Coca-Cola faced widespread backlash after releasing its 2025 “Holidays Are Coming” ads on November 3—three AI-generated remakes of the iconic 1995 red-truck caravan—criticized as creepy, soulless, job-killing, and a betrayal of holiday nostalgia.
The 60-second spots, produced in collaboration with AI studio Secret Level, feature the familiar illuminated Coca-Cola trucks winding through snowy landscapes. However, AI enhancements—rotating wheels, hyper-detailed snowflakes, and surreal wildlife like sloths perched in trees—triggered immediate revulsion.
Viewers described AI-generated Santa Claus as having a “dead-eyed stare” and “rubber skin,” plunging the ad into the uncanny valley. One viral TikTok with 3.2 million views declared, “Coca-Cola just ruined Christmas,” while another user wrote, “This isn’t magic—it’s malware.”
YouTube comments under the official upload were flooded with sarcasm: “Best Pepsi ad I’ve ever seen,” read the top comment with 42,000 likes. A Reddit thread on r/television titled “Coca-Cola’s AI Christmas ad is a horror movie” garnered 28,000 upvotes. Even mainstream outlets weighed in—The Guardian called it “a festive flop,” and AdWeek labeled it “the Grinch of generative AI.”
Creative professionals led the charge against the campaign’s production methods. Coca-Cola reportedly generated over 70,000 AI video clips and reduced its creative team from 150 to 100, fueling accusations of mass displacement. Alex Hirsch, creator of Disney’s Gravity Falls, posted a widely shared thread: “Coca-Cola isn’t red because of cherries. It’s red because it’s made from the blood of out-of-work artists!” The Animation Guild and SAG-AFTRA issued statements condemning the use of AI to replace human labor in storytelling.
Coca-Cola remained defiant. Global VP of Generative AI Pratik Thakar told The Hollywood Reporter, “The genie is out of the bottle, and you’re not going to put it back in.” He claimed internal testing gave the ads a 5.9/5.9 consumer score—described as “10 times better” than the 2024 AI version—and said the campaign reached 150 million impressions in its first 48 hours. Coca-Cola also emphasized that human directors and editors oversaw the final output, though critics dismissed this as “AI-washing.”