Coca-Cola Faces Creative Backlash Over AI Christmas Campaign (nbcnews.com)
- Reference: 0175501619
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/24/11/19/1432250/coca-cola-faces-creative-backlash-over-ai-christmas-campaign
- Source link: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/coca-cola-causes-controversy-ai-made-ad-rcna180665
The video, which depicts Coca-Cola trucks in snowy landscapes and people drinking the beverage, reimagines the company's 1995 "Holidays Are Coming" campaign using AI. Three AI studios - Secret Level, Silverside AI and Wild Card - produced different versions using four generative AI models, according to Forbes.
Critics, including "Gravity Falls" creator Alex Hirsch, have condemned the company's decision to use AI instead of human artists. The controversial video has garnered over 56 million views on social media platform X. Coca-Cola defended the campaign, stating it combines "human storytellers and the power of generative AI."
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RSTupbfGog
[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/coca-cola-causes-controversy-ai-made-ad-rcna180665
these people don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)
Watch the ad. It is clearly trying to show an AI generated aesthetic. The fact that it lacks authenticity and artistic merit is the entire point of it.
Irrelevant. (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone wants money. So, naturally, people criticize anything that would significantly threaten their income stream. The details of the criticism are whatever sound plausible at the moment, and aren't the reason why the criticism is being leveled.
People have been criticizing machines ever since we had machines that could replace workers at all. Same goes for foreign workers and/or outsourcing. It's all about trying to keep a secure income stream.
Re: (Score:3)
And... why do we expect authenticity from advertisements? Have people not cottoned onto the fact that it's purposefully dishonest fluff designed to mislead you?
Re: (Score:2)
I think mocking authenticity is to gen alpha as seeking authentic experiences is to millennials. Authenticity is seen as old fashioned, now.
Re: (Score:2)
> And... why do we expect authenticity from advertisements?
Well, I think you put your finger on the problem in an ironic way. Coca-cola's tagline used to be "It's the real thing". But that raises the question: the real *what*? Coke isn't actually food, it's an industrial produced ultra-processed consumable product.
It's interesting to compare ad to Coke's landmark 1971 ad, [1]"Hilltop" [youtube.com]. Which do you think is more effective *as advertising*, "Hilltop" or the [2]AI ad [youtube.com]? Which is more *representative of the product* it's trying to sell? Those aren't the same questions.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VM2eLhvsSM
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RSTupbfGog
Sure they do (Score:3)
They got a lot of attention for this terrible advert. It wasn't supposed to be good. You were supposed to hate watch it, which you probably did, and even if you didn't you commented on this post and now the coke brand is lodged in your brain just a little bit more.
End of Times (Score:3)
AI depends on human input, and it tends to fall down hard if it tries to train on AI output. It isn't complex enough - probably by several orders of magnitude - and it doesn't have proper real world feedback mechanisms.
So using AI in carefully limited circumstances may be effective... But you're mortgaging the future, removing opportunities for artists who now won't be providing more training data.
Using AI is exploitative and anti-social. Seems perfectly corporate to me.
Re: (Score:2)
> So [doing thing in the short term] may be effective... But you're mortgaging the future
Welcome to Capitalism
Final result is all that should matter (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds like they MAY be complaining that the final result is sub par and if so, that is fine. But this also smacks of protectionism. Just because a human artist doesn't do something doesn't make it bad. Just like music, live or pre-recorded....some people like the live aspect with all the little mistakes included, while some claim that studio music lacks something. The only thing that matters SHOULD be the final product. How it gets there and who/what got it there should always be irrelevant.
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I'm no fan of commercials, but it looks pretty cool to me. Especially the bear plunging into the water.
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> I'm no fan of commercials, but it looks pretty cool to me.
Me too. It looks good.
But I've been told I have poor taste.
Authentic Ads? (Score:4, Insightful)
> It sounds like they MAY be complaining that the final result is sub par and if so, that is fine. But this also smacks of protectionism.
When you hear people complaining the adverts lack "authenticity" you know that something else is going on. Ads are designed to sell products and services: the entire point is that they are not authentic. Ads selling food hire people to make-up the food to look "perfect", beauty products hire the best looking actresses they can afford and imply that their product will make you look as good as them, big box stores show perfectly clean and maintained stores with happy, smiling youthful staff helping you and lowering prices etc.
Ads are not designed to be authentic and so someone criticizing one for lacking it clearly has some other motivation to criticize the ad - indeed, they are showing a significant lack of authenticity themselves!
Re: (Score:2)
> It sounds like they MAY be complaining that the final result is sub par
Other than the money, why would they care if Coke made a sub-par commercial?
I refuse to watch commercials anyway (Score:3)
So they could have someone being rogered up the butt by a Coke bottle and it wouldn't bother me in the slightest.
Re: I refuse to watch commercials anyway (Score:2)
Itâ(TM)s come to my attention thereâ(TM)s an AI for thatâ¦
But realistically, what do people really expect out of commercials? Theyâ(TM)re just propaganda. Itâ(TM)s an industry where the company spends money to get their brand in front of people and convinced them to buy something. If all you have to do is get a logo or name in front of peoples eyeballs. Then AI is perfect.
In your case, no eyeballs. No revenue for them.
Better Protest (Score:2)
Perhaps not but if creative professionals want to protest the use of AI using it to make a fake coke ad showing exactly that and looking very like the original ad would be a great way to show some of the issues with AI in a far more amusing and effective manner than disingenuous complaints about AI ads lacking "authenticity" which is somethig you can say about all ads, including the prior human-created ones that involved polar bears drinking coke.
Its and ad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody is trying to stay this is high art. Its 'feel good corporate copy'
Redrawing Haddon Sundblom made famous by/for CocaCola Santa Clause endlessly year after year was something that required some skill and ability sure but its kitch, something we all look forward to doing/seeing each year because its part of the experience, not be because we all want to sit around and carefully consider what this years take on the Coca Cola Santa means to us..
It is exactly the kind of repetitive effort that should be automated. We might as well be discussing how rotary routers and moving belts put all those wood wrights slaving away for hours making bead boads and paneling by hand with a plane out of work.
Seriously? (Score:2)
> something we all look forward to doing/seeing each year because its part of the experience
The context doesn't lead me to believe that this is sarcastic, but I find it mind-boggling that an advert is a high point of your year.
Re: (Score:1)
"its part of the experience"
Also, GP didn't say it was a high point, just something looked forward to. Not unlike saying hello to a neighborhood newsstand salesman on your way to work.
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Not sarcastic at all, I also would not call it a 'high point' but I like Coca Cola, and I like celebrating Christmas. While it is hardly the 'reason for the season' I enjoy Santa, and I enjoy Santa cans, and images of polar bears sharing in red stocking caps sharing sugary beverages together.
I'd miss them some if they were gone, it is "fun" and the repetitiveness of it all actually brings a continuity and helps connect the current years festivities with past ones celebrated with friends and family some of w
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> Not sarcastic at all, I also would not call it a 'high point' but I like Coca Cola, and I like celebrating Christmas. While it is hardly the 'reason for the season' I enjoy Santa, and I enjoy Santa cans, and images of polar bears sharing in red stocking caps sharing sugary beverages together.
> I'd miss them some if they were gone, it is "fun" and the repetitiveness of it all actually brings a continuity and helps connect the current years festivities with past ones celebrated with friends and family some of
creative professionals need to strike! (Score:2)
creative professionals need to strike!
Re: (Score:1)
Apparently there was a writers' strike recently. I never noticed. Now an editors' strike would be interesting. t here wood be evedense
Is that the same professionals (Score:2)
who created the last thousand samey marvel or Fast and Furious movies? Them complaining about mediocre is rich. Then again, it takes one to know one I guess...
Quick, circle the wagons! (Score:2)
Watched the ad. While it's uninspiring, so's the slop these "creative professionals" serve up.
This is little more than their jobs are being outsourced and they're freaking out. If they want to remain relevant they need to offer value where AI can't.
I think its working perfectly. (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone is talking about Coke, and they're front page on several news sites. Seems like the ad is working perfectly.
Dear creative professionals (Score:2)
A 'creative professional' did create this ad, he or her just needed no director, producer, location scout, cinematographer, camera operator, camera assistant, gaffer, key grip, grip assistant, electrician, sound recordist, boom operator, lighting technician, makeup artist, hair stylist, wardrobe stylist, truck driver, set designer, production assistant, art director, prop master, on-set medic, script supervisor, actors, catering staff, safety officer, transportation coordinator, vehicle coordinator, insuran
It's all free press. They achieved their aim. (Score:3, Insightful)
They made a generic Coca Cola christmas advert with AI and got a huge amount of free press coverage for their brand in the run up to Christmas - that was their aim, and they achieved it. No stories about Pepsi in the media for the next couple of weeks - it'll all be Coca Cola and their advert.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess that works for the young population. Once you get a bit into adulthood you simply know that Soda is garbage.
But critics are right, the 'music' was canned and the cartoony trucks were stuck in the polluting 50s... They looked dorky, and it looks more like an alien invasion than a visit for the holidays.
adverts just (Score:2)
like the product then
Join the Line (Score:1)
It's not a bad ad actually. It does lack some warmth and polish but every industry will be affected by AI. AI grows in spurts in different industries and its a hot topic now as differing space periodically check to see what can be done with the latest / current technology.
That was one way to fool me to watch a commercial (Score:2)
I guess it worked, since I just watched the advertisement and they didn't have to pay anyone to play it.
Re: (Score:2)
Youtube got their share. This is the Youtube business model.
Business talks trash to competitors (Score:2)
A story as old as the hills
Creativity and Uncanny (Score:2)
Not only the creative element is missing, also the scenes are uncanny.
Would not have known that it was ai generated (Score:1)
I would not have known it was ai generated if it hadn't been pointed out. It won't be long before one CANNOT tell if something is AI generated without specialized tools, watermarked, etc... I imagine many viewers won't care either way.
Advertising sucks (Score:2)
it's hard to imagine how AI can make it worse
Creative Industry (Score:3, Insightful)
Creative industry discovers that it's just an industry.
Re: (Score:2)
Creative Industry is tired of having their work product stolen and remixed without recompense. Fuck "generative AI," it's nothing more than a plagiarism engine.
Re: (Score:3)
> Creative Industry is tired of having their work product stolen and remixed without recompense. Fuck "generative AI," it's nothing more than a plagiarism engine.
FWIW, in this particular instance, Coca-Cola has a century worth of material that was likely produced as work for hire, so it probably has no shortage of stills and video of polar bears, Santa, coke bottles, etc. to train an AI on to produce a Christmas commercial.
Also, from what I recall from working in that field (as an assistant/gopher for a creative, not as a creative) +/- 30 years ago, huge amounts of that work product you're complaining about being stolen/remixed without recompense was, itself, stolen
Re: (Score:2)
I've also seen art or an ad one client rejects that will be pitched, as is, to another. I've seen such failed concepts pitched as a "creative" take on the new client's concept. So maybe add "recycle" to "copy" and "steal".
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Speculative ads that aren't purchased are always repitched. They are too expensive to not try again.
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> Speculative ads that aren't purchased are always repitched. They are too expensive to not try again.
The problem was they weren't presented as such.
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Suure. That's why GenAI has to have guardrails on the prompting system to say things like "don't reproduce a trademark" then? Fuck your ridiculous dishonesty. The "patterns and structures" are just high-end lossy compression.
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Wait until AI is good enough to replace Indian contractors. Don’t think the suits aren’t paying attention.