How Coca-Cola’s AI Christmas ads broke a long creative tradition

What if I told you the Santa Claus we know today wasn’t always the same? What if I told you Coca-Cola invented Santa Claus? They dressed him in red. They created the jolly figure we all know and love. But here's the thing, it's not quite true, but it's not entirely false either.

The brand didn't create Santa Claus, but they took a hodgepodge of different Santas floating around in the 1920s, some thin, some stern, some downright creepy, and essentially patented the version that lives in all our heads today. The one with the rosy cheeks, the twinkling eyes, the belly that shakes when he laughs like a bowl full of jelly. That's their Santa. Or rather, that's illustrator Haddon Sundblom's Santa, painted for Coca-Cola from 1931 to 1964.

It lived in its advertising till now. However, if we look at the brand’s Christmas advertising in 2025, it just took a turn nobody saw coming.

In November 2025, it released its latest Christmas advertisement featuring those nostalgic red trucks, except this time, they weren't filmed with cameras or created by human animators. They were generated entirely by artificial intelligence. The reaction? Let's just say the internet wasn't feeling particularly festive about it.

The TVC was meant to recreate the magic of the 1995 ‘Holidays Are Coming’ commercial and bring back the nostalgia of the festival.

The backlash was swift and brutal. Comments flooded the brand’s social media questioning why one of the world's richest companies couldn't afford to hire real artists. Many pointed out the bitter irony: Coca-Cola, a brand built on the tagline ‘Real Magic,’ was now serving up something decidedly artificial.

This wasn't Coca-Cola's first Christmas ad to go viral, for whatever reason. To understand that, we need to understand how deeply Christmas advertising is baked into Coca-Cola's DNA. And that story starts nearly a century ago.

The modern Santa Claus debut

In 1931, America was in the palms of the Great Depression. People needed something warm to hold onto, and Coca-Cola commissioned Michigan-born illustrator Haddon Sundblom to create advertising images of Santa Claus, not a man dressed as Santa, but Santa himself.

Sundblom drew inspiration from the 1822 poem ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’ and used his friend Lou Prentiss as a model, later even painting himself, as mentioned by the brand itself. His first Santa image, titled ‘My Hat's Off,’ appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1931.

What made Sundblom's Santa different? He radiated warmth and reminded people of their favorite grandfather, a friendly man who loved children and enjoyed life.

For 33 years, Sundblom painted Santa for the brand. His paintings appeared in magazines, on store displays, billboards, posters, calendars, and plush dolls. After Sundblom created his final Santa image in 1964, the brand continued to use images based on his work for decades.

In 1942, the brand introduced ‘Sprite Boy,’ a character who appeared with Santa Claus in its advertising throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Sprite Boy, who was also created by Sundblom, got his name since he was a sprite, or an elf.

During the post-war era, the advertisements leaned into themes of togetherness and family gifting. As the 1950s ushered in the age of suburban American life, the brand’s ads positioned the beverage as the ‘Sign of Good Taste’ and the essential drink ‘When Friends Drop In’.

But by the 1990s, Coca-Cola was looking for something fresh. Something animated. Something that would capture a new generation's attention.

Polar bears TV debut

In 1993, during commercial breaks of Game 3 of the NBA Finals, viewers saw a group of animated polar bears gathering under the Northern Lights to drink Coca-Cola and watch the aurora borealis. The commercial was part of its new ‘Always Coca-Cola’ campaign, and was designed by the Ken Stewart agency.

The polar bears had made their comeback after appearing in a 1922 print ad.

But the bears weren't Coca-Cola's only hit of the '90s. There was more to come in that era.

The red trucks drift in

In November 1995, something magical happened on television screens. The ‘Christmas Caravan’, a commercial featuring a fleet of illuminated trucks painted with Sundblom's Santa, rumbling through snowy landscapes and lighting up towns.

But these weren't just any trucks. They were brought to life by Industrial Light & Magic. Each truck in the original ad was 40 feet long, weighed two tonnes, and featured more than 30,000 bulbs.

The commercial was accompanied by a simple, repetitive jingle, ‘Holidays are coming, holidays are coming...’ Written and performed by Melanie Thornton, the song was later released as a full-length single in 2001.

The brand tried to retire the ad between 2001 and 2007, replacing it with different campaigns.

A 2023 study found that 44% of British consumers say this ad marks the true start of their Christmas season. For an entire generation, Christmas doesn't officially begin until those red trucks appear on screen.

When the trucks ran on the streets

In 2001, Coca-Cola launched the Christmas Truck Tour in the United States, transforming the television advertisement into a real, physical experience. The tour didn't arrive in the UK until 2010.

The Letter

In 2020, the brand launched the ‘Have Yourself a Merry Christmas’ campaign, which included a short film titled ‘The Letter’, that followed a father's journey to fulfill his daughter's wish, emphasising family, love, and giving. The ad aimed to establish that is that even in challenging times, the magic of Christmas still exists and all that matters about the festival is being with the ones you love.

From Sundblom's brushstrokes to AI

And that brings us full circle to 2025's AI controversy. When you look at the arc of Coca-Cola's Christmas advertising, from Sundblom's painstaking oil paintings that took weeks to complete, to the 12-week process of animating the polar bears, to Industrial Light & Magic's movie-quality truck effects, there's a consistent thread: craftsmanship.

Each of these campaigns worked because they were made by artists who cared deeply about their craft. Sundblom used his friends and himself as models. Ken Stewart looked at his puppy and saw magic. The team at ILM treated a soft drink commercial like they were making Star Wars.

The 2025 AI ad represents a fundamental break from that tradition. Similar to the 2024 AI ad by the brand, the 2025 AI ad has been the subject of intense debate among creative professionals and the general public.

The irony isn't lost on anyone. Coca-Cola spent over a century building its brand around the idea that ‘real’ is better. From the tagline ‘It's the real thing’ in the '70s to various versions like ‘Can't beat the real thing,’ ‘Make it real,’ and currently ‘Real Magic,’ the brand has always positioned itself as authentic. Leaning into AI so heavily seems to contradict that entire brand message.

The backlash might be about more than just aesthetics. It's about what these ads represent. For nearly 100 years, Coca-Cola's Christmas advertising has been a story about human creativity, about artists putting pen to paper and brush to canvas, about animators plotting every frame with care, about special effects wizards treating a soda commercial as it mattered.

The AI ads, with their morphing trucks and uncanny animals, feel like they're trying to automate nostalgia. And nostalgia, by definition, is something that has to be earned through time and care. You can't shortcut it with 70,000 computer-generated clips, no matter how many specialists refine them.

The holidays aren't about efficiency or cost-cutting or generating content at scale. They're about magic. Real magic.