--- title: "Coke’s AI Commercial for the Holidays Has Us Wondering If We Live In a Fallen World" description: "Chilly Reception Coke is cashing in on your nostalgia by remaking one of its most well known commercials with all new tech: generative AI. 'Tis the season indeed. The Coca Cola company's recently unveiled ad for the holidays is a maudlin callback to its 1995 ad \"Holidays Are Coming,\" which, for many, has been a […]" date: "2024-11-16" modified: "2024-11-16" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/coke-hideous-ai-commercial" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai video" - "generative ai" - "the digest" --- # Coke’s AI Commercial for the Holidays Has Us Wondering If We Live In a Fallen World ![Coke is cashing in on your nostalgia by remaking one of its best-known commercials with all new tech: generative AI.]() *\Image: Coca-Cola via YouTube\* ## Chilly Reception Coke is cashing in on your nostalgia by remaking one of its best-known commercials with all new tech: generative AI. 'Tis the season indeed. The Coca-Cola Company's recently unveiled ad for the holidays is a twee callback to its 1995 ad "[Holidays Are Coming]()," which for many has been a staple of this time of year ever since it first aired. We don't recommend having emotional attachments to marketing ploys, but defiling the nearly thirty-year-old original with AI has upset many among the Coke-ad fandom. "Why would you replace such a memorable ad with AI slop???" [tweeted]() one user on X. "Crazy that this is the company that literally made Santa red because of how iconic their adverts were, now they're just making slop," [wrote]() another. ## Jingle Hells This is the company's first fully AI-generated ad. The version of the commercial that Coke first shared — and is receiving all the negative attention — is only fifteen seconds long, but is instantly recognizable through its AI-generated recreation of the shots of Coca-Cola trucks driving across snowy landscapes, along with the re-used song. A full-length version [was revealed]() in the trade public *Adweek* on Friday. Both look *very* AI-generated. Faces are uncanny, shots are noticeably short, and everything looks like an even kitschier version of a Thomas Kinkade painting put through a cheap HDR filter. In short, it's ugly, and about everything [we've come to expect]() from video-generating AI models. https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1857502106074099717 ## Go Broke Coke ads are a big deal, a cultural status that Coca-Cola spends [billions of dollars]() a year to maintain. As such, you might take it as a bad sign that one of the world's biggest advertisers is snubbing human creatives in favor of AI. According to Coca-Cola's European chief marketing officer Javier Meza, one of the reasons it used a machine learning model was because it was "efficient," saving both time and money. But he also tried to spin using the tech as some artistic choice to bring the classic ad in tune with "today's times." "We didn't start by saying: 'OK, we need to do this with AI,'" Meza [told *Marketing Week*](). "The brief was, we want to bring Holidays Are Coming into the present and then we explored AI as a solution to that." If Coke's endgame was to get rage engagement, it worked. But as for fostering holiday spirit and good cheer, some might start turning to another soda for that. **More on AI media:** *[Radio Station's Attempt to Replace Hosts With AI Ends in Absolute Disaster]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()