AI commercial examples: five campaigns and what they teach

By Syntax Motion, Vienna. Updated: 12 October 2026

The best documented AI commercials so far come from Coca-Cola, Toys"R"Us, McDonald's Netherlands, Heinz and Lacalut. Together they show both sides: AI opens up imagery that would be expensive or impossible to shoot, and it draws hard criticism when the occasion, the tone or the picture quality does not fit. Every case below is public and sourced.

The examples at a glance

Brand	Year	What was made	Reaction
Heinz	2022	campaign built on images from DALL-E 2	wide attention, awarded
Toys"R"Us	2024	brand film made almost entirely with Sora	mixed, strong criticism of the look
Coca-Cola	2024 and 2025	Christmas commercials with generative AI	broad criticism, high reach anyway
Lacalut	2025	first fully AI-generated TV commercial in Germany	no reliable audience data
McDonald's Netherlands	2025	AI Christmas commercial	pulled after criticism

Heinz “A.I. Ketchup” (2022)

In August 2022 Heinz asked the image generator DALL-E 2 to picture ketchup in every imaginable scene, diving or in outer space among them. Many results looked like Heinz bottles. The agency Rethink turned that into social posts and print ads, and fans supplied prompts of their own (Campaigns of the World).

Reaction: according to the award entry the campaign earned more than 1.15 billion earned impressions. It received a Merit at the One Club's ADC Awards in 2023 (The One Club).

Lesson: here the AI was the idea. The campaign used a quirk of the technology to prove a brand claim. That lands differently from a commercial that merely replaces a shoot.

Toys"R"Us “The Origin of Toys"R"Us” (2024)

In June 2024 Toys"R"Us screened a brand film about the chain's founding story at Cannes Lions. The agency Native Foreign made it with OpenAI's video model Sora. According to the press release the film was produced almost entirely with Sora, with corrective visual effects and a bespoke score added (PR Newswire, 24.06.2024).

Reaction: production took a few weeks, and hundreds of attempts became roughly two dozen shots. Some criticism was blunt: Engadget called the film confusing and uncanny, and its characters hollow (Engadget, 25.06.2024).

Lesson: realistic human beings in close-up are the hardest thing to generate. Showing them means heavy post-production, or a hybrid production with real footage.

Coca-Cola “Holidays Are Coming” (2024 and 2025)

In November 2024 Coca-Cola published an AI remake of its 1995 Christmas commercial. Three studios, Secret Level, Silverside AI and Wild Card, worked with four different generative models. Coca-Cola described it as human storytellers collaborating with generative AI (NBC News, 18.11.2024).

Reaction: many viewers called the spot soulless, and creatives criticised the decision not to hire animators. One X post carrying the commercial still passed 56 million views according to NBC News. A second AI commercial followed in 2025, refined from more than 70,000 clips by a team of five according to a Coca-Cola making-of reported by Euronews, and met similar criticism (Euronews, 05.11.2025).

Lesson: the more a commercial lives on nostalgia and human warmth, the more sensitive the audience is to AI. Reach and rejection are not mutually exclusive.

Lacalut: the first fully AI-generated TV commercial in Germany (2025)

For the toothpaste brand's hundredth anniversary, Seven.One Media, Havas Media and Havas Play put a fully AI-generated commercial on German television in March 2025 (Horizont). Eleven scenes show photorealistic people from the 1920s to the 1970s. Picture, music and voice all came from AI tools according to Seven.One (Seven.One).

Reaction: we found no reliable sources on how audiences responded.

Lesson: a journey through the decades is a motif that would be expensive to shoot, and a slightly stylised look suits the subject. Seven.One reports that details such as hairstyles and accessories took several passes to correct.

McDonald's Netherlands “The Most Terrible Time of the Year” (2025)

In December 2025 McDonald's Netherlands released a 45-second AI commercial about things going wrong at Christmas. The agency TBWA\Neboko and the production company The Sweetshop made it. According to The Sweetshop's managing director, ten people worked on it full time for five weeks (NBC News, 11.12.2025).

Reaction: viewers called the commercial creepy and objected to its bleak picture of Christmas. McDonald's pulled it and said that for many guests the season is the most wonderful time of the year (The Drum).

Lesson: the criticism was not only about the technology but about the message. A cynical tone and an artificial look reinforce each other.

What the cases teach

Five rules come out of these five campaigns. AI advertising rarely fails on the technology alone. It fails when motif, occasion and brand do not match the method.

Pick motifs that AI carries: imagined worlds, product staging and stylised flashbacks work better than realistic people in close-up.
Treat emotional occasions carefully: Christmas, family and nostalgia are delicate, because that is where audiences expect the real thing.
Budget for post-production: even large productions needed weeks, many passes and conventional visual effects.
Be open about it: hidden AI tends to get spotted anyway, and since August 2026 disclosure is required in the EU for convincingly realistic content.
Test before you commit: style frames and motion tests show early whether the look suits the brand.

Examples from Syntax Motion

Our own work is spec work so far, made without a client: product commercials for invented brands, and a few films as a free take on known brands that were not involved. They show which motifs AI handles well today.

Volt Hydration, spec work for an invented drinks brand.

Pantheone: “Not From This World, But For It”, spec work.

More of our work is under brand films, and what a commercial costs is set out under what a commercial costs.

Frequently asked questions

Which well-known brands have published AI commercials?

Documented examples are Coca-Cola with Christmas commercials in 2024 and 2025, Toys"R"Us with a Sora brand film in 2024, McDonald's Netherlands in 2025, Heinz with “A.I. Ketchup” in 2022 and Lacalut in 2025 with the first fully AI-generated TV commercial in Germany.

Why was the Coca-Cola AI commercial criticised?

Many viewers found the 2024 commercial soulless and missed the warmth of the 1995 original. Creatives objected that no animators were hired. One X post carrying the commercial still passed 56 million views according to NBC News.

Why did McDonald's pull its AI commercial?

McDonald's Netherlands withdrew its Christmas commercial in December 2025 after criticism on social media. Viewers objected to the artificial look and the bleak view of Christmas. The company said that for many guests it is the most wonderful time of the year.

Are AI commercials cheaper than a shoot?

Usually yes, but not automatically. The cases above show that large AI productions still took weeks and many passes. In our experience an AI production at studio level costs around a quarter of a comparable shoot and runs three to four times faster, and the saving comes from dropping the shoot day, not from skipping the work.

Sources

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