Coca-Cola’s 2025 holiday campaign did not replace every film with generative AI. The company launched three new films, including “A Holiday Memory” and two AI-driven reimaginings of the 1995 “Holidays Are Coming” commercial. Those AI films kept the familiar red trucks and winter setting, while adding stylized animals and a production process built around generative video tools.
That distinction matters because the debate is larger than whether one commercial looks convincing. Coca-Cola is testing how far AI can enter a heritage-heavy brand system without weakening the emotional cues people already associate with Christmas.
At a glance
- Coca-Cola returned to AI-driven holiday filmmaking in 2025 after criticism of its 2024 experiments. (People)
- The 2025 campaign used two AI-driven “Holidays Are Coming” films alongside another new holiday film, so AI was an important part of the campaign but not the whole campaign.
- Criticism focused on visual inconsistencies, synthetic motion, authenticity, and the effect of AI production on creative work.(Business Insider)
- Coca-Cola says AI helps teams create versions more quickly and scale content across audiences and geographies while keeping human creative direction in control. (Coca-Cola Company)
The path from 1995 to the 2025 AI campaign
The creative benchmark is Coca-Cola’s 1995 “Holidays Are Coming” truck commercial, which the company itself still treats as a core holiday asset. Coca-Cola’s public generative-AI experimentation accelerated in 2023 with Create Real Magic, a platform built through its Bain and OpenAI alliance using GPT-4 and DALL-E. (Coca-Cola Company)
In 2024, Coca-Cola moved from AI-powered consumer experiences into AI-driven holiday films. Its own campaign materials described three production houses using generative tools to reimagine “Holidays Are Coming,” alongside other holiday creative and digital experiences. (Coca-Cola Company 2024)
By 2025, Coca-Cola had narrowed the approach to two AI-driven reimaginings created with Secret Level and Silverside AI, while repeatedly stressing that direction, creative ambition, and music remained human-led.
What the 2025 AI films look like
The AI-driven films preserve the caravan, snow, red trucks, and holiday animals, but they avoid making realistic human faces the center of the execution. Reporting on the campaign noted the shift toward animated creatures after the uncanny faces and motion criticized in 2024. (The Hollywood Reporter)
The result is more stylized, but it still shows some of the temporal-consistency problems associated with generative video. Business Insider highlighted trucks changing form between frames, while The Verge described the newer version as technically improved in some details but still visually inconsistent.
Why the campaign remains controversial
The criticism falls into three different categories that should not be collapsed into one. First is production quality: viewers can notice continuity mistakes and unstable movement. Second is authenticity: Coca-Cola holiday advertising carries decades of nostalgia, so a visibly synthetic execution can feel different even when it repeats familiar assets. Third is labor and craft: generative video raises a broader industry question about what happens to directors, animators, VFX artists, and production crews when more of the image-generation work moves into AI systems.
Those concerns are especially important for audience research. A campaign can attract attention and still create a trust problem with part of the audience. Brands need to measure both.
Why Coca-Cola keeps using AI
The business case is clearer than the creative consensus. Coca-Cola says generative tools make it easier to produce multiple versions for different audiences and geographies, while keeping humans in charge of direction and decision-making. Company materials describe the work as AI-powered brand storytelling, not autonomous creative production. (Coca-Cola Company)
The Verge, citing The Wall Street Journal, reported that Coca-Cola’s chief marketing officer said the newer process was cheaper and faster than traditional production, with work completed in roughly a month rather than starting a year in advance. That is a reported production advantage, not proof that AI improves the campaign itself.
For a global beverage brand, the appeal also relates to beverage branding at scale: the company wants recognizable assets to remain consistent while versions change across markets.
How the 2025 AI films were made
Reporting on the production describes a hybrid workflow rather than a one-prompt commercial. Around 100 people were involved, including five AI specialists who generated and refined more than 70,000 clips. Editors and other human creatives then selected, assembled, corrected, and finished the material. (Business Insider)
That scale explains why campaign graphic design and post-production judgment still matter. Generating more options does not remove the need to decide which frame, motion, composition, and brand cue actually belong in the final film.
Backlash is not the same as failure
The campaign illustrates why attention and effectiveness need separate measures. Business Insider reported that System1 gave the 2025 ad a strong emotional-response score while DAIVID found a small trust deficit. That combination is more useful than assuming negative discussion automatically creates brand value or that backlash automatically means the work failed.
This is also where brand strategy matters. Coca-Cola is balancing two goals that can conflict: protecting deeply familiar holiday memory structures while proving that its marketing organization can use emerging production technology at global scale.
The previously published version of this article attributed an unsourced quote to Arman Tale. A search for that wording only surfaced this article itself, so the quote has been removed rather than repeated without verifiable provenance.
What changed from 2024 to 2025
The clearest change is creative direction. The 2025 AI films lean more heavily on stylized animals and fantasy rather than realistic people. The trucks also receive more consistent treatment than in the 2024 films, although critics still point to shape changes and uneven motion. (The Wall Street Journal).
The larger shift is process maturity. Coca-Cola is not presenting AI as a one-off stunt anymore. It is incorporating AI into a broader marketing and design infrastructure, while the consumer-facing work is still being judged by ordinary standards of craft, warmth, and continuity.
What marketers can learn from Coca-Cola’s AI ads
Start with the story and the brand assets before choosing the production technology. Generative tools can expand options, but they also create more material that needs human judgment. For a heritage brand, visual identity consistency matters because small errors in familiar assets are easier for audiences to notice.
The second lesson is to build a world that can survive format changes. Coca-Cola keeps returning to trucks, snow, Santa, animals, red, and holiday generosity. Brand Vision’s guide to brand world-building explains why recurring codes can make experimentation safer when the audience still recognizes the underlying system. (Business Insider)
FAQ
Why did the Coca-Cola AI ads receive backlash?
Critics pointed to visible continuity problems, synthetic motion, questions about authenticity, and concerns about the effect of generative tools on creative jobs.
Did Coca-Cola avoid realistic human characters on purpose?
The 2025 AI films place stylized animals at the center, which reporting described as a way to reduce the uncanny-human problems seen in the previous campaign.
Why does Coca-Cola keep using generative AI?
The company emphasizes faster production, scalable versions, and human-led control. Independent reporting also describes meaningful time and cost savings compared with traditional production.
Was the 2025 campaign a clear creative breakthrough?
No. Some technical details improved and one reported consumer test scored the work strongly, but major outlets still criticized visible AI artifacts and the synthetic feel. “Breakthrough” would overstate the evidence.
What Coca-Cola’s 2025 AI holiday ads actually prove
The 2025 campaign proves that Coca-Cola is willing to keep testing generative production inside one of its most recognizable marketing traditions. It does not prove that audiences prefer AI-made advertising or that speed and cost automatically improve creative quality.
Brand Vision approaches emerging production tools as part of a wider brand system, not as a substitute for strategy or craft. If your team is experimenting with AI while protecting established brand cues, you can discuss brand storytelling with Brand Vision.
