In the UK, Christmas ads are our Super Bowl. They are the one moment each year when the entire industry piles into the same cultural conversation. And if Christmas is our Super Bowl, when Coca-Cola dropped their AI-powered Christmas ad - Coca-Cola didn’t win, writes Tom Ollerton.

My argument was simple. Coke is synonymous with Christmas advertising, but not with Christmas itself. If you list the true staples of a British Christmas like sprouts, crackers, mince pies, turkeys, jumpers, mulled wine then Coke doesn’t naturally appear. No one screams “Who forgot the Coke?!” at dinner in the way they would if the crackers had gone missing. For a brand that has advertised at Christmas for nearly a century, that absence felt telling.

I said so in this Linkedin post and got a schooling from my industry mates and they were right to challenge me.

Shann Biglione jumped in first, reminding me of the piece of cultural canon I’d conveniently forgotten, that Coke literally popularised the modern image of Santa. A fair point, and one that weakens the idea that Coke has no right to the Christmas table. Shann also pointed out that the ad “tests very well,” which is no small thing in a season where emotional cut-through is tough.

Joseph Harper from Diageo added further grounding: during his years at Kellogg’s, Coke was consistently one of the top-selling FMCG SKUs at Christmas, alongside Warburtons and Pringles. Whether I personally imagine Coke at Christmas dinner is irrelevant; the British public are absolutely buying it.

And Neil Jones at Boots made perhaps the most strategic point of all: if your Christmas message is the same truck rolling through the snow every year, you may not be trying to say something new. You might be simply trying to be present. It’s about reinforcing memory structures, not forcing mince pies off the menu.

The debate around AI production became the lightning rod. Some felt Coke leaned too heavily into the AI look, losing the human warmth that defines British Christmas advertising. Others liked that Coke took a swing, even if the execution felt synthetic. I still believe AI works best when it’s paired with strong human judgment because that is the hill Automated Creative will die on, but the comments reminded me not to mistake my taste for the truth.

So yes, my view softened. Coke doesn’t need to “win” Christmas to justify its work. Its job is to show up, reinforce its memory structures, and quietly continue its near-century-long ownership of seasonal imagery. And, importantly, it clearly still works in the market.

But I stand by this: if Coke wants to do more than be there, it has an opportunity. AI gives brands unlimited creative breadth, but creativity still needs smart and empathetic humans pointing it in the right direction. 

Next year, I’d love to see Coca-Cola use AI not as the talking point, but as the powerful force behind something genuinely fresh. Coke is the brand or brands and has hefty creative might at its disposal each Christmas and I’d like to unwrap a new present from them.

Tom will be writing a monthly column in MAD//Insight about the adverts that are hitting our screens. Stay tuned!