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Coca-Cola has left viewers disturbed after releasing its annual Christmas advert with yet another dystopian AI twist.
The fizzy drink giant is joining the slew of festive ads coming out post-Halloween, including the usual tear-jerking John Lewis sequence and various supermarkets like Sainsbury’s and Aldi.
However, far from the warm, fuzzy feeling that envelops this chilly time of year, the corporation’s holiday advert has rather left audiences chilled to the core after confirming it used Real Magic AI to create it.
The one-minute advert shows an animated holiday-themed scene where a Coca-Cola truck drives down a snow-filled, light-decked road. Along the journey, different animals start to get excited, like a pair of polar bears, penguins, birds, squirrels, seals and a sloth.
The Christmas trees along the path start to light up until eventually the trucks arrive in a small town as the background jingle ‘holidays are coming’ reaches a crescendo.
The only human is an AI-generated Santa.
Essentially, a generic mix of all the aspects people love about heartwarming Christmas adverts: festive vibes plus cute animals.
Unfortunately, whatever hope Coca-Cola were hoping to imbue in its potential customers, it doesn’t seem to have worked.
‘This is how creativity dies. We’re in the darkest timeline, aren’t we?,’ YouTube user teddanson37 wrote.
‘You know the kind of ad that you remember? This isn’t one of those,’ thecasualcatastrophe slammed.
‘This is creative bankruptcy,’ illusionista added.
‘Remember when they paid real animators to make commercials with heart. Now it’s soulless AI,’ loupetron echoed.
‘Ugh! Here we go again with AI slops,’ coralhorse shared.
‘Makes Coke look like a cheap and struggling brand,’ nicholasdelucca said.
‘This AI slop is horrendous. I miss when commercials were actually made by people and had some artistic value to it,’ screaminggoblin905 complained.
This is not the first time Coca-Cola has tried an AI ad. It was also the strategy they used last year to similar feedback – although it looks as though they didn’t take the backlash on board.
In fact, it appears Coca-Cola has doubled down.
Pratik Thakar, global vice president and head of generative AI at Coca-Cola, said in a statement that last year the company ‘set a global milestone with the world’s first entirely GenAI-created film on broadcast media — a bold leap that broke new ground.’
He continued: ‘This year’s campaign is another proof point in our journey of emerging technology to rethink how we create and scale content.’
Perhaps anticipating the lukewarm reception it would receive, he added: ‘We’re committed to using AI as a human enabler, where it makes sense. Creative ambition, direction and thought leadership has and always will be human-led. AI is a superpower when it comes to execution and production, making what was previously impossible possible.’
The singers in the background are real as well.
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