Coca-Cola Used AI For Its New 2024 Holiday Ad

A few AI-generated videos of the iconic “Holidays Are Coming” from Coca-Cola are circulating on social media. The company collaborated with three studios—Secret Level, Silverside AI, and Wild Card—to produce three holiday commercial ads.

Here’s what Coca-Cola had to say about it:

“Coca-Cola’s exciting venture into AI-generated storytelling demonstrates Coca-Cola’s commitment to embracing innovation, leveraging our collaborations with top creative and technology partners, while staying true to its core values: spreading happiness and creating real magic!” — a Coca-Cola spokesman told AdWeek.

Companies are spending millions of dollars per year on professional product photography and video ad production.

However, AI can do this for 99% cheaper.

The videos have been shared thousands of times online, but the reception has been… mixed.

Many are outright trashing the ads.

You can watch the videos from here:

Video 1: “Unexpected Santa” from Wild Card Studios.

Video 2: “Secret Santa” from Secret Level Studios.

Video 3: “Silver Santa” from Silverside AI Studios.

I get it. I really do.

A lot of people are trashing these ads online. And honestly, I can’t blame them.

But here’s the thing—if you understand how hard it is to make videos with AI, these videos aren’t that bad. Decent, even.

I bet the creators burned thousands of video credits and pulled their hair out tweaking prompts, fixing wonky physics, and making sure characters didn’t look... cursed.

Making a good AI-generated video is not just “click a button and you’re done.” It actually takes a damn lot of trial and error.

The problem is, most people don’t care. They’re not thinking about how many hours went into keyframing or how hard it is to get an AI-generated reindeer to walk like a real one.

People care about the final result. Period.

And that’s where Coca-Cola kind of dropped the ball.

How The Holiday Ad Videos Were Created

PJ Pereira, the co-founder and creative chairman of the ad agency Pereira O’Dell, as well as a co-founder at Silverside AI, shared insights with Adweek about the ambitious process behind Coca-Cola’s 2024 holiday ads.

According to Pereira, the team managed to create 110 different versions of the ads in just a few days.

They used AI tools like Stable Diffusion, Pactto, OpenAI’s Dall-E, ChatGPT, and their own in-house tool, Director Magic. Pereira described the process as nothing short of “revolutionary,” comparing it more to “software development” than traditional ad production.

If you’re gonna ask me, tools like Stable Diffusion and Dall-E aren’t the best tools out there.

Here’s an example:

Prompt: An image of three red trucks with signage “Coca-Cola” driving on a snowy highway. There are lots of Christmas lights on the highway and there are also lights around the truck

As you can see, the image looks too synthetic and didn’t really follow my instructions. In the next section, I’m going to show you a better image model to generate better-looking images.

How AI Videos Are Created

In case you are reading this and don’t know how these AI videos are created, let me show you an example.

First, generate an image of your scene.

Head over to Flux Labs' image generator tool and start creating the image by simply describing the scene.

For example, if you wanted to recreate the scene where red trucks are passing by the highway, you can use the prompt below:

Prompt: An image of three red trucks with signage “Coca-Cola” driving on a snowy highway. There are lots of Christmas lights on the highway and there are also lights around the truck

The tool will generate an ultra-high-resolution image of that scene. Download it to your local disk.

Next, head over to Runway’s Gen-3 video generator tool and upload the image of the trucks. Optionally, you can add this description to guide the AI on what the scene is all about.

Prompt: An video of three red trucks with signage “Coca-Cola” driving on a snowy highway. There are lots of Christmas lights on the highway and there are also lights around the truck

The video generation process only takes about 30 seconds to complete with the Gen-3 Alpha Turbo video model.

I know it’s not realistic. Many of the wheels aren’t even turning, and they leave no track on the snowy highway. It would probably take me a few more attempts to get the physics to look right by tweaking the prompt or adding an endframe to Runway.

Final Thoughts

I’m 31 now, but I grew up with those old Coca-Cola Christmas ads. The truck with the lights. The music. The feeling.

Every time I saw them, it was like a warm hug. Nostalgic and magical.

So when I saw these AI versions, somehow I felt disappointed. It’s Coca-Cola. They have the budget. They have the talent. They’ve made some of the most unforgettable holiday ads ever. And yet… this is what they gave us?

I’m not saying AI can’t create something amazing. It can. I’ve talked about AI video generators in my previous articles, and I’ve expressed my amazement over tools that really deliver.

But these ads? They’re just fine. And “fine” doesn’t cut it when you’re as big as Coca-Cola.

They tried something new, and I respect that. AI in ads is interesting and, honestly, the future. But with a brand that’s known for creating magic, you can’t half-step it. These ads feel like they missed the heart, the charm—the soul.

Maybe next year, Coca-Cola. For now, I’ll stick with the classics.

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