Coca-Cola has been making Christmas ads for a very, very long time. But it’s latest one was created using AI-generation tools and its a terrible, ugly mess.
It’s mid-November, which means it’s practically Christmas according to every store I’ve entered lately. And as is tradition during November and December, our TV commercials are all Christmas-themed, too. There are some classics out there, but Coca-Cola’s newest ad won’t be joining those ranks as it’s an ugly, AI-generated mess that is embarrassing to watch.
First, before we go any further, here’s the horrible AI slop:
I don’t have enough time to go over how ugly and terrible this AI-generated commercial is, but a few standouts: The trucks don’t have moving wheels and instead glide across the ground; houses in the background look like they’re melting; and everything feels static in every shot.
Anyway, it’s terrible, but what made me laugh was reading an article from AdAge about the creation of the commercial. Apparently, Coca-Cola paid for three of these ads to be created by different “AI studios.”
Here’s a bit about the squirrels that appear in the ad posted above:
There was an opening shot in the commercial with an AI-generated squirrel, which took multiple attempts to get right, [Secret Level AI studio founder Jason] Zada said. “We must have run that squirrel [through AI] in the beginning of that video a couple hundred times.”
Here’s the shot that took them so long to get “right.”
Good job everyone, you wasted your time and a lot of electricity to create ugly squirrels instead of just licensing some footage of real ones or—and here’s an idea—going outside with a camera and filming some.
Keep in mind that many shots in this ad were likely touched up by a human, too. You can tell that all the Coca-Cola logos that appear in this were likely added after the videos were generated because they’re all so perfect. Oh, and because they wobble around, as if someone quickly covered up garbled Coke logos with nice PNGs.
Anyway, look, I know I shouldn’t get too upset about this. It’s a fucking Christmas ad from Coca-Cola. But what scares me is the thought that this could be the future because a lot of people just won’t notice.
I imagine a lot of people who are too busy to really look at this stuff will see this ad appear on their TV as they chat with family and friends over the holidays and someone might say, “Oh I love Coke’s Christmas ads!” and everyone will agree and move on. How many will realize that AI-generated slop was just served to them by one of the biggest corporations in the world, who decided that instead of letting real people make something, they would save a buck and generate some ads that look like shit? The future sucks.
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