Coca-Cola’s AI Ad Flop: A Masterclass in Brand Misalignment and the Fragile Future of Creativity

Imagine, if you will, a Christmas future gone wrong — a scenario that, even in March 2025, holds critical lessons for the present.

Last December, Coca-Cola released a promotional video generated entirely by artificial intelligence to celebrate the holiday season. The video, designed as a modern homage to its classic 1995 commercial “Holidays Are Coming,” featured familiar festive imagery: big red trucks, snow-covered streets, beaming families bundled in scarves, and — of course — ice-cold bottles of Coke.

But instead of warming hearts, the video lit a match under a powder keg of backlash. It was labeled “soulless,” “devoid of creativity,” and a slap in the face to working artists. For a brand that practically owns Christmas marketing, the misfire struck a deeper cultural nerve — one that brands experimenting with generative AI can’t afford to ignore.

If you want to witness Santa deepfake his way through the holidays and Coca-Cola’s AI ad suck the soul out of Christmas, you can watch it here: The Holiday Magic is coming.

What Happened?

Coca-Cola’s AI holiday ad was created through a collaboration between three AI studios — Secret Level, Silverside AI, and Wild Card — each using different generative AI models.

The concept was meant to honor Coca-Cola’s 1995 “Holidays Are Coming” spot, which relied on real actors, trucks, and old-school production. The AI version mimicked those motifs — but with synthetic, uncanny representations, especially with the people shown in the commercial.

What the original inspired in nostalgia and warmth, so much that it has stood the test of time, the new video replaced that iconic joy with a sense of algorithmic emptiness.

The Backlash: Artists vs. Algorithms

Critics — especially from the creative community — didn’t hold back.

Alex Hirsch, the creator and mind behind Gravity Falls, didn’t hold back and dropped a truth bomb on X (formerly Twitter):

“FUN FACT: @CocaCola is ‘red’ because it’s made from the blood of out-of-work artists! #HolidayFactz”

This wasn’t just about AI. It was about being erased — a billion-dollar brand opting for algorithm over artistry. Choosing bots over people. The machine over the maker. Skynet over Sarah Connor!

Timing, Tradition, and Emotional Mismatch

Neeraj Arora, chair of marketing research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, nailed it:

“The holidays are a time of connection… But then you throw AI into the mix that is not a fit.”

Christmas isn’t just a season — it’s a ritual. Coca-Cola has spent decades weaving itself into that emotional tradition. People feel something when they see those red trucks and polar bears.

But when AI tries to replicate that emotion, the magic falls flat.

Brands can’t simply copy and paste sentiment using machine learning. The attempt comes off as hollow — like a store-bought card with blank emotion.

The Broader Creative Crisis

Coca-Cola’s ad isn’t a one-off blunder. It’s a flashpoint in a growing tension between brands adopting generative AI and the creative professionals who feel they’re being replaced — often by technology trained on their own work.

AI models like Soros, Midjourney, DALL·E, and Stable Diffusion were trained on massive datasets scraped from the internet. That includes artwork, designs, writing, and photography from millions of creators — most of whom weren’t asked or paid.

As these tools become more powerful, corporations are seeing dollar signs: faster production, lower costs, and infinite scalability.

But what’s lost in the shuffle?

Human originality
Emotional resonance
And ironically… the very thing that we believe builds brand equity over time: a soul

What Coca-Cola Got Wrong

Coca-Cola’s holiday ad committed three major missteps:

It failed to read the emotional room.
Holidays are sacred — the wrong time to experiment with synthetic sentiment.
It broke a brand promise.
Coca-Cola spent decades anchoring its identity in warmth, nostalgia, and shared human experience.
It undervalued real creativity.
By replacing artists with AI — especially in a context so rooted in tradition — the company alienated the very community it once uplifted.

This isn’t an anti-AI take. It’s a pro-context take. There’s a time and place for experimentation. The holidays aren’t it.

The Chemist Media Perspective

Brands can’t automate emotion. You can’t prompt your way to meaning. When machine learning tries to mimic human sentiment, it often lands like a deepfake hug — technically correct, emotionally vacant.

When companies get seduced by the siren call of generative AI and cost, they risk losing what made their brands memorable in the first place.

Emotion wins. Context matters. Trust is hard-earned but easily broken.

Coca-Cola’s AI holiday ad didn’t fail because AI is inherently bad.
It failed because the brand forgot who it was for a moment.

They reached for a shortcut in a moment that called for sincerity.

Let us be clear:
We use AI. We embrace AI.
But only as a tool to amplify human ingenuity — not to replace it.

Coca-Cola missed an opportunity to collaborate with creators and use AI as a canvas, not a crutch.

Imagine an ad where real artists reinterpreted the 1995 classic — with AI as their brush, not their replacement.
That’s the kind of innovation that respects the past while evolving toward the future.

At Chemist Media, we believe marketing should be:

Data-driven, but emotionally intelligent
Tech-forward, but rooted in humanity
Strategic, not gimmicky

Final Takeaway:

Coca-Cola got the formula wrong this time — but the reaction is a wake-up call for every brand.

If you want to win the future of advertising, don’t just automate. Elevate.

Want to avoid an AI-fueled brand faceplant? Let’s Talk

Chemist Media
Engineer Demand. Blend Science with Creativity. Build Brands that Matter.