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AI is coming for everything, even the Coca-Cola polar bears.<\/p>\n
Last week, Coca-Cola joined brands like Toys R Us and Under Armour and dove into the AI ad game, this time with a series of remakes of the soft-drink brand\u2019s nostalgic \u201cHolidays Are Coming\u201d spot from 1995.<\/p>\n
Coke released three separate 60-second commercials, each produced by a different production studio, but all of which share the same smooth, AI aesthetic that, love it or hate it, has become identifiable with the technology\u2019s use in creative production.<\/p>\n
Like the original, the ads all share the same general plot: Coca-Cola delivery trucks barreling through places like San Francisco, Japan, and possibly even the Grand Canyon to deliver yuletide cheer as fuzzy and furry critters, including those Coke polar bears, look on.<\/p>\n
Silverside.AI, a creative studio born out of the indie agency Pereira O\u2019Dell, started working on one of the ads for the campaign in June, Rob Wrubel, Silverside\u2019s founder and managing partner, told Marketing Brew. The studio, he said, was tasked with \u201cre-imagining and re-inspiring\u201d the 1995 spot using \u201cAI techniques and tools.\u201d In other words, yeah, Coca-Cola probably knew it would stir up a reaction.<\/p>\n
To craft the ad, the Silverside.AI team used the AI platform Leonardo to generate images and then the AI video platforms Luma and Runway to animate them.<\/p>\n
Tens of thousands of image frames were created, he said, and the team opted to limit how many humans were shown, noting that the tech still has limitations with creating realistic-looking people. The other two studios, however, did include AI-generated depictions of happy (and vaguely eerie-looking) human onlookers clutching sodas.<\/p>\n
Traditional post-production tools were used to smooth out the kinks, including nailing the iconic Coca-Cola script on the side of the delivery trucks.<\/p>\n
And the choir that\u2019s heard singing the song\u2019s refrain? That\u2019s real, Wrubel said.<\/p>\n
Though it\u2019s hardly as big a production as driving real trucks through the Arctic Circle, sifting through a hundred different pictures of AI-generated squirrels is still a labor-intensive process, he said. Creatives prompted the platforms and determined which frames made the most sense to stitch together.<\/p>\n
Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cIn some ways, when people think of AI, they think it\u2019s like this magic where you just write a simple sentence and then you suddenly have a whole video,\u201d he said. The output is still \u201cwild and overwhelming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which prompts elicited these images? How specific did the team get? Wrubel wouldn\u2019t say. \u201cI won\u2019t go into all the detail there,\u201d he said. \u201cI will just say that you have to be thoughtful, because we\u2019re working with large LLMs that have very specific constraints about how they respond to brand names.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the utility of AI, the proposition is clear. Compared to a traditional shoot, AI tools can make production an \u201corder of magnitude less expensive,\u201d he said. The technology is also immediate. If a specific shot looks good in Egypt, for example, it can be re-created in Japan within a matter of hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can generate a close-to-rough-draft version of an idea within hours\u201d instead of waiting \u201cweeks or months to get a first cut of what you were trying to produce,\u201d he said. And the creative ideation can also happen faster: \u201cWe\u2019re having creative reviews almost hourly,\u201d he told us.<\/p>\n
But audiences don\u2019t seem entirely sold on what they\u2019ve seen. Like the other brands that have dipped their toes into artificially generated waters, the ads have received backlash for leaning on AI\u2014including, in the case of Coca-Cola, an entire segment on Today<\/em> dedicated to the commercials. The public isn\u2019t holding back: On social media, users have called the campaign \u201csoulless garbage\u201d and \u201ccreepy,\u201d and the brand was even accused by one user on TikTok of having \u201cruined Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n Yes, Wrubel has heard the criticism\u2014and he isn\u2019t dismayed. The goal was not to make something realistic, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course you always want everyone to just universally love it, but I\u2019ve been through too many of these technology walls of worry. I\u2019ve climbed over them,\u201d he said. \u201cI have the spirit of, this is bound to happen when big brands step in and want to innovate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n