Behind the scenes of Coca-Cola’s AI reinvention of a vacation basic
One of many liveliest campaigns of the vacation season thus far is Coca-Cola’s Synthetic Intelligence (AI) Reboot from its basic industrial, “Holidays Are Coming.”
Because the rise of generative AI, the know-how has sparked worry amongst some within the trade who worry it may hurt artistic jobs. However Coca-Cola advert creators at Silverside AI, an innovation lab on the Pereira O’Dell company, say AI has enhanced the human creativity behind one of many world’s most well-known campaigns.
Coca-Cola International Christmas Marketing campaign this 12 months consists of the “Holidays Are Coming” remake, its Christmas Truck Tour, the second annual “The World Wants Extra Santas” industrial and a festive digital AI expertise that lets individuals create animations personalised snowballs.
This is not Coca-Cola’s first AI-driven vacation marketing campaign. Final 12 months, its “Create Actual Magic” marketing campaign included a characteristic permitting individuals to create digital greeting playing cards with generative AI.
Nevertheless, this 12 months AI performed an excellent greater function in reinventing Coca-Cola’s Christmas marketing campaign for a contemporary period. The AI model of “Holidays Are Coming” nods to the unique whereas making the marketing campaign extra personalised and related to audiences world wide, Silverside AI executives defined.
PJ Pereira, Co-Founder and Accomplice of Silverside AI and Co-Founder and Artistic Chairman of Pereira O’Dell, and Rob Wrubel, Co-Founder and Managing Accomplice of Silverside AI, lifted the lid on the artistic course of and what they discovered. the trail.
A contemporary twist on a vacation icon
Since its debut in 1995, the Coca-Cola Christmas Truck has turn into synonymous with the vacation season. Earlier this 12 months, the model tapped Silverside AI to create “a contemporary interpretation” of the truck, Pereira advised ADWEEK.
Silverside AI turned to generative AI platforms together with Steady Diffusion, Pactto, DALL-E, ChatGPT and its personal Director Magic instrument to create the advert, in a course of that felt extra like “software program improvement” than conventional filmmaking, Pereira mentioned.
The usage of AI has accelerated the artistic course of and allowed creatives to see their concepts come to life immediately. Silverside AI “produced a draft of the spot inside three days of considered one of our first conferences [with the client]”, remembers Wrubel.
“The second you’ve got a course of the place creatives can instantly see their concepts come to life in actual time, it fully transforms the artistic course of. That is one thing revolutionary,” Pereira mentioned.
AI has additionally made the method extra collaborative, with Silverside AI capable of ship adjustments and updates to the shopper nearly on daily basis somewhat than each two weeks, Wrubel mentioned.
Tackle new challenges
A possible downside arose late within the course of, when Coca-Cola’s shopper requested Silverside AI if it may develop customized variations of the spot for varied world cities and markets.
“Our quick response was: ‘in fact not, it is too late,'” Pereira mentioned. “However then we mentioned, ‘Wait, this is not the outdated world anymore.’ Perhaps we will.
In just some days, Silverside AI delivered 110 totally different variations of the spot, together with 27 key market places that characteristic personalised skylines based mostly on the cities wherein they may air.
Whereas AI could make the artistic course of quicker and extra versatile, it additionally presents challenges. The primary is to maintain up with the speedy evolution of know-how: New AI instruments have emerged from the time Silverside AI started engaged on promoting in June till its launch this month, Pereira mentioned.
AI additionally does not permit for a similar “stage of precision and management” in post-production, he added, explaining that animators adjusted and tweaked the industrial to match the colours, brand and the looks of Coca-Cola vehicles.
Nonetheless, Pereira praised AI for simplifying undertaking administration duties that always eat into artistic individuals’s time: “When know-how with the facility of AI enters the method, creativity turns into far more vital than undertaking administration. »
“For 5 years, I’ve heard artistic individuals complaining about doing extra for much less cash, that issues have turn into unattainable,” he continues. “It’s not unattainable. AI permits us to take large concepts that might be useless with out budgets and convey them to life, deliver a number of concepts to life and lift the extent of every little thing.
As Coca-Cola’s iconic marketing campaign introduces the world to its AI overhaul, it alerts the place AI may take promoting, Wrubel mentioned.
“The standard and talent of creatives to generate breakthrough creativity will solely enhance,” he mentioned. “It’s a journey, and the one option to transfer ahead on that journey is to make use of the instruments and make issues.”