Coca-Cola launches new AI version of ‘Holidays Are Coming’

Last year, Coca-Cola made headlines when it created an AI version of its classic ‘Holidays Are Coming’ festive ad, which then ran on TV over the Christmas season.

This year, it has had another run at creating an AI version of the 1995 ad. Indeed, it has created two versions of the ad, with one exclusively for the US market. Coca-Cola says the new ads “push the boundaries of technical precision, cinematic storytelling and production quality”. 

Coca-Cola global vice-president and head of generative AI, Pratik Thakar describes the ad as “revolutionary”.

“It’s a transformational leap into the future of creativity and technology,” he says.

The progress between the 2024 and 2025 versions of Holidays Are Coming shows the rapid evolution of generative AI tools more generally. Coca-Cola has released a “behind the scenes” version of the ad, which places the two AI-generated version of the ads side by side.

There was some criticism about Coca-Cola’s use of AI to re-create Holidays Are Coming last year. However, the 2024 version of the ad scored the maximum 5.9 star rating on System1’s Test Your Ad platform, which measures the brand-building potential of ads.

Last year, Coca-Cola European CMO Javier Meza told Marketing Week the brand didn’t set out to remake the ad using AI but that it was the best option.

“We didn’t start by saying: ‘OK, we need to do this with AI,’” he said. “The brief was, we want to bring Holidays Are Coming into the present and then we explored AI as a solution to that.”

It reported that it produced the ad at a tenth of what it would have cost previously. Meza also predicted that AI ads will become the “norm” in the future.

Speaking about today’s launch, Thakar commented that Coca-Cola is committed to balancing technology and human creativity.

“We’re committed to using AI as a human enabler, where it makes sense,” he said. “Creative ambition, direction and thought leadership has and always will be human-led. AI is a superpower when it comes to execution and production, making what was previously impossible possible.”

The brand will also be running its famous truck tour again this year, with the aim of bringing festive experiences to communities globally. In North America, Latin America and Asia South-Pacific, Coca-Cola will also run another festive ad, “A Holiday Memory”, which depicts a busy mother in the run-up to Christmas.