Coca-Cola sparks outrage over AI-generated Christmas ad, many creators say using AI is unpleasant



Every year, Coca-Cola releases a holiday season commercial at the end of the year to announce the arrival of Christmas. The holiday season commercial released in November 2024 was based on a video generated by generative AI, but it has received a lot of backlash on social media.

Remember the iconic Coca-Cola ad from the 90s with the long caravan of illuminated Coca-Cola trucks? What if we brought it back, using Artificial Intelligence? Actually… what if we made it… bigger?

https://www.silverside.ai/projects/1

Coca-Cola's first AI TV commercials for holidays, Christmas | Ad Age
https://adage.com/article/digital-marketing-ad-tech-news/coca-colas-first-ai-tv-commercials-holidays-christmas/2591886

Coca-Cola turns to AI for its Christmas ad in 2025 — sparking mixed reactions | Tom's Guide
https://www.tomsguide.com/ai/ai-image-video/coca-cola-turns-to-ai-for-its-christmas-ad-in-2025-sparking-mixed-reactions

Coca-Cola causes controversy with AI-made ad
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/coca-cola-causes-controversy-ai-made-ad-rcna180665

Coca-Cola Facing Intense Backlash for AI Christmas Ad
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2024/11/19/coca-cola-facing-intense-backlash-for-ai-christmas-ad/

Coca-Cola has released several holiday commercials this year, and you can watch one of them below.

The Holiday Magic is coming. - YouTube


This holiday season commercial was created by three AI studios, Secret Level, Silverside AI, and Wild Card, using AIs Leonardo , Luma , Runway , and Kling , as a homage to the 1995 holiday season commercial ' Holidays are coming .' Using traditional methods, it would take about a year to produce a commercial, but by using AI, it took about two months.

According to Jason Zeida, founder of Secret Level, not only the video, but also the text, images, and audio are all created using generative AI, and in particular, Kling, which was announced during the production of the commercial, helped make human movements look more realistic. Zeida said that the evolution of AI is progressing day by day, and the bugs and instabilities of past models have been eliminated, but it is still not perfect.

This is not the first time Coca-Cola has used AI in its commercials. In March 2023, the company partnered with OpenAI to release a video titled 'Masterpiece' that combined GPT-4 and DALL-E. Coca-Cola revealed that it partners with artists to create art works using AI technology and has a global head of generative AI within the company.

Coca-Cola® Masterpiece - YouTube


A Coca-Cola spokesperson said in a statement, 'Coca-Cola has a long history of capturing the magic of the holiday season through content, film, events and retail promotions around the world for decades. We're always looking for new ways to connect with our consumers and trying different approaches. This year, we combined the power of human storytellers with generative AI to create filmmaking. Coca-Cola remains dedicated to creating the best possible experience at the intersection of human creativity and technology.'

However, Coca-Cola's holiday commercial has been met with criticism for being made with generative AI. TechRadar , an IT news site, called it a 'soulless, creepy, dystopian nightmare created by AI.' In addition, on X (formerly Twitter), many critical comments about Coca-Cola's holiday commercial have been posted, mainly by creators.

'I want all my artwork to be human-made. AI art is just a repetition of what humans have already made. There's no originality or soul in it.'



'The Coca-Cola logo requires extensive post-production to appear accurately in every frame, and to conceal the significant amount of post-production required by our animators is misleading and extremely dishonest.'



'It's a great example of how AI can't generate new ideas, it can only combine things that have been created before. Yes, I think this is a classic example of a poor imitation of a Coca-Cola Christmas ad.'



'This is the most soulless Christmas advert I've ever seen. My God, this is probably almost the exact opposite of the old adverts. This is awful.'



'Looking back at 2024, it was the year of slop. It was the year all of culture was dominated by slop. Google became slop. Slop dominated journalism. Not just AI slop, but Concord slop, Borderlands slop. A sloppy CEO elected a sloppy president.'



Chris Barber, an engineer at Silverside AI who worked on the holiday commercial, suggested several Communication Notes in his post, but there were also many opposing opinions, such as 'AI 'art' is not art,' and 'Technically, AI cannot 'create' something it generates. AI is trained on a lot of human-created video and images, so what it generates is not made by AI.' In response to these, there were also suggestions such as 'Community Notes are not for writing philosophical opinions; just like robots make cars, AI makes art,' and 'Community Notes are not for insulting people for trivial reasons,' creating a very confusing situation.

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in Software,   Web Service,   Video,   Art, Posted by log1i_yk