Key Takeaways
- AI became an essential part of holiday marketing in 2025, shifting from experimental tech to a core strategic tool.
- Brands are clearly split into Creative AI, Utility AI, and Anti-AI approaches, making AI strategy part of brand identity.
- AI commercials drastically reduced production costs while expanding what’s visually possible, reshaping content creation economics.
- Utility-focused AI tools proved more valuable than cinematic ads by directly reducing customer friction and improving shopping experiences.
- Human-made storytelling and authenticity remained powerful differentiators in a market saturated with AI-generated content.
How Brands Are Leveraging AI Commercials
Picture this: It’s December 2025, and while families are hanging lights and wrapping presents, marketing departments around the world are unwrapping something different—the future of creative production.
This holiday season didn’t just bring us snow and shopping. It brought us the most definitive answer yet to the biggest question in marketing: Is AI actually ready for primetime?
The 2025 holiday season became the proving ground where AI stopped being experimental and started being essential. Some brands used it for spectacle (Creative AI), others for utility (Service AI), and one scrappy challenger used it to troll the competition.
Stop holiday shopping for a second, because I’m about to show you 7 holiday ads with AI commercials that reveal where AI marketing is headed and what your brand needs to know before next year’s holiday push.
1. Coca-Cola—”The “Double Down”
The Campaign: Second year of AI-generated “Holidays Are Coming” truck spot
Coca-Cola didn’t back down after the mixed reviews of their 2024 AI commercials. For the 2025 season, they released a second fully AI-generated version of their iconic “Holidays Are Coming” truck commercial—a shot-for-shot remake of the classic 1995 ad created entirely with generative AI.
By Coca-Cola
Working with studios like Secret Level and Silverside AI, Coke produced a commercial that looked polished, felt familiar, and cost a fraction of traditional production. When consumer criticism rolled in about the “soullessness” of AI-generated content, executives openly stated, “The genie is out of the bottle.”
The Lesson: AI isn’t replacing creativity. It’s replacing production costs. Coke proved you can build worlds you can’t afford to film with AI holiday commercials. They’re betting that efficiency and scale matter more than the debate about authenticity. Whether you agree or not, they’re committed to the AI path and serve as one of the clearest AI in marketing examples this season.
2. Toys “R” Us—”The Storytelling Benchmark”
The Campaign: OpenAI Sora brand film
Even though this premiered mid-2024 at Cannes, it remained the benchmark everyone referenced throughout the 2025 holiday season. The “Origin of Toys ‘R’ Us” brand film, created with OpenAI’s Sora, showed that AI could handle emotional narrative arcs—not just flashy montage clips.
By Toys R Us
The efficiency of AI-generated video allows for unprecedented personalization in marketing campaigns. Teams can create multiple variations of video content tailored to specific demographics, geographic regions, or customer segments without exponentially increasing production costs.
3. McDonald’s Netherlands – “The Brutal Truth”
The Campaign: “The Most Terrible Time of the Year”
Here’s where things got interesting. McDonald’s Netherlands flipped the traditional festive narrative on its head with a campaign that reimagined “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” as “the most terrible time of the year.”
By TBWA/NEBOKO
Working with TBWA/NEBOKO and directing duo MAMA, McDonald’s created a fully AI-generated commercial that captured the chaos, stress, and overwhelming reality of December. Research showed that two-thirds of Dutch consumers crave more time for themselves in December, so instead of polished holiday perfection, the film showed the month as many people actually experience it: busy, chaotic, and far from flawless.
The team used AI to visualize hilariously familiar Dutch holiday-season scenes and push them further into absurdity. The result felt honest, relatable, and refreshingly human—even though it was made entirely with AI.
The Lesson: AI can visualize emotions traditional shoots can’t easily capture—especially the messy, human ones. Sometimes the best way to connect with your audience is to show them the truth, not the fantasy. AI gave McDonald’s the creative freedom to lean into chaos instead of perfection.
4. Target—”The Utility Play”
The Campaign: AI-powered gift finder and photo-scanning wish list
Target moved the AI conversation from “watching” to “doing.” Instead of creating another commercial, they launched an AI-powered gift finder in their app that allows users to describe what they’re looking for in natural language (like “My dad loves 90s house music and cooking”) and get hyper-specific gift recommendations.
By Target
They also added a feature that scans messy handwritten wish lists—yes, those crumpled pieces of paper with your kid’s terrible handwriting—and instantly converts them into a digital shopping cart.
This is “Utility AI” at its finest. Target didn’t try to wow you with cinematic visuals. They solved a real problem: the stress of holiday shopping.
The Lesson: The best AI marketing isn’t always a video. Sometimes it’s a tool that removes friction from your customer’s life. Content isn’t just video anymore. AI commercials are evolving into interactive experiences that help your customers solve problems and can be more valuable than a 30-second spot.
By Today
I didn’t expect AI commercials to change how I shop, but they did. While many focused on the typical holiday ad buzz, I found something more useful: tools that actually made my life easier.
Walmart’s Sparky and Target’s AI list scanner were not just features. They worked. I used ChatGPT to finish my gift shopping in one sitting—fresh food, party supplies, and all. It felt simple and fast.
Even platforms like eBay and Lowe’s added tools that helped me find what I needed and gave step-by-step support.
Here’s what stood out:
- Useful AI Tools: These weren’t just flashy ideas. They saved time.
- Real Impact: This was one of the best AI in marketing examples I’ve seen.
- Shift in Focus: AI holiday commercials are moving from showy to smart.
- Better Shopping Experience: The tech helped, not distracted.
The Lesson: The best AI tools don’t just sell. They solve problems. And that’s the kind of marketing I’ll remember next year too
5. Google – “The Creative Flex”
The Campaign: Holiday spots using Gemini, Veo, and Nano Banana
When you’re in the AI business, your marketing becomes your portfolio. Google’s 2025 holiday campaign, “Fuzzy’s Big Adventure,” showcased their own AI tools in action.
By Google
The spot told the story of a couple who left their daughter’s stuffed lamb on a plane and used Google’s Gemini AI, Veo video generation, and Nano Banana image editing to create a replacement and save the day. It was playful, problem-solving storytelling that demonstrated the tools rather than just talking about them.
Google also partnered with NBCUniversal to create holiday rom-com trailers that parodied familiar tropes while showing how Search saves the day. The campaigns spanned TV, YouTube, and social media, ensuring both passive and active audience engagement.
The Lesson: When you’re selling AI, show it in action. Google didn’t just advertise—they demonstrated. Their holiday campaign became a proof of concept for what their tools could do, making the technology feel accessible and useful instead of intimidating.
6. John Lewis – “The Human Rebellion”
The Campaign: “Where Love Lives”
Not every brand jumped on the AI train. John Lewis, known for their emotionally resonant holiday ads, deliberately chose tactile, emotional, human-made storytelling for their 2025 campaign.
By John Lewis
“Where Love Lives” focused on a son buying a vinyl record for his dad, sparking a journey through the father’s memories of clubbing in the 90s. It felt gritty, emotional, and real—the exact opposite of the glossy AI aesthetic dominating the season.
The campaign was a bet on “human-made” as a premium differentiator. In a world flooded with AI-generated content, John Lewis positioned authenticity and nostalgia as their competitive advantage.
The Lesson: AI is powerful, but it can’t fake nostalgia. There’s still a premium on human craft—and knowing when to use AI and when to stay human is the real skill. For deep emotional resonance, sometimes you just need a camera and a great script.
7. Zevia – “The Challenger Move”
The Campaign: “Break From Artificial”
Here’s my favorite. Zevia, a zero-sugar soda brand, saw the backlash Coca-Cola was getting for their AI commercials and turned it into a creative weapon.
By Zevia
Their holiday spot intentionally used glitchy, creepy AI visuals—Santa with too many fingers, melting polar bears, uncanny faces—to represent “artificial ingredients.” The ad then cut to crisp, real footage of people drinking Zevia, positioning their product as the authentic, natural alternative.
They used the flaws of AI to highlight the purity of their brand. It was bold, clever, and cost a fraction of what the big players were spending.
The Lesson: You don’t need a Super Bowl budget to use AI creatively. Zevia proved you can use the “weirdness” of AI as a hook to make your real product look even better. Sometimes the smartest move is to zig when everyone else is zagging.
The Takeaway: AI Commercials Are No Longer Experimental
The 2025 holiday season proved that AI isn’t a novelty anymore. AI commercials are now a strategic choice. Brands are splitting into three camps.
- Creative AI: Using AI to build spectacle and scale production (Coca-Cola, Toys “R” Us, McDonald’s)
- Utility AI: Using AI to solve customer problems and remove friction (Target, Google)
- Anti-AI Positioning: Using authenticity as a differentiator (John Lewis, Zevia)
The real question isn’t “should we use AI?” anymore. It’s “who’s wielding it, and why?”
The brands that won in 2025 didn’t just adopt AI—they knew when to use it and when to stay human. They understood that AI is a tool, not a replacement for strategy, creativity, or authentic connection.
Ready to Navigate the AI Commercial Landscape?
The brands that won in 2025 didn’t just adopt AI—they knew when to use it and when to stay human.
At JZ Creates, we help you navigate this exact landscape. Whether you need high-efficiency AI video campaigns, AI-powered content creation, or strategy that knows when to be artificial and when to be authentic, we’ve got you covered.
We combine 20+ years of creative direction with cutting-edge AI tools to deliver results that exceed expectations while maintaining cost-effectiveness. We don’t just use AI as a replacement for traditional methods—we strategically combine human creativity with AI efficiency to produce content that stands out in crowded markets.
Whether you’re planning your 2026 holiday campaign or exploring what AI can do for your brand, let’s build something that cuts through the noise.
The future isn’t about choosing AI or humanity—it’s about mastering both.
