Coca-Cola does Christmas advertising for one very, very long time. But it is the latest one created with AI generation tools and it’s a horrible, ugly mess.
It’s mid-November, which means it’s practically Christmas, according to every store I’ve walked into lately. And as is tradition in November and December, our TV commercials all have a Christmas theme. There are some classics, but Coca-Cola’s latest ad won’t be included in this series because it’s an ugly, AI-generated mess that’s embarrassing to watch.
First, Before we go any further, here’s the terrible AI error
I don’t have enough time to go into how ugly and awful this AI-generated commercial is, but a few specifics: the trucks have no moving wheels and instead glide along the ground; Houses in the background look like they’re melting; and with every shot everything feels static.
Anyway, it’s terrible, but what made me laugh was reading it an article by proverb about the creation of the commercial. Apparently, Coca-Cola paid for three of these ads to be created by different “AI studios.”
Here’s something about the squirrels that appear in the ad posted above:
The commercial featured an opening shot of an AI-generated squirrel that took several attempts to execute. [Secret Level AI studio founder Jason] Zada said. “We must have caught that squirrel [through AI] a few hundred times at the beginning of this video.”
Here is the shot that took so long to get “right”.
Good job everyone, you wasted your time and a lot of electricity creating ugly squirrels instead of just licensing a few shots of real squirrels or – and here’s an idea – going outside with a camera and filming some.
Keep in mind that many of the shots in this ad were probably edited by a human. You can tell that all the Coca-Cola logos that appear here were probably added after the videos were made because they are all so perfect. Oh, and because they wobble around like someone quickly covered up mangled Coca-Cola logos with pretty PNGs.
Anyway, I know I shouldn’t get too upset about this. It’s a damn Coca-Cola Christmas commercial. But what scares me is the thought that this could be the future because a lot of people just don’t realize it.
I imagine a lot of people who are too busy to really watch this stuff will see this ad on their TV while chatting with family and friends over the holidays and someone might say, “Oh, I love the Coca-Cola Christmas commercial!” and everyone will agree and move on. How many will realize that AI-generated crap was just served to them by one of the largest corporations in the world, which decided that instead of letting real people do something, save a dollar and create some ads that look crappy? The future sucks.
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