Video of the Week: Coca-Cola Christmas 2025

I'm no fan of cheesy Xmas ads (OK OK, maybe I do have some deep nostalgia for the current John Lewis one) - but this 2025 Coke effort is epically terrible.

Coca-Cola made a remarkable number of people, with some social media followers, very cross indeed last year when they deployed some AI in their Christmas ad. Described as 'soulless' and 'dystopian', calls to boycott the fizzy stuff were made and apologies sought but the brand itself defended their confection, stating it was a 'bold leap', human-led creative process enhanced by AI.

And they were correct to do so. However, if it had been argued that it was structurally crap then I think they would have had to say sorry sincerely and pull it. The fury was directed at the wrong aspect of the ad; its 'enhanced AI' tech rather than its horrible 'human-led creative process'.

Fast forward to 2025 and - guess what? - the same humans have made an ad which is also cloyingly awful. This year it doesn't try and feature AI people - instead it tries to get us to care about some very poorly-realised hedgehogs and deer. The music and singing is, apparently, authentically human - also, authentically bad and utterly cringe-inducing.

They still do this in 2025? Wow.

Like most people I rarely drink full-fat Coke any more. When I do it's SO sweet that I can't take more than one swig. This advert is the same. You'd watch this once and feel so full of sugary nothing that you'd go a long way not to have to do it again.

Still, that John Lewis ad though; no I'm not crying, you're crying ...