'Real magic'? Coca-Cola's AI-generated Christmas ad sparks widespread backlash (again)

Coca-Cola’s annual Christmas advert is AI-generated this year. Again.

Last year, the company ignited the worst kind of festive furore by leaning into artificial intelligence for its Christmas campaign, with a trio of ads that were blasted as tacky eyesores that clashed with the more wholesome feeling of past commercials.

Clearly unfazed by the backlash, the brand has doubled down this year by releasing more AI ads, featuring gawping anthropomorphic animals gathering around a truck driven by a Santa who makes you want to reach for a three-cylindered flamethrower. To say nothing about an early shot of a fireplace without a chimney opening, which should make for a toasty tragedy for one soon-to-be charred family, and the fact that Coca-Cola have bafflingly failed to recognise the contradiction of its “real magic” tagline.

While the video generation models have made improvements compared to last year’s ads, the visuals are hardly compelling and deeply derivative, considering they are based on the works of artists, used without permission.

The company has also not taken into consideration that more people are moving away from the AI slop served up to them on a daily basis and that viewers are increasingly savvy when it comes to recognising a sense of authenticity.

The overwhelming backlash features recurring terms like “soulless”, “creepy” and “boycott”, with many taking offense at comments made by Pratik Thakar, head of generative AI at Coca-Cola, who defended the decision as a forward-looking experiment.

“We need to keep moving forward and pushing the envelope,” Thakar told The Hollywood Reporter. “The genie is out of the bottle and you’re not going to put it back in.”

This did not go down well.

To make matters worse, Coca-Cola is so chuffed with their monstrous slop that it has posted a strange behind-the-scenes video with what sounds like AI-generated voiceover. That or the two employees were held at gunpoint when they were told to marvel at the fact that “tiny team of five specialists” managed to “churn out and carefully refine” over 70,000 video clips in 30 days.

Check it out below:

This has reignited heated conversation around not hiring talented creatives for their work and privileging cost-cutting at the risk of destroying the value of human labour.

One user on X said: "you’re a multi-BILLION dollar company. pay REAL animators. this is disgusting."

Check out some more reactions below:

What do you think? Nostalgic for the adverts of yore or aligned with Coca-Cola in thinking this is the way forward?

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