AI Coke Ad Shows We’ll Argue About Advertisements While the World Burns
Coca-Cola just revealed three new holiday ads created with generative AI. One for Coke Zero is on its YouTube page, unlisted. The comments below the video are a war zone. People hate the ad. They love the ad. As things turn to shit on the internet and real life, people are consumed with a conflict they feel they may be able to control: whether or not a corporation will use AI to generate the ads it uses to sell us a sugary drink.
The ad does suck. It’s a riff on the beloved 1995 Coca-Cola ad that features a convoy of lit-up Coke trucks delivering Christmas cheer to a suburban landscape. The new ad features some of the hallmarks of AI-generated “art” that makes people uncomfortable. The hands are correct, but no single shot lasts more than a few frames. The human beings seem wrong like they’re animated mannequins. There’s a sense that things are almost correct here, almost right, but different enough to make someone uncomfortable.
“The beginning of the end of creativity,” one commenter said below the unlisted YouTube video advertising soda. “Call me crazy now but you’ll see …”
