Artificial intelligence is coming to town this holiday season — and soda lovers aren’t feeling festive about it.
Coca-Cola is receiving backlash online after creating an AI-generated Christmas advert that has been slammed as a “horrific dystopian nightmare”.
Paying homage to Coca-Cola’s 1995 “Holidays Are Coming” campaign, the new 15-second ad depicts a fleet of red cherry trucks driving down a snowy road to deliver cold bottles of cola to customers in a festively decorated city.
The video has a disclaimer in small print, “created by Real Magic AI,” referring to Coca-Cola’s AI software.
While the campaign offers a snapshot of what the future of advertising might look like, many consumers weren’t feeling the holiday spirit, slamming the beverage brand’s clip as “rubbish,” “ugly” and “lazy.”
“The world has ended if Coca-Cola’s Christmas advert is made with AI,” wrote one user on X, via The Independent.
“Sad to see this was done with a program created by AI,” added another in the YouTube comments.
“I just saw an AI generated Coca Cola ad on TV… how are we really letting this happen?” asked user X, via the Daily Mail.
“I feel like I’m watching the death of art and our planet unfold before my eyes and no one IRL seems to care.”
But Jason Zada, founder of AI studio Secret Level, one of three Coca-Cola partnered with on the project, argued that there is still a human component that creates the “warmth” in the clip.
Zada told AdAge that harnessing generative AI for something as complex as an ad isn’t as easy as just pushing a button, and Pratik Thakar, Coca-Cola’s vice president and global head of generative AI, explained that the company is connecting ” her “heritage”. with “the future and technology” with the next generation campaign.
Using technology, he argued, saves money — and, not to mention, time.
“More than the cost, it’s the speed,” Thakar told the media. “The speed is I’d say five times, right? And this is a huge benefit. The production time would, traditionally, have taken much longer. So that’s a huge benefit.”
“And then you can do more, more variety, and more personalized and more personalized,” he continued. “And that’s the way to go, with resources, rather than doing less and spending less.”
However, some Coca-Cola fans still felt left out of the party, saying the video lacked emotion.
The Post has reached out to Coca-Cola for further comment.
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