Coca-Cola’s AI-made ‘Holidays Are Coming’ ad stirs controversy—again

Coca-Cola has marked the arrival of the holiday season with its simply named Holidays Are Coming ad campaign. Since the ad is being dubbed as Coca-Cola’s “commitment to inspiring human connection and uplifting moments, especially during the holiday season,” the irony of the ad being generated by AI instead of human animators is not lost on the audience. 

The 2025 ad:

This is Coke’s second attempt at using generative AI to create a Christmas special ad; last year, the soft-drink giant had created the first version of its AI-generated Christmas ad, also titled Holidays Are Coming.  The brand has worked with California-based AI firms called Silverside AI and Secret Level on the refreshed “Holidays Are Coming” ads.

The 2024 ad:

While not as uncanny and obviously AI-generated as the first ad, its “refreshed” 2025 version has also hurt audience sensibilities for the lack of human touch. Viewers are especially irked because Coca-Cola’s holiday ads have deep-rooted significance in defining many Christmas staples.

Santa Claus came to town dressed in green instead of red until Coca-Cola commissioned artist Haddon Sundblom to create their annual Christmas ads. Sundblom drew a warm, friendly, and consistently red-suited Santa to match the brand’s colour theme, which, due to Coca-Cola's massive global advertising reach, became the undisputed image of Santa Claus across the world.

Another harbinger of Christmas in the West is the sighting of the iconic Coca-Cola Christmas Trucks, also dubbed as mobile holiday icons. Seeing the trucks means Christmas is truly beginning, fostering a sense of ritual and nostalgia in many. 

The original 1995 ad:

The latter Christmas staple stemmed from the original Holidays Are Coming ad campaign by Coca-Cola in 1995. When Coke’s first Holidays Are Coming ad found immense popularity with consumers, the brand commissioned real-life trucks designed just like the ones in the commercial and started parading them on snowy streets, marking the arrival of the holiday season. 

All annual Holidays Are Coming ad campaigns since 1995 build on the original ad, generating a lot of festive cheer for the beverage brand.

However, last year’s ad and the controversial use of AI in its making did not sit well with the audiences and artists alike. While the audience was quick to react to the uncanny valley nature of the ad with inaccuracies like truck tyres gliding instead of spinning, some artists took to social media to express their resentment. 

Alex Hirsch, an American animator best known as the creator of the popular Disney animated series Gravity Falls, famously proclaimed on X (formerly Twitter) that "@CocaCola is 'red' because it's made from the blood of out-of-work artists! #HolidayFactz."

Instead of going easy with the use of AI in this year’s campaign, Coca-Cola revamped last year’s ad with the help of more AI. The brand did, however, claim that a team of five experts assisted AI through the refinement. Coke even launched a behind-the-scenes video to back its claim.

“Combining human creativity with AI to turbo-charge expression and imagination, giving creatives more freedom, speed and control than ever before,” was the message of the video.

Social media users still widely condemned the AI ad with scathing remarks, focusing on both the poor quality and the perceived corporate greed. Common criticisms included the ad being a “sloppy eyesore”, “soulless”, and something that “unarguably looks like $hit”. 

Many users condemned the company's decision as a moral failure, stating, “The spirit of Christmas is giving & gathering, and you’re bragging about how many people you didn’t gather & give to”, and calling it “disgusting” for a multi-billion dollar company not to “pay REAL animators.”