People are genuinely mad. Like, "deleting the app and swearing off the product" kind of mad. If you haven't seen the coca cola commercial 2025 holiday campaign yet, it’s basically a 15-second fever dream of high-gloss trucks, snowy landscapes, and uncanny valley faces. But here’s the kicker: it was made almost entirely using Generative AI.
Coca-Cola took its most iconic piece of intellectual property—the 1995 "Holidays are Coming" ad—and gave it a "modern" makeover. They used three AI studios (Secret Level, Silverside AI, and Wild Card) and a handful of generative models like Leonardo, Luma, and Runway. The result? A technical marvel to some, and a soul-crushing disappointment to others.
It feels different.
The original '95 spot had heart. It had real actors, physical trucks with thousands of lightbulbs, and a sense of craftsmanship that defined Christmas for a generation. This new 2025 version has squirrels with fur that doesn't quite move right and truck wheels that seem to hover above the pavement. It’s a fascinating case study in how a brand can move too fast into the future and accidentally trip over its own heritage.
The Tech Behind the Scenes of the Coca Cola Commercial 2025
Let’s be real: Coke isn't just trying to be "cool" or "edgy" here. This was a business decision. Javier Meza, the EU Chief Marketing Officer for Coca-Cola, told several outlets that the company wanted to adapt to the current "velocity" of content creation. Basically, they wanted it done fast and they wanted it done efficiently.
Using AI like Luma Dream Machine and Runway Gen-3 Alpha allows a massive corporation to generate hundreds of variations of an ad in the time it would take a traditional film crew to set up a single lighting rig. They can swap out the background for a beach in Australia or a city in London with a few keystrokes.
But efficiency has a price.
Critics like Alex Brannan and various industry observers on social media pointed out some "glitchy" details that were left in the final cut. Have you looked at the tires? They don't actually rotate. They slide. And the people? They look like they're made of expensive wax. It's the "uncanny valley" effect—where something looks almost human, but just enough "off" to trigger a biological sense of unease in the viewer.
Why This Polarized the Internet
Advertising used to be about the "Big Idea." Now, it's increasingly about the "Big Dataset."
The backlash against the coca cola commercial 2025 isn't just about bad CGI. It's about the perceived loss of human labor and creativity. When a brand as wealthy as Coke decides to skip out on hiring real directors, real actors, and real set designers for their biggest campaign of the year, it sends a message. That message, according to the thousands of angry comments on X and TikTok, is that the "human touch" is no longer worth the investment.
Some defenders argue that this is just the "v1" of AI advertising. They say we’ll look back at this the same way we look at early 90s CGI—clunky but necessary. Maybe. But Christmas is a holiday rooted in nostalgia and tradition. Replacing a nostalgic memory with a synthetic approximation feels, to many, like a betrayal of the brand's own promise of "Real Magic."
The Nuance Most People Miss
Actually, it wasn't just a prompt.
Silverside AI and the other studios didn't just type "Coke trucks in snow" and call it a day. They used a hybrid workflow. They fed the models specific references from the 1995 shoot to maintain "brand consistency." There was still a human "director" in the loop, curating thousands of generated clips to find the 15 seconds that didn't look totally broken.
Yet, even with that human oversight, the "warmth" is missing. There’s a specific kind of light you get when you film on 35mm film in a real snowy forest that a GPU simply hasn't learned to perfectly replicate yet. The textures are too smooth. The colors are too saturated. It's "perfect," which is exactly why it feels so fake.
The "Real Magic" vs. Synthetic Reality
For decades, Coca-Cola's slogan has revolved around authenticity. "The Real Thing." "Real Magic."
The irony of using synthetic media to sell "Real Magic" is not lost on the public. If the magic is generated by a server farm in Oregon, is it still magic? This is the central tension that the coca cola commercial 2025 has brought to the surface.
Marketing experts like Mark Ritson have often spoken about the importance of "brand codes." Coke’s codes are the red truck, the Santa (originally illustrated by Haddon Sundblom), and the jingle. By keeping the codes but changing the medium to AI, Coke is betting that the symbols matter more than the execution.
The data might back them up, honestly.
💡 You might also like: MSTR Stock After Hours: Why the Night Shift Is Where the Real Action Happens
While the "creative" world is screaming on Twitter, the average person scrolling on Instagram might not even notice the tires aren't spinning. They see a red truck, they hear the bells, and they feel a tiny hit of dopamine. That’s the gamble. Coke is betting on the "scroll-by" audience, not the "frame-by-frame" critics.
What This Means for the Future of TV Ads
If you think this is a one-off, you're kidding yourself.
The coca cola commercial 2025 is a pilot program for the entire industry. If Coke can save millions on production and only lose a small percentage of "brand sentiment" among tech-savvy critics, every other Fortune 500 company will follow suit.
Expect to see:
- Hyper-localized ads where the truck drives past your specific neighborhood landmark.
- Dynamic lighting that changes based on what time of day you are watching the ad.
- The "resurrection" of more dead actors or retired mascots, rendered in high-fidelity AI.
It’s a weird time to be in marketing. We are moving away from "The Shoot" and toward "The Generation." The role of the Art Director is shifting into the role of the Prompt Engineer and the Curator.
How to Navigate the "AI Era" of Branding
If you're a business owner or a creator, don't just copy what Coke did. They have enough "brand equity" to survive a massive public relations blunder. You might not.
The lesson here isn't "AI is bad." The lesson is that AI needs to be invisible. If the viewer is thinking about the tool used to make the ad rather than the product being sold, the ad has failed. The coca cola commercial 2025 failed because it became a story about AI, not a story about Christmas.
To avoid this, focus on "AI-Augmented" rather than "AI-Generated." Use the tech to expand your horizons, not to replace the soul of the work. If you're going to use AI for a project, spend the extra time in post-production to fix those weird glitches. Make sure the wheels actually turn. Make sure the eyes have a reflection.
Actionable Steps for the "New" Advertising
- Prioritize Human Landmarks: Even if you use AI for the background, try to keep the central "hero" of the shot real. A real human hand holding a real cold bottle of soda will always beat a synthetic one.
- Audit for "The Creep Factor": Show your AI-generated content to a focus group that doesn't know it's AI. If they feel uneasy but can't explain why, you've hit the uncanny valley. Back off.
- Lean into Craft: If you aren't using AI, tell people. "Shot on Film" or "Made by Humans" is becoming a premium marketing hook. It’s the new "Organic" or "Non-GMO" for the creative world.
- Fix the Details: Don't ship "good enough." If the AI gives you a squirrel with three ears, mask it out. The laziness of the coca cola commercial 2025 is what really upset people, not just the tech itself.
The "Holidays are Coming" trucks will probably be back in 2026. Whether they'll be driven by real people or another batch of algorithms depends entirely on how much soda we buy this winter. If the bottom line stays steady, the era of the "Synthetic Santa" is officially here to stay.
Watch the ads carefully this year. The glitches are there if you look for them. But more importantly, ask yourself if you still feel that "spark" Coke has spent a century trying to bottle. If you don't, then no amount of processing power can save the campaign.