Coca-Cola's AI-Driven Holiday Campaign Courts Controversy

A remake of 'Holidays Are Coming' garners very mixed reviews

Apple might not have made the most divisive ad of the year after all.

Fo many, Coca-Cola’s AI-generated seasonal spots have fallen badly flat.

Feedback for “Holidays Are Coming,” a remake of an a 1995 commercial, has been, for the most part, harsh. Some label the ad “dystopian” and “hollow,” a tone-deaf 180-degree turn from the brand’s beloved Christmas promos of yore.

Here’s the 2024 update crafted with Real Magic AI:

Pereira O’Dell’s Silverside AI helped develop the reboot, and POD creative chairman P.J. Pereira explained the approach in an interview with Adweek.

“When technology with the power of AI steps into the process, creativity becomes way more important than project management,” Pereira said. “For the last five years, I’ve been hearing creatives complain about doing more for less money, that things have become impossible. It’s not impossible anymore. AI allows us to take great ideas that would have died without the budgets and bring them to life, for multiple ideas to get made, to elevate the level of everything.”

Secret Level and The Wild Card also contributed to the holiday campaign.

The campaign’s getting lots of media play—but surely not as Coke envisioned.

The Today Show ran a segment this morning about the brand taking “the real people and the cheer out of the holidays.” An AdAge piece gauged consumer and creative feedback, with opinions decidedly mixed.

Here’s a slightly different version of the ad: