The New Coca Cola of Marketing: Xmas Ads
December 4, 2024
Though Coca-Cola has long purported that “It’s the Real Thing,” a recent ad is all fake. NBC News reports, “Coca-Cola Causes Controversy with AI-Made Ad.” We learn:
“Coca-Cola is facing backlash online over an artificial intelligence-made Christmas promotional video that users are calling ‘soulless’ and ‘devoid of any actual creativity.’ The AI-made video features everything from big red Coca-Cola trucks driving through snowy streets to people smiling in scarves and knitted hats holding Coca-Cola bottles. The video was meant to pay homage to the company’s 1995 commercial ‘Holidays Are Coming,’ which featured similar imagery, but with human actors and real trucks.”
The company’s last ad generated with AI, released earlier this year, did not face similar backlash. Is that because, as University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Neeraj Arora suggests, Coke’s Christmas ads are somehow sacrosanct? Or is it because March’s Masterpiece is actually original, clever, and well executed? Or because the artworks copied in that ad are treated with respect and, for some, clearly labeled? Whatever the reason, the riff on Coca-Cola’s own classic 1995 ad missed the mark.
Perhaps it was just too soon. It may be a matter of when, not if, the public comes to accept AI-generated advertising as the norm. One thing is certain: Coca Cola knows how to make sure marketing professors teach memorable case examples of corporate “let’s get hip” thinking.
Cynthia Murrell, December 4, 2024
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