The holidays are coming, which suggests a flood of seasonal ad campaigns from major consumer brands and retailers. Leading the way, because it has for nearly a century, is Coca-Cola, a brand whose promoting is inextricably linked to Christmas and the portrayal of Santa Claus.
But for the second 12 months in a row, Coca-Cola is trying to the forefront of technology to update long-standing holiday promoting traditions. The brand this week released a “refreshed and optimized version” of “Holidays Are Coming,” an ad developed with generative artificial intelligence (AI) that debuted last 12 months (and was itself a remake of a 1995 spot).
While the recent ad is again facing backlash, Coca-Cola stays committed to its AI-fueled approach to the holidays, especially since the ad “scored off the charts” with consumers, in accordance with Islam ElDessouky, global vice chairman for creative strategy and content at Coca-Cola.
“Sure, there may be noise and there are individuals who talk and criticize, but that is one of our top-tested ads in history, period,” ElDessouky said. “The masses, the audiences, don’t necessarily look behind the technology. They just have a look at the story that they’re receiving, after which they reply to it.”
Along with generating high scores in key metrics like association and conversion to transaction, the use of AI also allowed Coca-Cola to utilize a “timeless and timely” framework that balances each foundational brand values and a desire to be experimental and revolutionary. That risk-taking approach was encouraged by advances in generative AI technology, like OpenAI’s GPT-5, that didn’t exist last 12 months.
“We’re going to maintain going at it, to be honest with you, since it’s giving us the measurements, the metrics and the business results, and, at the same time, we’re learning find out how to do things in another way,” ElDessouky said of AI. “If we don’t push ourselves and stretch our comfort zones, persons are going to simply move without us, and we’d love them to maneuver with us.”
Balancing brand needs
Along with the AI-generated “Holidays Are Coming” ad, Coca-Cola’s larger “Refresh Your Holidays” campaign features a separate, more traditional 30-second TV spot that balances three imperatives for the brand: centering the product, specializing in the heroes of the holidays and connecting to past holiday efforts.
“A Holiday Memory” does all three, with a narrative a few mother decorating for the season who recalls past celebrations and rewards herself with a classic Coke. The inclusion of a snow globe is a nod to a digital experience from last 12 months’s campaign that turned an AI-assisted “conversation” with Santa into a personalised snow globe asset for social media.
“We wanted to indicate that [snow globe] because we’re a brand that lives in every holiday season — things are continuous. We don’t necessarily leave ideas behind or anything. It’s all part of our big bank of assets,” ElDessouky explained.
“A Holiday Memory” will run in North America, Latin America and Asia South-Pacific markets — a world approach that speaks to how Coca-Cola is working to personalize and localize campaigns at scale, for each its flagship and other brands in its portfolio.
That approach requires deep listening into insights from different markets and partnerships across human insights, connection and media teams. Research revealed that while multiple cohorts connected with Coca-Cola and Christmas, they’d different needs and demands that every one needed to be weaved into creative. The brand then validates its creative execution before launch and analyzes sentiment once the ads are in market.
“Is this really translating into conversion, either in transaction or transaction and association? We would moderately have the latter, but even when we get transaction or association only, it’s still a step in the right direction,” ElDessouky said.
Marketing at scale
Beyond the TV spots, “Refresh Your Holidays” will run across online video, digital, out-of-home, social, in store and on pack channels. Developed by WPP Open X, led by VML and supported by EssenceMediacom, Ogilvy and Burson, the multichannel effort demonstrates the “three Cs” that the brand uses as a framework for campaigns: culture, community and commerce.
For the holiday campaign, culture includes the spots and the out-of-home creative that’s created for mass audiences, while commerce is how the campaign is dropped at life in retail channels. Community, or where audiences are engaged, includes all the things from CRM programs, creator collaborations and experiential activations. The latter features a tour of the brand’s Christmas trucks in November and December, and is very critical for reaching young audiences, ElDessouky said.
“The truck tour is definitely a pleasant [thing] that only Coke can do,” the executive said. “So much of brands have an asset, like the truck, that’s synonymous [with the brand]. If you don’t capitalize on it… it’s against the law, because if you may have an asset, it is advisable to push it.”
Coca-Cola’s holiday assets, from the trucks to Santa Claus and polar bears, remain central to its marketing strategy, especially in the age of generative AI. The company sees the technology as a method to uncover recent insights and avenues of engagement that it couldn’t have found otherwise.
“Maybe we land on something that individuals love a lot it becomes our own Labubu,” ElDessouky said, alluding to the viral plushies. “You might land on something like that, after which it becomes an asset of yours, similar to we landed on Santa Claus and the truck. Without trying and pushing the limits, we’re not going so as to add more to the brand.”
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