SIGNALS FROM THE SEASON
What Christmas Revealed About Trust, Humanity, and Marketing
As the holiday season fades and marketers begin shaping the year ahead, a few Christmas campaigns linger — not because they “won” the season, but because of how audiences reacted to them.
- A test of how much discomfort audiences will tolerate.
- A test of where AI is accepted — and where it still isn’t.
- And a test of how trust is formed when technology accelerates faster than culture.
These questions build directly on themes we explored earlier this season in our holiday advertising analysis — the rise of chaos, imperfection, and human messiness as an antidote to over-polished sameness. What followed, however, revealed a deeper paradox.
Signal One: When Meaning Is Clear, Discomfort Is Allowed
Santa in a Bulletproof Vest
The Finnish Peace Foundation’s image of Santa Claus wearing a bulletproof vest deliberately unsettled a universal symbol of comfort and innocence.
The reaction was intense — but it centered on meaning, not manipulation. Audiences debated the message, not the legitimacy of its creation.
Signal:
Clear human intent and values earn emotional permission — even when the message is uncomfortable.
Signal Two: When Humanity Feels Simulated, Trust Collapses
McDonald’s Netherlands
McDonald’s Netherlands attempted to capture the chaos of the holidays — traffic jams, missed moments, stress — positioning McDonald’s as a place of calm. The insight aligned perfectly with what many people actually experience at Christmas.
Images from the McDonald’s Netherlands 2025 Christmas AI Commercial- now pulled.
But the execution mattered. Created entirely with generative AI, the film sparked discomfort, uncanny reactions, and broader anxiety about authenticity and creative labor. Within days, it was pulled.
Signal:
Audiences may embrace imperfection — but not when humanity itself feels synthetic. In emotionally sacred moments, trust collapses quickly when the human hand disappears.
A Parallel Signal: When AI Is Allowed to Play Santa
Mirakl, Flip, and B2B Holiday AI
At the same time, a quieter trend unfolded — largely on LinkedIn and YouTube. B2B platforms such as Mirakl and Flip used Santa not as a nostalgic symbol, but as a metaphor for impossible scale and operational overload.
Mirakl’s fully AI-generated film, “Santa Quits,” reframed Santa as an overwhelmed operator rather than a mythic figure. AI wasn’t impersonating emotion — it was demonstrating infrastructure.
Images from Mirakl’s AI-generated film “Santa Quits.”
Signal:
AI is broadly accepted when it augments systems and scale — and resisted when it attempts to replace human presence in emotionally loaded storytelling.
A Counterpoint: Stewardship Still Matters
The Grinch Goes Social
A telling counterpoint emerged in the resurgence of Dr. Seuss’ Grinch as a social-first cultural figure.
Rather than relying on generative AI, Dr. Seuss Enterprises invested in human performance, physical craft, and careful stewardship of voice — placing the Grinch firmly in modern pop culture while preserving the character’s original ethos.
The result was relevance without backlash.
Signal:
Audiences aren’t resisting modernization or irreverence. They’re responding to responsible stewardship — especially when legacy characters and emotionally loaded symbols are involved.
The Outer Edge of Permission: Coca-Cola and AI at Christmas
A final signal emerged in Coca-Cola’s decision to double down on AI-generated Christmas advertising for a second consecutive year. Few brands are as deeply embedded in the emotional architecture of the holidays — from Santa Claus to the iconic Christmas trucks — and few have faced as much criticism for experimenting with AI in that space.
Images from Coca-Cola’s AI Christmas Commercials- 2025 and 2024
Public reaction has been polarized. Critics described the work as soulless, uncanny, or at odds with the brand’s promise of “Real Magic.” Yet Coca-Cola has remained unapologetic, citing strong engagement, top-tier testing scores, and positive results with broader audiences who respond to the story rather than the technology behind it.
Here, the signal is nuanced but critical: extraordinary brand equity can absorb experimentation that would damage most brands. Even so, Coca-Cola hedged its bets — pairing AI-driven executions with more traditional, human-crafted storytelling.
For most marketers, Coca-Cola’s experience is not a green light. It is the outer edge of what’s possible — not the norm.
A Lighter Signal—More Wink than Waypoint
A few soda brands leaned into novelty this season, experimenting with scent as a playful extension of the holiday experience.
Olipop introduced soda-scented wrapping paper, while Mug Root Beer launched a tongue-in-cheek cologne, developed (at least in spirit) with its dog mascot as “chief sniffer.”
Clever? Absolutely. Directional? Not quite.
These ideas generate smiles and shares, but they don’t meaningfully reshape the brand relationship. They sit at the outer edge of what’s possible—pleasant reminders that not every holiday idea needs to carry strategic weight.
What This Means for 2026
These campaigns weren’t contradictions. They were responses to the same cultural truth: audiences are stressed, overstimulated, and craving reassurance.
As brands move deeper into an AI-enabled future, the question isn’t whether to provoke or comfort — but whether audiences can still recognize human judgment, values, and responsibility behind the work.
Christmas, once again, revealed more than it intended to.
