5 ways Coke is using AI to enhance its marketing

Learn more about Coke’s approach to AI and creativity at Ad Age’s Business of Brands conference, set for Sept. 18 and 19 in Chicago. Coca-Cola Co.’s global VP of creative strategy and content Islam ElDessouky will be among the featured speakers at the event—secure your discounted ticket today and find out more at AdAge.com/BusinessofBrands. As far as Coca-Cola Co. is concerned, AI is the real deal. The beverage giant is one of the business world’s leading AI proponents, looking to the technology to drive innovation across its business, from manufacturing to the supply chain to vending machines and consumer modeling. But marketing is arguably where the capabilities of AI are most apparent to consumers, powering a wide array of Coke creative expressions from behind the scenes. Coke has been careful to ensure that the technology reinforces the brand’s focus on optimism and happiness. It has also demonstrated that AI can aid creativity and not subsume it, particularly as it pairs AI with human creators. See Ad Age’s Tech Power List honoring marketing leaders As Coke CEO James Quincey put it at the 2023 Consumer Analyst Group Of New York conference, “Every time we’ve married the human with technology, we’ve got a better result than either of the two alone.” In early 2023, Coke announced a deal with management consultant Bain & Company to explore new ways to enhance the creativity of its marketing through OpenAI, the research and development company behind ChatGPT, DALL-E and Codex. Its public-facing work started with Coke inviting consumers to try out generative AI tools and a demonstration of how generative AI could belong with fine art. The company has since moved to AI-enabled creative technology. “Like other technologies in the past, [AI] is a really exciting tool for us that we continue to learn from and experiment with, and then hopefully scale,” Oana Vlad, senior director of global strategy for Coca-Cola, recently told Ad Age. Below, five ways Coke has deployed AI in marketing. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Tastemaker Coca-Cola’s innovative “Creations” series makes limited-time Coke flavors, each marketed to specific segments of younger consumers. When it came to imagining the future, the Creations program delivered Y3000, a Coke flavor said to taste like the year 3000. Coke turned to AI to create it, sifting through data from real-life consumers who provided predictions of the flavors of the future, then suggesting combinations of those flavors, according to Coca-Cola. The packaging also utilized AI-generated artwork and was promoted with an online activation that let consumers run photos through an AI filter to see what they might look like in another 977 years. Some of those were shown as part of an exhibit on the Las Vegas Sphere. Customizable video AI has been key in helping Coke deliver immersive experiences with a narrow focus. Coke Creations’ foray into Korean pop, known as Coca-Cola K-Wave, was anchored by an original song, “Like Magic,” performed by K-pop artists Stray Kids, ITZY and NMIXX. An AI-powered online companion—accessible through a code on the K-Wave package—allowed fans to immerse themselves in the “Like Magic” video. The technology let fans turn themselves into avatars and join their favorite artists in a concert hall, embedding their name, face and voice in the “Like Magic” video, which they could then download and share with friends. A real-life concert took place June 2 in Seoul, South Korea. Songwriting and communication This year’s “Best Coke Ever” campaign for Coke Zero Sugar set AI loose, allowing the drink to speak for itself. By training AI on the effervescence and bubbles inside the drink, the brand created a custom font, Coke Sans Sugar. The process took 100,000 photographs of Coke Zero Sugar bubbles, using neural network object detection to recognize the shapes of letters that formed. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs The font gave Coke the ability to create any word in any language, to be used in advertising like billboards. Coke followed that up with a Coke Soundz, a bottle-shaped musical instrument that plays tones that AI captured from the pops, fizzes, glugs and “aahs” of the cola experience. The physical instrument is meant for DJs and producers; consumers can download an app-based version, with the user-generated tunes potentially providing soundtracks to future Coke ads. Creations for celebrations While many of Coke’s experiments in AI and advertising have been confined to niche products such as Creations, it doesn’t get any more massive than the brand’s global holiday push. That event last year included an AI element allowing consumers from around the world to create their own holiday greeting cards using Coca-Cola assets, with some consumer-created artwork displayed on digital billboards around the world including New York’s Times Square and London’s Piccadilly Circus. “We’re connecting people as we have always done during the holiday season, but in a uniquely real and magical way by democratizing our creative assets and the latest AI tools,” Pratik Thakar, Coca-Cola’s global head of generative AI, said in a statement. The holiday activation built on the success of Create Real Magic, an initiative in which fans used tools like DALL-E and ChatGPT to generate more than 120,000 pieces of art using Coke’s iconic assets. Select creators were then invited to a workshop at brand’s Atlanta headquarters. “TikTok made everyone an entertainer. Instagram made everyone an influencer. Generative AI is making everyone an artist,” Thakar said at the time. “So, we want to collaborate with artists, give them this superpower called AI, bring them some of the tools which they may not have access to, and give them this world-class brand in their hands. It’s like a dream come true.” Reimagining artwork Although AI is often associated with creepy, imperfect illustrations, Coke demonstrated it didn’t have to be that way. In “Masterpiece,” a stunning film set in an art gallery, generative AI proves it could belong in the art world. The 2023 film shows a lineup of universally recognized artworks by some of the world’s most famous masters, alongside several pieces by emerging artists. These come to life with the help of one of Coke’s own contributions to art, Andy Warhol’s 1962 piece, “Coca-Cola (4).” Stability AI’s stable diffusion platform was used in the effort.

5 ways Coke is using AI to enhance its marketing

Featured Stories