For many festive fanatics, Coca-Cola’s classic 1995 ‘Holidays are Coming’ ad is the epitome of Christmas. So, when the brand released a soulless AI rehash of the ad this year many fans were understandably disappointed. In response, senior creative Alex Morris of Very Serious Partners has launched his own competitor brand, Coca-Coola (with the help of good ol’ artificial intelligence).
With a range of AI apparel inspired by the controversial ad, Alex pokes fun at Coca-Cola’s branding blunder by giving it a taste of its own medicine. While AI advertising is growing in popularity (whether we like it or not), the often fierce backlash proves that consumers are still thirsty for wholesome human-made content.
You saw the AI ad.Now shop the range.Hoolidays Are Cooming.https://t.co/ngUbkJaV7z pic.twitter.com/Adej0si3QQDecember 18, 2024
Coca-Coola is “somewhere between an art project and a protest,” Alex tells Creative Bloq. “I watched the Coca-Cola AI advert and felt… sad. LinkedIn was shouting about how it tested so well with ‘real consumers’ but I couldn’t see past the AI fake smiles. So I thought I’d have some mischief in a way only a naughty human with access to these AI tools could” he explains.
“It’s a provocation around how creative people within the industry face up to the emergence of AI. Most opinions I see now seem to split between ‘isn’t this great for efficiency’ (normally written by suits) and ‘AI will never be able to do what I do’ (written by creatives). As someone who started as the first, and became the latter, I think the answer lies between the two, and we need that balance of optimism and skepticism to negotiate it as creative thinkers,” Alex adds.
(Image credit: Alex Morris)
Each 1-of-1 exclusive item retails for a cool £4,999 and “They are all available for sale – my elves will be working overtime,” Alex says. Featuring a Christmas ‘Joomper’ with mismatched arms, the world’s most impractical mug and a ‘Highly limited. Highly impractical” Coke bottle, the designs are purposefully janky to reflect AI’s often imperfect generations. “All artwork was made on Midjourney, with some assistance from Photoshop Beta and the AI tool within that,” Alex explains.
Despite poking fun at Coca-Cola’s sloppy use of AI, Alex isn’t necessarily against the adapting technology but still sees human creativity as superior. “I think it places more emphasis on creatives raising their game to achieve what AI can’t. Using it as a tool to push their imaginations. But relying on it can mean our ideas all merge towards mediocrity because, by its very nature, it’s iterated from what’s gone before. In this project, for example, I spent days trying to make a jumper with a sleeve where the head should be. But AI simply can’t compute, because that’s not what it’s been trained to know as a ‘jumper’. The capacity of our imaginations to take us to new places is what makes us flawed beings of average intelligence so beautifully unique,” Alex says.
