This holiday, Coca-Cola's customers make the commercial. Hundreds of thousands of them, each finished, each shared, and the best one airs on national television.
Ritual Ads® is the world’s first Cinematic Intelligence Studio, and Ritual Engine is the operating layer under it. One governed system that carries a brief to performance across any AI model, with every prompt, reference, tool and iteration on the record.
Ritual Ads is the engine behind campaigns, pitches and previsualizations for Kraft Heinz, Frito-Lay, Pizza Hut, Restaurant Brands International with Burger King, Popeyes and Tim Hortons, In-N-Out, Pringles, Campbell's, Unilever and Jack in the Box. The shape of the work never changes: a brief goes in; strategy, boards and finished film come out.
A global launch that sold out in hours, a national campaign on the largest screen in Times Square, and a retailer's first cinematic campaign on air. Every card opens its full case study on ritualads.com.
In · A national campaign to launch her new skin care product on Shopify, turning five years of clinical research into a luxury story, without a single practical set.
Out · The commercial, with not a single practical set used in production; midway through post-production she asked for a higher-resolution output for the largest screen in Times Square.
The result · A Times Square debut on the largest screen, seen by 1.5 million people daily, and three major publications.
In · Reebok's signature-shoe launch for Angel Reese, the most followed WNBA player across all social media.
Out · A production-ready previsualization delivered within 90 minutes, then the cinematic commercial built on that roadmap for the global launch.
The result · The Angel Reese 1 sold out globally within hours of going live, all three colorways, one of Reebok's fastest product launches in recent history.
"This could rewrite the playbook for sports marketing."Marla Tellez, Fox News
In · Australia's largest online furniture retailer imagined its first cinematic brand campaign as magical realism: a woman steps through a door in her living room wall and the world begins to answer her.
Out · Every room, move and transition mapped before cameras rolled; the actress's real performance stayed untouched while the Temple & Webster world grew around her, furnished entirely from the brand's catalog of over 200,000 products.
The result · The brand's first cinematic brand campaign launched nationally in July 2026 across broadcast, CTV and digital, in 30 and 15 second cuts.
"Without you guys, this ad is not even going to air. You've smashed it!"Temple & Webster
Our research system read 3,200 public documents about Coca-Cola and 17 competitors this summer: 2,900 comments, replies and community threads, the brand's own posts, its ads and the press, mapped by meaning. The finding in one line: Coca-Cola's demand problem is not awareness; it is ownership of the moments that awareness creates. Sponsorships and promotions produce nearly three quarters of the talk. Loyalty and ritual are nearly silent. The market rewards twelve kinds of post, and Coca-Cola is present in none of them.
ROWS · the format · COLUMNS · the hook · RED · rewarded by the audience, brand absent · engagement-weighted, 180 days · Backlot
"this is cute, that 100% AI was not"
"day 1 of asking for you not to use ai for your christmas ad"
"you see how easy it was to not use ai for an ad? you see how much better people like this?"
"Sound like the host at the table, not the logo on the backdrop. Avoid anything that makes people ask whether the ad is real."
The opportunity the data names: a simple action people can try, film, match, remix and tag, hosted by the brand, answered by the brand, and made by the people who are asking whether the ads are real. That is exactly what a fan-made holiday commercial is.
Coca-Cola remade "Holidays Are Coming" with AI in 2024 and again in 2025. Consumers who saw the films without knowing scored both at the top of the scale. The public conversation, which knew, turned on who made them. Coca-Cola's leadership has said on the record it will keep using AI. The open question is who holds the pen.
| The films | Secret Level, Silverside and The Wild Card each made a version with AI video models; the US spot carried a small "Created with Real Magic AI" label. (Coca-Cola, Forbes, MediaPost) |
| The reaction | "Soulless" and "devoid of any actual creativity" (NBC News). The post that carried it has 61 million views today; Alex Hirsch's reply, 54,000 likes. Coca-Cola hid the comments on its YouTube upload. (NBC News, MediaPost) |
| The test | System1 scored the 80-second cut 5.9 of 6, "exceptional", with 3% contempt: the panel was not told it was AI. Social listening found 83% of the conversation neutral. (MediaPost, Truescope) |
| The films | Two AI versions again, Secret Level and Silverside; 70,000 clips made for the finished spot, about 100 people, a month instead of a year. (Coca-Cola, Futurism citing the Wall Street Journal) |
| The reaction | "Sparks backlash, again" (Forbes). A thread with 10,000 upvotes in a week. Positive share of the conversation fell from 23.8% to 10.2% after the launch, and it was still the most talked-about Christmas ad of the year. (Know Your Meme, CARMA, Sprout Social) |
| The line | "The genie is out of the bottle, and you're not going to put it back in." Pratik Thakar, Global VP and Head of Generative AI. "One of our top-tested ads in history, period." Islam ElDessouky, Global VP Creative. (The Hollywood Reporter, Marketing Dive) |
THE SPLIT · the same two ads, scored by a panel that was not told and discussed by a public that was · System1 (MediaPost Nov 2024, System1 Nov 2025), CARMA (Marketing-Interactive Nov 2025)
The objection to the 2024 and 2025 holiday films was never the technology. It was that the creativity seemed taken away from people. So give it to them. A brand-safe Creative Engine, built and run by Ritual Ads, where any fan directs a broadcast-grade Coca-Cola commercial from a phone, shares it with their own people, and the best one airs. Not Coca-Cola versus its customers: Coca-Cola and its customers, together.
Made in August 2026 from the same brand-safe Creative Engine the campaign would open to the public: a city with no color, one bottle passed around the planet, the polar bears in wool, and Santa's visit proven by a seven-year-old. Four different fans could have directed them. That is the range the contest runs on. Thirty seconds each, sound on.
A city printed in silent ink. The season lives inside one bottle, louder and softer in her hands, until she drinks it and the color arrives.
One bottle, one continuous orbit around the planet, a real hand holding it in every frame as the whole world's holidays rotate through. It comes home unopened.
A knitted cub follows one red thread through the longest night of the year. Every frame in wool, the town square under snow, the script embroidered at the end.
A kid works Christmas morning like a case file: the boot print, the crumbs, the bottle on the sill, and finds what every kid is after. Evidence.
Also on the record · nine more Coca-Cola films from July 2026, the Cold Opens, every one of them a frame on the door of this page.
No software, no editing skill, no cost to the fan. Coca-Cola sponsors every creation credit; the Engine's brand checks do the rest. Press a step to see what the fan sees.
The Creative Engine is not an open text box. Ritual Ads builds it with Coca-Cola's brand team: the places, products and characters are baked in, and the checks make an off-brand frame impossible. Fans cannot break the brand. The walls are the canvas.
| Places | The truck route at dusk. Grandma's kitchen. The town square under snow. Every set pre-approved and pre-lit. |
| Products | The contour bottle, the can, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar. Geometry, condensation and the script locked. Never warped, never wrong. |
| Characters | Santa and the polar bears, exactly on model, with a roster built to grow through licensed partners. |
| Automated brand review | Every result is scored against brand standards before the fan sees it. Off-model output is remade, not published. |
| Human moderation | Nothing enters the public gallery without trained review. Trust and safety built for a family brand. |
| Content rules | No politics, no competitors, no real public figures, nothing unsafe. Invisible to good-faith creators, immovable to everyone else. |
| Format lock | Approved durations, aspect ratios, end cards and audio beds only. Every output is airable and shareable by design. |
The structure of the greatest fan-made campaigns, rebuilt for the first season in which any fan can make something broadcast-worthy. The calendar works back from November 9.
Dec 23 · the air date. The winning commercial premieres in national primetime with a New Year's Eve encore. Headline two, and the winner's whole life.
| The prize | Who | What |
|---|---|---|
| Your commercial becomes Coca-Cola's holiday commercial | Grand prize · one | Airs in national primetime, Christmas week, with the creator's name on screen. $25,000 cash. A premiere trip to Atlanta and World of Coca-Cola, family included. |
| The Real Magic Getaway | Second place · one | $10,000 cash plus a holiday trip for four, anywhere Coca-Cola is sold. Which is everywhere. |
| The People's Choice | Fan favorite · one | $10,000 for the spot with the most community votes, decided purely by the audience. |
| The Sharemaker | Most viral · one | $10,000 for the highest verified organic reach across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. |
| The Craft Awards | Judges' choice · three | $5,000 each for story, craft and holiday feeling, chosen by the creator-judge panel. |
| The Academy Class | Top 100 finalists | An invitation to the Real Magic Creative Academy, a year of Coca-Cola, and finalist credentials in the Engine. |
| The judging | How |
|---|---|
| Round one · the people | Gallery voting plus verified social engagement select the Top 100. The audience, not the brand, decides who advances. That single design choice is the shield. |
| Round two · the checks | Automated brand scoring plus human review narrows to a Top 20. Every finalist verified airable, rights-clean and on model. |
| Round three · the panel | Beloved creators, filmmakers and Coca-Cola marketing leadership score story, craft and holiday feeling to crown the winners. |
| The rules, built clean | |
|---|---|
| Open to fans 18+ | Legal residents of the U.S. in wave one. Ready for Canada, the UK, Australia and EU markets in wave two. |
| Free to enter | No purchase necessary. Coca-Cola sponsors every creation credit, keeping the contest clean under U.S. sweepstakes and contest law. |
| Rights pre-cleared | Every visual element is licensed inside the Engine. Entrants grant broadcast rights on submission. No clearance scramble before air. |
| Insiders excluded | Employees of The Coca-Cola Company, Ritual Ads, affiliates and their households are ineligible. Template rules supplied for counsel review. |
Three engines run at once: creators share their own spots, the gallery and the vote draw a crowd, and the story earns the press. Every assumption below is a control. Move it and the season reprices.
| The Engine | Coca-Cola's places, products and characters baked in; the mark, the bottle and the script locked in every frame; weekly themed asset drops through the season. |
| The brand checks | Automated review on every result, human moderation before anything goes public, trust and safety built for a family brand. |
| The stage | The official gallery, community voting and leaderboards; judging operations, verification and winner delivery; broadcast-ready masters of the winning spot. |
| No production budget | The fans make the films. The Engine makes them airable. |
| No media plan to fund | The creators are the distribution. Media spend on the winner is optional. |
| No platform to license | Ritual Ads builds and runs the Engine, the checks and the stage as part of the partnership. |
THE SLIVER · the grey bar is one month of advertising, the red sliver at its left edge is the whole season
Every time a brand handed the pen to its fans, the fans showed up. Coca-Cola's own record is the strongest of all. Those contests asked for a still, a flavor name or a finished film. This one asks for a sentence.
What is new this year: the fan's own finished commercial. The 2023 platform made stills. The 2024 Create Real Magic made a holiday card and a chat with Santa. Doritos asked fans to shoot and edit. This asks for a sentence and gives back a broadcast-ready :30 with the fan's name on it, then a vote, a prize and an air date.
A working mock-up is live today. The fan describes an idea, tags the official characters and products with @, picks a look, and gets a real 15-second vertical film in one to six minutes. The gallery shows what everyone else made, with the sentence they typed under every film. In the season, every film in the gallery carries a share button, a vote count and the fan's name.
THE MOCK-UP · make your own Coca-Cola ad: the text box, the @ tags, nine looks, a camera choice, then the gallery · OPEN THE PORTAL IN A NEW TAB →
What the season adds to the mock-up: sign-in and per-person daily limits, the brand review before a film is shown, the share button and #RealMagicMadeByYou, the vote, the leaderboard, the 16:9 broadcast master of every finalist, and the fan's name in the credits. The mock-up is the front door; the section above is the house behind it.
A working prototype, with Coca-Cola's places, products and characters live inside it, is ready to put in your hands today. If this season is already committed, the same build lands as next year's Create Real Magic, or augments what is already in motion.
| This week | This deck to marketing. A live demo on request: create a finished Coca-Cola holiday spot, in the room, in under ten minutes. |
| By October 2 | Greenlight. Ritual Ads begins asset baking, brand-check tuning, and the contest rules go to counsel. |
| By October 26 | Closed beta with 500 invited creators. Brand thresholds certified with Coca-Cola's brand team. |
| November 9 | The Engine opens to the world, and the audience starts writing the most talked-about holiday campaign of the year. |