• by Danielle Oster , November 23, 2024

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Earlier this week, Coca-Cola kicked off its annual holiday advertising blitz -- which has since generated buzz over the brand’s use of AI.

At the center of the campaign is a 30-second hero TV spot called “The Holiday Magic is Coming,” recreating a classic spot from 1995 while incorporating the use of AI technology in the making of the ad. Small text appears for a few seconds near the beginning, informing audiences that it was “Created with Real Magic AI" -- but that announcement is s easy to miss.

For some viewers, the approach didn’t go down easy, with USA Today reporting the comments on the brand’s YouTube post of the video were largely negative. One top comment read: “ "Nothing like celebrating the spirit of Christmas with the most soulless commercial possible." Coca-Cola has since restricted the page, hiding comments. Many ad industry professionals, artists and creators were similarly critical of the ad on LinkedIn and X.

But the views of industry insiders don’t necessarily represent those of the average viewer. According to marketing platform System1, the extent of any more widespread consumer backlash may have been exaggerated.

System1 analyzed the performance of the full 80-second ad with audiences using its “Test Your Ad” platform, and awarded it an “exceptional” score of 5.9 (out of 6) in its star rating system. “Excited” and “uplifted” were the most common emotional responses reported.

“Survey respondents were not clued into the fact that it was an ad made with AI. To them, it was just another Coca-Cola ad,” System1 Andrew Tindall, senior vice president, partnerships, told Marketing Daily. “Brands that have loudly proclaimed their use of AI sometimes face a vocal backlash,”  he added, citing the controversy around Google’s Summer Olympics ad, which “led with AI as a product feature, and got so much flak that it was eventually pulled.

“In contrast, Coca-Cola’s subtle use of AI flew under the radar for most respondents,” Tindall explained. “This suggests that a low-key integration of AI in ads might be the way to go to avoid stirring up negative reactions from the audience.

“Once you know an ad is crafted by AI, you might start spotting quirky details,” he added. “But did any of our respondents grumble about Santa's fingers or the trucks' wheels gliding like they're on ice? Nope. AI was not where  their minds went and instead, they were focused on the holiday magic.”

Only 3% of viewers in System1’s report reacted to Coca-Cola’s new ad with “contempt,” the only negative emotion reported, with one commenting that it “looks like it was generated using AI” and another agreeing with the comment.

Coca-Cola has consistently run the original ad during the holidays since its 1995 debut, which could make it hard to disentangle viewers’ emotional responses to the new ad from their feelings towards, and nostalgia for, the original. Since relatively little was changed overall in the ad, some viewers may not even have noticed they weren’t watching the original ad – as one commenter replying to Tindall’s LinkedIn post about the study pointed out.  In fact, the ad’s score of 5.9 was the same score given to the original “Holidays Are Coming” by System1 last year.

Last year, Coca-Cola included an AI-powered virtual holiday card making activation as part of ts holiday campaign, after taking its AI Coke Studio experience on tour the preceding summer. This year’s deployments of AI include promoting  the release of is K-Pop inspired Coca-Cola Creations flavor with a "Like Magic” fan music video AI experience.