The sight of Coca-Cola’s iconic red truck on our screens means that the festive season is nearly upon us, and it’s a very exciting time.

For decades now, their annual Christmas advert has been a beloved and nostalgic tradition, but this feeling has started to change over the last few years.

This year, the company has once again turned to generative-AI to create their festive advert, and people are not happy about it.

A beloved tradition

Coca-Cola has been closely linked with Christmas and Santa Claus since the 1920s, but it was the “Holidays Are Coming” campaign that really took off for them.

First aired in 1995, the advert introduced the world to the now famous illuminated red Coca-Cola truck, and every advert since has shared a similar theme of coming together at Christmas (over a Coke) and the truck travelling through snowy landscapes.

This red truck has become so popular that real life Christmas Truck Tours are held across the country, where fans can line up to see the iconic truck for themselves and enjoy a free Coke – which is a great bit of marketing.

For many people, it’s more than just another festive advert from Coca-Cola – it’s linked to a nostalgic memory and signals the start of Christmas.

The 2025 version (and the backlash)

Problems started to show last year when Coca-Cola decided to use generative-AI to produce the content of the advert, and they have decided to do the same with 2025’s version.

The advert itself features anthropomorphic animals reacting to the illuminated Coca-Cola trucks as they pass through towns and forests, with Santa making an appearance enjoying a Coke. The concept sounds cute, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

Both critics and fans alike have branded the advert as “soulless”, “impersonal”, and even “creepy”. Watching the video, it’s clear that the way the animals move in the video does look off, and it’s easy to see why people feel no attachment to this year’s ad.

But more than just the content of the video, people are not happy with a multi-billion dollar company cutting corners with generative AI instead of paying talented artists.

Coca-Cola’s response and doubling down

In the face of all of this criticism, Coca-Cola have stuck to their guns and haven’t backed down.

Their Global VP and Head of Generative AI, Pratik Thakar, has publicly defended their approach to creating this advert, with several pointed comments in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter:

“Last year people criticized the craftsmanship. But this year the craftsmanship is ten times better. There will be people who criticize - we cannot keep everyone 100 percent happy. But if the majority of consumers see it in a positive way it’s worth going forward.”

An interesting point for him to make at the end there, as many people expressed disdain at the extensive use of gen-AI in 2024’s advert, but they decided to go back to the AI well with this year’s effort.

Why it feels wrong

Despite their best efforts to justify this decision, there are many people who find it wrong for Coca-Cola to use generative-AI to create the ad – and they are justified in thinking so.

As we mentioned earlier, this advert holds a lot of nostalgia for people, and many have grown up with hand-crafted ads featuring real actors or traditional animation. Shifting to using AI feels like a betrayal in a lot of ways.

“The craftsmanship is ten times better” is a bold statement to make by Thakar, as generative-AI models are trained on massive amounts of data that has been scraped from the internet.

This data includes images and videos created by real artists, who continue to have their original works plagiarised and regurgitated as people enter their prompts. This means that the “craftsmanship” mentioned is built off stealing other people’s work.

This goes nicely with the next point that companies that are as established and profitable as Coca-Cola have no reason to be cutting costs and bypassing real artists in favour of AI.

By choosing AI instead of hiring creative professionals to work on your biggest campaign of the year, you are clearly telling everyone that you prioritise costs over creative ambition.

One comment on social media said “It’s not pushing the envelope, it’s greed”, and it’s hard to disagree with that.

AI’s place in marketing

This isn’t the first instance of big companies using AI in their marketing, and it certainly won’t be the last.

AI models such as ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini have taken the world by storm in the last few years, and have made it easier than ever for anyone to create content.

If given the opportunity to get similar results with less people involved (aka less cost), large companies are unfortunately always going to choose that. But that is why criticism and feedback are more important than ever.

We believe that AI should be utilised as a tool, not an entire creative force. It can be a fantastic research tool, and it’s great for helping map things out and brainstorm.

But many are already spotting the signs of AI in creative works, and content created by real people, for real people is only going to get more valuable.

There is a line of dialogue in 1993’s Jurassic Park that feels like it could be applied to today’s situation:

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

But what are your thoughts? Have Coca-Cola gone too far? Or is this just the new norm? We’d love to hear your thoughts about it. Let us know by messaging us on our social media profiles @goodcallagency.