, Coca-Cola is creating a new holiday tradition, even if AI critics really hope so.
For the second year in a row, Coca-Cola partnered with AI studio Secret Level to create holiday ads using generative AI. The new “Holidays Are Coming” ad features Coke’s classic Christmas motifs (polar bear, Santa Claus, red delivery truck) and a herd of animated animals, all rendered using generative AI.
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AI actors and deepfakes don’t appear in YouTube ads. they are already here.
But for those who hate AI, no amount of cute and cuddly cartoons like bears, rabbits, koalas, otters, and capybaras can distract them from AI.
On social media, AI video critics are furious. But “The Holidays Are Coming” is another clear sign that AI in advertising is an unstoppable train, especially considering the backlash to Coke’s first AI video ad.
Last year, Coke released a similar “Holidays Are Coming” Christmas commercial with the help of Los Angeles-based AI studio Secret Level. The ad blended animation with photorealistic AI actors to create an uncanny valley effect. As Mashable wrote last November, the backlash made Coca-Cola the online villain of the week. Still, the company is back with another AI video. My hope is that this will lead to more holiday cheer instead of holiday aversion.
“These types of technology advancements have allowed us to enhance our films and fine-tune our storytelling to create content that is receptive and immersive for our customers,” Pratik Thakar, global vice president and head of generative AI at The Coca-Cola Company, told Mashable in an email. “Last year’s films did very well and were well-received by our customers. That’s the most important thing to us.”
Why AI in advertising is captivating brands despite the backlash
Coca-Cola’s original 1995 “Holidays Are Coming” commercial reportedly featured three real 40-foot trucks decorated with 30,000 light bulbs. independent personand the commercial’s jingle earworm was an instant hit. These prime-time national commercials are typically expensive and time-consuming to produce. But Secret Level founder Jason Zada says it took his team of 20 people “about a month” to create the 90-second ad.
Generative AI promises to reduce animation costs by up to 90%. new york times reported this year, and such savings are too attractive to ignore.
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“When we tested an ad with consumers last year, there was no mention of AI, but it was one of the best test ads we’ve seen in a very long time,” Zada said. “So I think the average consumer, the average person, is going to see this and smile and be happy. Hopefully, they’ll walk away and say, ‘This is a great ad.'”
But for many artists, creative professionals, and filmmakers, generative AI is completely problematic. They argue that this is a debasement of creative expression that relies on stolen intellectual property, wastes energy and eliminates jobs. (One critic said of last year’s ad:[Coca-Cola] is “red” because it is made from the blood of unemployed artists. As a result, many AI critics oppose AI video overall, rather than based on the merits of specific initiatives. Even the slightest whiff of generative AI in filmmaking causes a backlash. Still, despite the angry reactions online and despite the backlash from the writers and actors unions, Hollywood and Madison Avenue are moving forward.
The NFL rolled out AI advertising earlier this year, but how many other brands are using AI without disclosing it? I suspect it’s a lot more than people realize.
AI video has evolved dramatically over the past year. Thanks to video models like Google’s Veo 3 and LumaAI’s Ray3, AI video is nearly indistinguishable from human-generated content, for better or worse.
Zada emphasized that AI Studio also employs artists. A behind-the-scenes video released alongside the new ad shows some of the human effort that went into creating the campaign, he said.
“The misconception is that it’s one person in a basement making these things, and I think there’s a lot of human artistry that goes into this,” Zada said in an interview with Mashable. “From hand-drawing the original characters to a lot of frame-by-frame animation of certain parts and visual effects aspects…a lot of sketching went into creating all the original characters and creating an original style that they felt they could own.” He also said that Secret Level’s artists “try very ethically” to avoid borrowing the style of any particular artist.
This ad is unlikely to sway the positions of AI proponents and critics alike.
While this battle is being waged in agencies, boardrooms, and pitch meetings, we can expect to see more AI video ads on TV in the coming years.
Editor’s note: Quotes in this article have been lightly edited for clarity and grammar.
This article reflects the opinions of the author.
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Artificial intelligence viral video
