Create Real Magic: Coca-Cola set the rules, people made the art, AI did the drawing

Case study · Marketing 465 · AI in Marketing

Coca-Cola’s 2023 Create Real Magic platform worked because the brand decided the assets, the boundaries and the prize, and let people use AI inside that frame.

The situation

In early 2023, generative AI tools like ChatGPT and DALL-E had just gone mainstream. Brands were curious and nervous at the same time. Many in the tech community were calling for a pause on the technology, and artists were raising questions about whether their work had been used to train AI models without credit or pay.

Coca-Cola had a head start on one thing: it already had a creative platform. Its “Real Magic” brand idea, introduced in 2021, centers on shared human connection. And it had well over a century of recognizable visual assets to work with.

The challenge

Coca-Cola wanted to experiment with generative AI in public without losing control of one of the most valuable brand identities in the world. Handing the public an open AI image tool and a famous logo is a risk. The output could be off brand, offensive or simply boring.

The question was how to let people create freely while keeping the work recognizably Coca-Cola.

What they did

On March 20, 2023, Coca-Cola launched Create Real Magic, a platform built for the company by OpenAI and Bain & Company. Coca-Cola said it was the first company to work with the Bain and OpenAI services alliance. The platform combined GPT-4 for text and DALL-E for images.

The brand made the key decisions before anyone typed a prompt:

• The ingredients: creators worked with archival assets Coca-Cola chose, including the contour bottle, the Spencerian script logo, the Coca-Cola Santa Claus and the Polar Bear.
• The time frame: the platform was open in the U.S., Australia and select European markets from March 20 to March 31, 2023.
• The prize: artists could submit work for a chance to appear on Coca-Cola’s digital billboards in Times Square in New York and Piccadilly Circus in London.
• The next step: Coca-Cola said it would invite 30 creators to a three-day “Real Magic Creative Academy” at its Atlanta headquarters to co-create content, with participants credited for their work.
• The seed work: four AI artists created the first pieces to show people what was possible.

What happened

People made far more than the brand needed. Pratik Thakar, Coca-Cola’s global head of creative strategy, told VentureBeat in April 2023 that submissions were slow for the first three or four days, then climbed to 10,000 to 12,000 a day.

• About 120,000 AI-generated images were submitted during the 11-day window (VentureBeat, April 2023; Coca-Cola, November 2023).
• Fast Company reported participants from 17 countries and 300 million social media impressions when it named Coca-Cola to its 2024 Most Innovative Companies list.
• The campaign’s SABRE Awards entry, published by WARC, reported more than 316 million media impressions and won Gold.
• In November 2023, Coca-Cola brought the idea back for the holidays, letting people make AI holiday cards, and said selected creations would appear on 20 digital billboards around the world.

Why it worked

AI was not the idea. The idea was an old one: Coca-Cola’s assets belong in popular culture, and fans enjoy making things with them. AI lowered the skill barrier so more people could join in.

The guardrails did the brand work. Because everyone started from the same bottle, script, Santa and Polar Bear, even strange images still read as Coca-Cola. A short window and a famous prize gave people a reason to act now. Humans also chose which work got featured, so the brand kept editorial judgment over what represented it in public.

Coca-Cola also addressed the ethics question in part by promising to credit creators whose work it used later.

Where it gets complicated

The next year shows the limit of this approach. In November 2024, Coca-Cola released a holiday TV ad that remade its 1995 “Holidays Are Coming” spot with generative AI. This time the AI produced the finished ad itself rather than serving as a tool for fan creativity. The reaction was mixed and often harsh. Critics said it felt soulless and at odds with a brand built on authenticity, and Tim Halloran, a Georgia Tech professor who had worked on Coca-Cola brand management, compared its look to a poorly done version of The Polar Express. The production studio, Silverside AI, said a team of about 40 people made it over two months, so humans were still involved. But viewers judged the result, not the process.

There are also open questions the 2023 campaign did not settle: who owns AI-generated fan art, how training data was sourced, and whether 120,000 images is a business result or just a big number. Public reporting focuses on impressions and participation, not sales.

The marketing principle

AI works best in marketing when a clear brand strategy decides what goes in and human judgment decides what comes out. Coca-Cola’s strongest AI moment came when it used the technology to widen participation inside firm brand rules. Its most criticized moment came when AI moved closer to replacing the craft the audience expected.

Sources

• Coca-Cola Invites Digital Artists to Create Real Magic Using New AI Platform, The Coca-Cola Company (2023)
• Coca-Cola makes bubbly bets on AI for creative assets, customer service, VentureBeat (2023)
• Coke asks consumers to generate art with new AI platform, Marketing Dive (2023)
• Coca-Cola Harnesses Power of AI to Deliver Holiday Magic, The Coca-Cola Company (2023)
• This beverage giant is taking a refreshing approach to marketing with AI, Fast Company (2024)
• Coca-Cola’s AI holiday ad sparks controversy for not being the ‘real thing’, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (2024)

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