Wallace and Gromit’s Cracking Contraptions. Image credit: AARDMAN / Alamy

“First they removed the coke and now the magic.” Harsh words from the YouTube comment section of the 2025 Coca-Cola Holiday Season advert.

We can’t speak on the Coke, but the magic is certainly lacking. The new advert shows the beloved classic red Coca-Cola truck driving down a road, while furry AI animals react to it. For the company that emphasises being ‘the real thing’ and has trademarked the phrase ‘Real Magic’ the advert’s blatant use of AI makes it feel empty and inauthentic, and it lacks the charm of previous Coca-Cola ads.

“Nothing says Christmas quite like ‘dad got fired because AI replaced him to do animation’,” commented another YouTube user.

On the other end of the scale, Barbour’s Wallace and Gromit Advert is being heralded as one of the best of the 2025 Holiday Season.

It starts with Gromit sitting on an armchair holding a hand-wrapped gift for Wallace, waiting for the carol singers. Wallace enters the room with his new Gift-o-matic, a classic Wallace invention which he claims can wrap, deliver, and unwrap gifts.

When Wallace and Gromit unwrap their respective presents, we see they’ve given each other matching Barbour scarves. When the carol singers arrive, however, the machine malfunctions, mistakenly unwrapping Wallace, and leaving him in his underwear. Gromit subtly pulls the scarf down to cover Wallace.

“No AI, just a lot of heart,” comments one viewer. 

So what did Wallace and Gromit do right, and Coca-Cola do wrong? Was it simply the use of AI, or was something else missing?  

Was AI the problem? 

Researchers from Technical University of Munich, Columbia Business School, Harvard Business School and Carnegie Mellon University found that AI-created adverts can outperform human-made adverts, as long as they don’t look like AI.

The researchers used two separate adverts created by the same advertiser at the same time, as part of the same campaign, but varied the usage of AI. They found that the click-through rates were higher if advertisers used AI to generate the images, but not the captions. This was only true if the AI images didn’t look like AI.  

AI was also more likely to generate human faces in images, the researchers discovered, but, somewhat surprisingly, they found the presence of a human face tended to disguise the fact that the ad was AI-generated. 

“Our findings provide evidence that advertisers can benefit from leveraging mass-market generative AI tools to boost their online ad performance,” explains Prof Jochen Hartmann, Professorship of Digital Marketing at TUM School of Management.

So perhaps the AI wasn’t the problem after all: Coca-Cola should’ve just gone for AI people instead of animals.  

What makes a good story? 

Was it simply that the story wasn’t good enough? Paul Zak, a professor at Claremont Graduate University in California, researched what stories do to our brain. He found that once hooked by a story, our brain releases oxytocin. This hormone, in turn, affects our mood and social behaviour. In short, an advert with a strong story is more likely to be enjoyed by viewers. 

But what makes a good story? Anna Clemens, a science journalist, writes in the LSE Impact Blog about the six essential elements of a good plot: main character, setting, tension, action, climax and resolution. 

If we apply these to the Wallace and Gromit x Barbour ad, then, we can see how each of these elements has been fulfilled. We have the two well-known main characters, Wallace and Gromit; the setting of a small nondescript English town, the tension of ‘will the new invention work?’; the action of the Gift-o-Matic removing Wallace’s clothes, thinking he was the gift, and the resolution of the scarf being pulled down to cover Wallace’s underwear as the carol singers watch. 

Contrastingly, if we look to the Coca-Cola advert, we see no such thing. There is no real main character (aside from the truck); we do have a setting, albeit not a particularly distinct one; there is no tension, no action, no climax and no resolution.  

Clemens goes on to discuss the other three story essentials: main theme, chronology, purpose. Looking at both of the adverts again with this lens, we can start to see where Coca Cola went wrong. 

Connecting with customers  

The mark of any good marketing strategy is the brand’s ability to connect with its customers. After all, what is the point of an advert that doesn’t inspire people to engage more with the company or buy something?  

We can look to brands that have done well with engaging with customers for guidance here. One great example is RyanAir, whose dry, irreverent humour leans into its budget airline reputation.   

A study from the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU) found that Ryan Air carrier’s strategic use of sarcastic, confrontational, and edgy online humour, insulting customers and rival carriers, has helped it grow its online following even while it may polarise its audience, and has helped it sharpen its brand identity.

The researchers noted that a humour-first approach helped the brand’s online presence grow.  

If we look back at the adverts, then, we can see that the Coca-Cola ad falls short on this front too. Contrastingly, the Wallace and Gromit ad is infused with humour at several points, making it an enjoyable experience for viewers, which helps them warm to the Barbour brand. 

The role of nostalgia  

However, what both of the adverts benefit from is nostalgia. For Coca Cola, it’s the Christmas Truck which has appeared in their Christmas adverts since 1995, and has become symbolic for the start of the Christmas season. For Wallace and Gromit, it’s the characters and the stop motion animation style that many of us watched growing up, particularly at Christmas time. 

Nostalgia can be a powerful force in marketing, finds new research from Tecnológico de Monterrey. The researchers split a sample of 132 consumers into two groups: one group was made to feel nostalgic, the other was not.  

The study showed that when Gen Z consumers experienced nostalgia, they were more likely to buy and pay 25% more for nostalgic brands, and even 13% more for non-nostalgic brands. However, this effect comes with a trade-off: they think less highly of the brand and are less aware of it when nostalgia is artificially induced. 

However, Gen X consumers, while they are likely to show stronger brand preference and higher purchase intention when they feel nostalgic, are still not willing to pay extra. 

Both of the Christmas adverts we discussed played into this nostalgia. However, with the use of AI, the Coca Cola advert did, at times, feel slightly ‘off’ compared to traditionally made adverts which use a real truck and real people. Could this negate the nostalgia element?  

One YouTube commenter summed it up: “Please stop making fully AI-produced ads, Coke. I lost any connection with the ad as soon as I saw the AI-generated animals.” 

Can anything compare to a John Lewis Christmas advert?  

What’s your favourite Christmas advert of all time? For many people, when it comes to Christmas adverts, there’s only one brand that is top of the food chain. And that brand is John Lewis.  

Whether it’s the snowman’s journey to find a gift for his partner in 2012, or the Edgar The Dragon controlling his fire-breathing in 2019, one thing John Lewis does right year after year is tap into the theme of social connection. 

2025 is no exception. It tells the story of a dad and his son, who both feel distant from each other. The son gifts his dad a vinyl record of Alison Limerick’s 90s hit “Where Love Lives,” which helps them find their way back to each other. 

“This year’s John Lewis advert is a powerful and clever critique of nostalgia, while looking to the future,” says Dr Thomas Robinson, Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Bayes Business School.  

“The father’s immersion into the past is obviously related to his own midlife crisis, losing himself in a 90s dance floor before realising that it is all in his head. He quickly shakes it off and repairs his broken relationship with his son.” 

Dr Robinson adds that the advert speaks to the hope of breaking a chain of toxicity. “The cultural context for this commercial renews the conversation we are having about toxic masculinity and the Netflix drama Adolescence. It attempts to normalise men having feelings, showing affection to each other and caring,” he says. 

The advert manages to incorporate each of the elements we’ve discussed above: nostalgia, good storytelling and connecting with customers, but also adds an additional layer of confronting wider social issues that have been the forefront of social and political discourse this year. 

Do people even watch TV ads anymore? 

According to a 2025 TV habits survey, just 18% of the UK population watches “linear TV” (i.e. TV broadcast to a set schedule). On the other hand, the vast majority of adults stream on services like Netflix or Amazon Prime.

And, when it comes to adverts, podcasts tend to see a much higher engagement rate. A Guardian study showed podcast ads command higher attention: 65% vs 39% for TV ads. 

It begs the question: will podcast Christmas ads be the next big thing, or will we continue to watch them on TV (or YouTube) for nostalgia’s sake?  

Whether we’re listening or watching them, good adverts are those that make us forget they’re selling something, but stay with us long after we’ve finished with them. At Christmas, more than ever, we need stories that connect and inspire us.  

And being a time for family, it’s probably best those stories come from other people rather than from machines. 

By, Chloë Lane