Coca-Cola's AI holiday advert backlash
Coca-Cola used generative AI to recreate its iconic Christmas advertising, triggering criticism over visual quality, authenticity, and whether AI was appropriate for a campaign built around nostalgia and emotional connection.
In 2024, Coca-Cola released new versions of its famous Holidays Are Coming Christmas advertisement created with generative AI. The campaign revisited the familiar image of illuminated Coca-Cola trucks traveling through snowy landscapes, but this time much of the imagery was produced using AI.
Coca-Cola worked with several production studios and generative AI tools to produce different versions of the advertisement. Human creative teams remained involved in selecting, refining, and assembling the generated material. The company presented the campaign as a way of combining its established holiday heritage with new creative technology.
The advertisements nevertheless attracted substantial criticism online. Viewers pointed to unusual movements, inconsistent details, and imagery that some described as artificial or unsettling. Critics also questioned why a brand whose Christmas advertising relies heavily on warmth, nostalgia, and human connection had chosen generative AI for such an iconic campaign.
What went wrong
The issue was not simply that some AI-generated images contained visual imperfections. The campaign exposed a potential mismatch between the capabilities offered by the technology and the emotional purpose of the advertising.
Generative AI can make it easier to produce many creative variations and can potentially reduce production time and costs. But these benefits do not automatically translate into a better advertising experience. In this case, audiences were comparing the new advertisements with decades of familiar Coca-Cola Christmas imagery. The way the advertisement was produced therefore became part of how the campaign itself was judged.
This use case sends an important message to marketing specialists: evaluating generative AI should involve more than asking whether the technology can successfully produce an advertisement. Teams also need to consider whether its use is appropriate for the brand, audience, and emotional function of the campaign.
Governance questions
- Does your organisation assess whether generative AI is appropriate for a particular brand asset or campaign, rather than reviewing only the technical quality of the final content?
- When campaigns rely heavily on nostalgia, authenticity, or human connection, how does your organisation test whether AI-generated creative changes the audience's emotional response?
- What level of human creative review and audience testing should be required before AI-generated material involving important or iconic brand assets is released?
Learning outcomes
After discussing this case, participants should be able to:
- Explain why the suitability of generative AI depends on the context and purpose of a marketing activity.
- Distinguish between production efficiency and creative or brand effectiveness.
- Identify reputational and brand-authenticity risks associated with AI-generated advertising.
- Explain why emotionally significant or iconic brand assets may require additional human oversight and audience testing.
- Assess whether the potential benefits of generative AI justify its use in a particular creative campaign.
Discussion questions
- Was the main problem the quality of the AI-generated imagery, or the decision to use generative AI for this particular type of campaign?
- Would the same use of generative AI have created less risk if Coca-Cola had used it for a new campaign without strong nostalgic associations?
- What evidence should a marketing team collect before using generative AI to reinterpret an iconic or emotionally significant brand asset?