Every year, Coca-Cola’s Christmas advertising is a centerpiece of the holiday season, evoking nostalgia and warmth through visuals of snowy scenes, red trucks, and smiling families. In 2025, the beverage giant took a controversial leap, partnering with AI studios Silverside and Secret Level to create an entirely AI-generated Holidays Are Coming ad, populated with animated animals and surreal winter magic. Instead of celebration, the campaign quickly sparked a backlash and ignited debate over creativity, authenticity, and the future of advertising.
What’s Different: AI-Generated Storytelling Takes Center Stage
Rather than featuring actors, classic Santa images, or the famed Coca-Cola caravan, the 2025 holiday spot relied exclusively on generative AI, resulting in a sloppily animated, deeply unnatural cast of anthropomorphic animals gathering around a truck driven by a partially obscured Santa, who seems to have gotten lost in the uncanny valley. AI was used to generate over 70,000 video clips in just 30 days, shrinking traditional production timelines and budgets.
Coca-Cola’s global CMO, Manolo Arroyo, confirmed the tech-led strategy: AI production was faster and cheaper, reducing the timeline from a year to just a month. But the creative shortcut came at a reputational cost. Holiday ads aren’t just about visuals. They carry emotional weight and cultural memory.
Critique from Creatives and Labor Advocates
Artists, animators, and industry insiders united in their concern, arguing that AI-driven campaigns devalue both creative labor and the tradition of holiday storytelling. Many pointed out that the animated animals and snowy scenes drew from human artists’ work—often without permission or compensation. There were concerns about environmental impact, missed opportunities for jobs, and a broader dilution of what makes holiday marketing memorable.
Coca-Cola’s Response: Doubling Down on AI, Defending Innovation
Despite two consecutive years of criticism—first in 2024, then in 2025—Coca-Cola’s leadership stood by its commitment to AI-driven creativity. Pratik Thakar, Head of Generative AI at Coca-Cola, told The Hollywood Reporter that the company needs to keep moving forward and pushing the envelope. The genie is out of the bottle, and you’re not going to put it back in. The company released a behind-the-scenes video narrating the joy of having a tiny team iterate thousands of AI clips, although observers found the voiceover as unsettling as the campaign itself.
A spokesperson added to the controversy, stating that Coca-Cola’s exciting venture into AI-generated storytelling demonstrates a commitment to embracing innovation, leveraging collaborations with top creative and technology partners, while staying true to its core values: spreading happiness and creating real magic!.
Audience Reaction: “Less Festive, More Eerie”
On TikTok and Twitter, viewers expressed a range of responses, including those beyond simple boredom. Coca-Cola’s use of AI in an advertisement is genuinely unsettling. Art is fading away. A recent review by CNET argued that this warm, festive ad touches nearly every hot-button issue surrounding AI, which explains why it’s generating such intense reactions at the moment.
Lessons for Brands: Transparency, Timing, and Authenticity
Industry strategists say the blowback offers powerful insights for marketers:
- Nostalgia matters: When a brand’s magic lies in emotional connections, cost-saving shortcuts risk alienating audiences.
- Transparency vs. celebration: Coca-Cola celebrated its use of AI, even in the making-of, but there’s a difference between disclosure and celebration. With anxiety over job loss and digital manipulation on the rise, promoting AI at the expense of human creativity may be a step too far.
- Audience sensitivity: The era of blanket holiday marketing is gone—viewers are savvy about both visual authenticity and creative process.
As critics, fans, and competitors weigh in, the message is clear: brands must balance technological experimentation with the deep emotional resonance their audiences crave.
