Coca-Cola runs AI-generated Christmas ad for second year

Coca-Cola is running an AI generated Christmas ad for the second year in a row.

The brand’s latest ‘Holidays are coming’ ad – launched on Monday – features the caravan of red lorries as well as several animals, overjoyed at their passing. The ad is labelled on screen “Created with Real Magic AI”, and was created with several Large Language Models.

“This work is beyond just film creation – we all are taking a transformational leap into the future of creativity and technology,” said Pratik Thakar, global VP and head of generative AI at Coca-Cola.

Coca Cola worked with AI production company Secret Level on the work. Its founder and director, Jason Zada, said in a LinkedIn post the ad “left me speechless”.

“The quality of the animation. The emotion in the characters. The joy in every frame. The technology has evolved dramatically – but more importantly, so has the craft,” he said.

According to audience testing by System1, this year’s ad scores a maximum 5.9 star rating, ‘exceptional’ spike rating, and 97% in distinctiveness.

“I was surprised to see that they decided to do it again this year, given all the negativity,” said Andrew Tindall, senior vice president of global partnerships at System1. “People love it. Exactly the same as last year.”

Coca-Cola’s 2024 AI-made Christmas ad scored similarly, with a 5.9 star rating in System1 testing.

In a separate making-of video posted by the company, two AI-generated voices discuss the ad as if it was a segment on a podcast. They say it was created by five AI specialists who “managed to churn out and carefully refine over 70,000 video clips” in 30 days.

“That level of precision suggests the team had to go way beyond just simple prompting,” a voice states. “Shaping the animals, getting the texture right, those big sparkly eyes.”

Unlike last year, when “extensive post-production fixes were required” the voices state AI is “now enabling creators” and “what used to be patching at the end is now designing at the start”.

The ad “is actively shaping how storytelling is evolving”, one of the AI-generated voices states.

The latest ad has sparked – for the second year in a row – strong opinions on social media.

“Disappointing. Even worse than last year,” said Uncut Media Kenya founder Mendy Mariam on LinkedIn. “Tech can replicate visuals, but not feeling. This one feels strangely hollow. Awful.”

“I’m not particularly worried about generative AI taking all our jobs when used at this scale, because all this does is make brands look cheap to me,” said Nusa Studios video editor Sam Gavin.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Thakar said: “Last year people criticised the craftsmanship. But this year the craftsmanship is ten times better.”

“There will be people who criticise – we cannot keep everyone 100 percent happy. But if the majority of consumers see it in a positive way it’s worth going forward,” he added.