Coca-Cola Christmas Holiday 2025 AI-Generated Ad Faces Backlash from Netizens

Coca-Cola is once again embracing generative AI to recreate its classic “Coke Caravan” holiday commercials — and, according to many viewers, draining some of the festive magic in the process. After receiving heavy criticism last year for its three AI-generated Christmas ads featuring eerie visuals and lifeless faces, the beverage giant has returned this year with another round of AI-powered holiday spots that are even more visually unsettling.

The new “Holidays Are Coming” campaign tries to avoid the awkwardness of AI-generated human figures by focusing instead on a cast of animated animals — including polar bears, a panda, and a sloth. However, the visuals have been described as inconsistent, switching between semi-realistic and cartoonish styles. The characters move stiffly, almost like 2D cutouts rather than smoothly animated 3D models.

While the animation quality appears to lag behind what advanced tools like OpenAI’s Sora 2 or Google’s Veo 3 can produce, there is at least one improvement: the wheels on Coca-Cola’s signature red trucks finally turn realistically this year, instead of gliding motionlessly over the snow.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Coca-Cola partnered again with Silverside and Secret Level — two AI studios that helped produce last year’s holiday campaign. The company didn’t disclose the cost of this year’s project but revealed that around 100 people were involved in production, including five AI specialists from Silverside who generated and refined over 70,000 AI video clips.

This push comes at a time when major brands are increasingly turning to AI for creative production. Google, for instance, released its first fully AI-generated commercial earlier this year, claiming that audiences don’t mind whether ads are made by humans or machines.

Despite facing criticism for past missteps — including an April campaign that featured a fabricated “book” by author J.G. Ballard — Coca-Cola appears determined to stick with AI. The company’s Chief Marketing Officer, Manolo Arroyo, told The Wall Street Journal that the new campaign was “cheaper and faster” to produce than traditional methods.

“Before, when we were doing the shooting and all the standard processes for a project, we would start a year in advance,” Arroyo said. “Now, you can get it done in around a month.”

As AI continues to reshape the creative industry, Coca-Cola’s latest experiment underscores the growing tension between technological innovation and the human touch that makes holiday storytelling feel truly warm and real.