Always the Real Thing? Coca-Cola AI-Generates Classic Christmas Ad

The Coca-Cola Company’s festive favourite, ‘Holidays Are Coming’, has signalled the beginning of the Christmas season in several countries since 1995. For the first time, the brand is giving the classic ad a break in favour of an AI-generated reinterpretation.

Human creativity and artificial intelligence come together for the latest version of the commercial, which sees a new crowd of more diverse smiling faces welcome the procession of twinkling Coca-Cola trucks. It’s risky business going for the close up when a bottle trades hands – but fear not, all five fingers make the cut.

It’s a bold move that has certainly split crowds within the industry; but according to System1, consumers love it. The 15” edit for Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, as well as the full version, scored tops marks with 5.9 stars – the category average for Soft Drinks & Water is just 3.0 – predicting long-term market share growth. However, System1 SVP Andrew Tindall confirmed on LinkedIn that test audiences were not informed that this ad had been AI generated, so it's hard to get a read on what this means in terms of general audiences' acceptance of gen AI content. The campaign’s consistency over the years has paid off, with the film also scoring 98% on brand recognition. Overall, the cutdown made it to 2nd place out of 438 ads in its category, beaten only by… the original version of itself.

Andrew elaborated, "While industry opinions may vary, it’s clear Coca-Cola has kept enough familiar elements from the original – like the soundtrack, iconic assets and narrative – to ensure another strong performance this season. Consistency continues to compound creativity, AI-generated or not!”

A second full-length film has also been released. Crafted by Silverside AI, it shines a surreal spotlight on a series of animals, from puffins to polar bears, and spreads the Christmas cheer all the way from the North Pole to outer space.

In addition to ‘Holidays Are Coming’, Coca-Cola’s Christmas campaign features its annual Coca-Cola Christmas Truck Tour, in the UK supporting hunger and food waste charity FareShare; the ‘Create Real Magic’ digital AI experience, allowing users to speak to Santa and create a personalised and shareable virtual snow globe animation; and the return of its 'The World Needs More Santas' advert, set to a cover of 'Anyone Can Be Santa' by British singer-songwriter Celeste.

So, can ‘Real Magic’ be created by artificial intelligence? Watch and decide for yourself.