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I was sitting in the movie theater with my mom, freshly buttered popcorn in hand, ready to see Dave Franco star in Now You See Me 3, when our previews were rudely interrupted by Coca-Cola’s latest holiday commercial. While my mom was enjoying the cute polar bears, I was sulking. When she asked me what was wrong, I told her so this It was an AI commercial that I couldn’t escape recently.
McDonald’s and Coca-Cola seem determined to spoil our holiday cheer this year with artificial intelligence. Each company has released a holiday-themed commercial, and each one is terrible in its own way. And if it’s online backlash Regardless, I’m not the only one crazy about using AI.
McDonald’s is the latest corporate offender, with its ad featuring a series of holiday-related mishaps, set up as a parody of the song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” about how it’s actually the most terrible time of the year. The ad is only 30 seconds long and is only for the Netherlands, but it has already sparked so much hate online that the company… Remove video From its pages. The marketing agency behind this site, The Sweetshop Film, still features the video on their site Website.
The McDonald’s ad is very clearly AI-driven, with short clips stitched together with a combination of powerful clips. The text is almost illegible, fine detail is off, and it has just that AI look I quickly came to know As a correspondent for Amnesty International. In contrast, the Coca-Cola commercial is a bit more put together. A Coca-Cola truck drives through the winter landscape to a snowy town, and the woodland animals wake up to follow the truck and the contents of its soda bottle to the lit-up Christmas tree in the town square. But even this video clearly contains AI-generated elements.
Although I was disappointed, I wasn’t surprised when I saw the ad and the resulting backlash. There has been a boom in creative AI tools, especially in the past year, with many AI tools Built specifically for marketers. They promise to help with content creation, workflow automation, and data analysis. A large percentage (94%) of marketers have a budget dedicated to AI, and three-quarters expect that budget to grow, according to Canva Marketing and AI Report 2025.
What is absolutely exhausting is that huge companies like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola are choosing to rely heavily on artificial intelligence. McDonald’s generated revenue of $25.9 billion in 2018 2024And Coca-Cola to make $47.1 billion. Do these companies expect us to be OK with using junk AI when they could spend a fraction of that to hire an actual animator or videographer?
These festive, feel-good commercials manage to address every controversial issue in the field of AI, which is why they inspire strong reactions from viewers. AI content has become – it has already become – normalized. We cannot escape online chatbots and Back up ramp In our feeds. McDonald’s and Coca-Cola’s use of AI is another sign that companies are moving forward with AI without really thinking about how we will react. Like advertising, there is no escape from artificial intelligence.
If AI in advertising is here to stay, it’s worth detailing how it’s being used and where we, as media consumers, don’t want to see it used. And while this is not a defense of Coca-Cola or AI, there is at least one thing the company did right in this particular ad.
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Discovering artificial intelligence in a Coca-Cola ad
The “Holidays are coming” ad is a remake From the famous Coca-Cola ad in 1995. In A Behind the scenes videoCoca-Cola explains how it’s made. It is clear where artificial intelligence was used to create the animals. But I’m not sure I believe the company went “pixel by pixel” to create its mysterious friends.
This panda bear is obviously not real footage, but it has a certain AI quality that is part shiny, part plastic.
Coca-Cola’s AI animals don’t look realistic; They look like AI. Their fur has some detail, but those finer elements are not as defined as they should be. It is also not consistent throughout the animal’s body. You can see that the fur becomes less detailed when you look back at the animal. This kind of detail work is something AI video generators struggle with, but it’s something a (human) animator could likely spot and correct.
A mama polar bear’s fur is shaggier on his cheek than on the top of his head. I feel confident when I say that no polar bear fur is this smooth.
The animals make exaggerated surprised faces as the truck passes by, their mouths forming perfect circles. This is another sign of artificial intelligence. You can see in the behind-the-scenes video of someone clicking through AI variations of a sea lion’s nose, a common trait in AI software. There is also a glimpse of the feature that is very similar Generative Photoshop fill. Google I see the video generator It was definitely used at least once.
At the bottom of the image you can see the Veo 3 model selected to create these videos of the Coca-Cola truck.
The company has been working entirely on artificial intelligence for a while, starting with Partnership 2023 With OpenAI. Even Coca-Cola’s advertising agency, Publicis Group, bragged about snatching up Coca-Cola’s business With an AI-first strategy. It seems clear that the company will not be affected by its customers’ aversion to artificial intelligence. (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that it infringed Ziff Davis’s copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
All I want for Christmas are AI stickers
There’s exactly one thing Coca-Cola got right, which was the AI reveal at the beginning of the video. Using AI to create your content is one thing; It’s quite another thing to lie about it. Labels are one of the best tools we have to help anyone who encounters a piece of content decipher whether it’s real or AI-powered. Many social media apps allow you to simply toggle the setting before posting.
Notice the “Created by Real Magic AI” note in the bottom left corner.
It’s very easy to explain, but many brands and creators don’t disclose their use of AI because they’re afraid of getting hate for it. If you don’t want to get hate for using AI, don’t use it! But letting people sit and debate whether you did it or not is a waste of everyone’s time. The fact that content generated by artificial intelligence is It becomes indistinguishable From real photos and videos is exactly why we need clarity when using them.
It is our collective responsibility as a society to be transparent about how we use AI. Social media platforms try to flag AI-generated content, but these systems are not perfect. We should appreciate that Coca-Cola did not lie to us about this AI-generated content. It’s a very low bar, but many others don’t go beyond it. (I’m looking at you, Mariah Carey.) Sephora. Did you use artificial intelligence? Just tell us.)
Artificial intelligence in advertising
Last June, Vogue readers were outraged when the American magazine ran an ad titled “Guess.” Featuring a model generated by artificial intelligence. Models at that time to speak About how AI was making it harder to get work in campaigns. Eagle-eyed J.Crew fans caught on Using “AI Photography” After a month. Toys R Us made headlines last year when it was introduced A strange ad with an artificial intelligence giraffealthough it stated that it was built using an early version of OpenAI’s Sora.
What’s really interesting about Guess and J.Crew’s use of AI is how clearly they use AI instead of real models and photographers. While Coca-Cola and Toys R Us’ use of AI was equally obvious, the AI animals weren’t exactly identical. As the president of Toys R Us said: “We didn’t want to rent a giraffe.” Points for honesty?
However, it is likely that real humans lost jobs creating these AI ads. The Coca-Cola commercial could have been created, and perhaps improved, if you used animators, designers, and illustrators. Job loss due to artificial intelligence It worries AmericansAnd people who work in the creative industries They are definitely in danger. Not that AI-powered photo and video generators are ready to completely replace workers. That’s because for companies, the appeal of cutting-edge AI provides executives with an easy rationale. That’s exactly what it is Happened at Amazon It also laid off thousands of workers.
It’s easy to look at Coca-Cola and McDonald’s AI holiday ads and dismiss them as another corporate blunder, especially when there are so many other things to worry about. But in this strange new AI reality, it’s important to highlight the quiet moments that normalize this controversial technology just as much as the breakthrough moments.
So, this holiday season, I think I’ll drink Pepsi’s proprietary cranberry soda instead of Coke Zero.