Episode Categories:
Resources:
Join the discussion: Ask Jordan, Pratik and Marco questions on AI
Upcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineup
Connect with Jordan Wilson: LinkedIn Profile
Try Our Free AI Prompting Course: Register for our free Prime, Prompt, and Polish AI Course!
Leveraging AI for Magical Consumer Experiences: A Close Look at Coca Cola's Latest Campaign
In the bustling age of heightened customer expectations and technological advancements, creating memorable experiences is no longer an option; it's a necessity. Companies are hunting for extraordinary ways to delight their customers and set themselves apart in the crowded marketplace. One company leading the way in imaginative customer engagement is the Coca-Cola Company with its innovative 'Create Real Magic' campaign.
This campaign demonstrates the exciting possibilities when artificial intelligence (AI) is leveraged for consumer engagement, using an AI-powered Santa to create a unique Christmas experience. The technology is indeed advanced, but the crux of its success lies in improved customer connections with an authentic, nostalgic element at its core.
Reviving Nostalgia with Cutting-edge Technology
Coca-Cola successfully marries its rich history with the prospect of AI, breathing new life into the classic image of the Coca-Cola Santa. Bringing the 1931 Santa to this modern era of digitization creates a distinctive Christmas experience tied deeply to the brand's heritage.
The creation of a digital twin of Santa, capable of real-time conversation in 26 different languages, demonstrates how AI can transcend boundaries. Attention to detail, such as the specific dialects and Santa's unique tone, lends an air of authenticity that resonates with consumers on a global scale.
Producing Value beyond Productivity
While AI has been primarily associated with productivity and time-saving benefits, this campaign shows that AI can do much more. The real-time, unique conversations between consumers and the AI Santa create deeper engagement.
This goes beyond the realm of chatbots and Q&A setups, incorporating digital experiences where the AI interacts and even creates something – in this case, a personalized snow globe based on each consumer's Christmas memory. This level of interaction propels the AI from merely answering questions to actually tailoring experiences for consumers.
Promoting Trust with Controlled Creativity
As businesses venture into the realms of AI for direct consumer engagement, trustworthiness becomes paramount. It's hence crucial to have systems in place to maintain reliable consumer experiences. With the 'Create Real Magic' campaign, measures are implemented to ensure the AI's safe and appropriate interaction, showcasing responsible use of AI in a consumer-facing context.
The Future of Marketing with Generative AI
Through their successful 'Create Real Magic' campaign, Coca-Cola provides a fascinating example of how businesses can leverage generative AI. From creating transformative customer experiences to reimagining classic assets with a dash of AI, the possibilities seem endless. As we look forward, businesses can prepare to tap into this innovative approach to stay ahead of technological advancements and harness the potential of AI to connect with consumers in a personally meaningful way. The key takeaway is that blending heritage with innovation does not only make a great marketing campaign but also fosters authentic, memorable experiences for consumers. Therefore, for all business leaders and decision-makers out there, now's the time to start thinking about how your organization can integrate AI and ignite a transformative journey.
Topics Covered in This Episode
1. AI and Coca Cola
2. AI beyond Chatbots
3. AI and Microsoft Azure Foundry
4. AI Usage in Coca Cola Campaigns
Podcast Transcript
Jordan Wilson [00:00:15]:
You can create something magical with AI. I think a lot of times when we talk about artificial intelligence and generative AI and now we're talking so much Copilot, we think about saving time. We think about productivity. And don't get me wrong, generative AI does all of those things, but I think you can go more. We always talk about how can you connect more, with your consumers in an a in an age where sometimes it seems like AI makes things impersonal. Well, we're gonna be talking about that today and a lot more on everyday AI. What's going on y'all? My name is Jordan Wilson and I'm the host of everyday AI and this is a daily live stream podcast and free daily newsletter helping us all not just learn about AI, but how we can keep up and get ahead. And we do that by talking with some of the smartest people in the world and today is no different.
Jordan Wilson [00:01:07]:
So if you're joining us on the podcast, thank you as always. Make sure to check out your show notes, and go to your everydayai.com to sign up for that free daily newsletter. Before we get started, have to give a quick shout out to our partners at Microsoft WorkLab. So why should you listen to the WorkLab podcast from Microsoft? Because it's the place to find actionable insights to guide your organization's AI transformation. Tune in to learn how to think more creatively about unlocking the full potential of the technology. That's w o r k l a b. No spaces. Available wherever you get your podcast.
Jordan Wilson [00:01:44]:
Alright. Let's get to the show. If you're here to hear the daily news, that'll be in the newsletter as well. We are actually live at the Microsoft Ignite conference here in Chicago. So our livestream audience sees that and I'm joined by 2 very smart people and I'm excited to talk about how we can create some magical experiences with AI. So, please help me welcome, Pratik Thakur. He is the global VP of generative AI at The Coca Cola Company. Pratik, thank you for joining us.
Jordan Wilson [00:02:13]:
Thank you.
Pratik Thakar [00:02:14]:
Thank you.
Jordan Wilson [00:02:15]:
Alright. And then we have Marco Casalena, the VP of products for Azure AI at Microsoft. Marco, thank you for joining us.
Marco Casalaina [00:02:22]:
Thank you for having me.
Jordan Wilson [00:02:23]:
Alright. We have a a a rare 2 for 1 treat here at Everyday AI. So I'm excited about this. And, you know, like I said, we are still live here at the Ignite conference in Chicago, but I'm I'm excited to talk about creating magic. So, we're gonna be putting this in the newsletter, so don't worry because you're gonna hear a description of something that I think is really cool. I did it myself this morning, but, Pratik, tell us a little bit about this, create real magic campaign from the Coca Cola Company.
Pratik Thakar [00:02:50]:
Sure. Sure. So Create Real Magic, we wanted to give an invitation to our consumers globally to bring Christmas experience and that feeling to their daily life or their kind of Christmas experience. Now how do we bring that and make it very distinctive? Right? First thing, you know, Coca Cola created Santa the way we see Santa and we understand Santa, So we took our Santa, San Blom Santa from our archive, and we wanted that Santa to be conservative. So we knew that conversational AI is going to be big. Conversational AI is going to create unique experiences, and we wanted to be first in that. So one side, we want to stay ahead of the curve in this, the way we adopt technology in our marketing. But the other side, we wanted to root it into our who we are and what's our heritage.
Pratik Thakar [00:03:56]:
And that's where the Santa comes in. And we knew that consumers and when I was young, I always wanted to talk to Santa. Now when you go to a a shopping mall or, any any festivals, Christmas festival markets, you can go to Santa, you shake hand, you get a gift, but you don't have a opportunity to have a conversation. You can't ask questions and sit down. So what if we greet bring that experience and everyone will enjoy that and that's only Coke can do. So that was the starting point. And then, we work with Microsoft team and many other partners to bring that to life. We create a digital twin, 3 d avatar of Santa.
Pratik Thakar [00:04:43]:
Then we bring Microsoft tools to make him truly multilingual. So it transcends the boundary. It actually speaks your language from Japanese to Spanish to German to French to, to even Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese. Right? So very specific dialect and so 26 different language. He needs to speak in special Santa tone. And this time, first time we brought Santa from our hive. Otherwise, you have always seen Santa in a static mood mode. So we wanted to bring him in the right way.
Pratik Thakar [00:05:23]:
So, that's where we work together train the models. And and that was a great experience working with Microsoft team and everyone else. We worked with Leonardo AI in Australia. They actually so once you talk to Santa, and Santa will ask you about your Christmas, memories. And once you you know, every conversation is unique. Yeah. It's real time conversation like the way we are having conversation. So once you give memory, he will probe you.
Pratik Thakar [00:05:57]:
He will ask you more details and and then he will say, okay. I'm going to make a snow globe for you. The snow globe, which gets created based on your conversation and your Christmas memory, on your social media or send it to your loved ones. So that's the whole journey. But then, to bring this together, there was no real off the shelf tools were available. So we wanted to work with our partners and that's where Microsoft opened up their R and D doors for us. And, our team worked, our our tech and emerging technology team, our marketing technology team worked with Microsoft to make this happen. So and and and that's now you can it's live.
Pratik Thakar [00:06:49]:
You can you can try it out.
Jordan Wilson [00:06:51]:
Yeah. And I I did it this morning. It was delightful. I haven't talked to Santa, obviously, in, like, 30 some years. But I I wanna get back to that in a second, Pratik. But, Marco, I wanna ask you, because like I started the show off, I think when people talk about AI, sometimes it gets a a bad rap. Right? It it like, people think of it as very impersonal. And and I don't know.
Jordan Wilson [00:07:15]:
When I was talking to Santa this morning, I thought it was pretty personal. Right? It it it gives you some emotions. But maybe could you talk about it a little bit from the, Azure perspective, and how, you know, all of this new technology that we're hearing about, here at Ignite, it is for more than just saving time.
Marco Casalaina [00:07:34]:
Yeah. Absolutely. You know, what's really interesting about what you guys did, and I also talked to Santa, and it made me a snow globe here in Chicago of the magnificent magnificent mile and that kind of thing. And, you know, one of the things that this new technology enables, and that we're enabling now with the Azure AI Foundry is to think beyond the chatbot. Yeah. Everybody thinks of AI is, like, you type to it, it types to you, kinda ChatGPT style. And then what you guys did is way beyond that. Right? I mean, the fact is you could talk to this thing.
Marco Casalaina [00:08:03]:
I mean, you have it in 26 different languages. The underlying AI can speak even more than that. Mhmm. Right? We had it speaking Telugu this morning. We had it speaking Hindi this morning. So, you know, this technology can speak in all these different languages. It can kinda personalize its message, and it doesn't just have to be a chatbot. You know? It can be this kind of interactive experience where, indeed, you are talking to Santa.
Marco Casalaina [00:08:25]:
I don't know. I hope you can post the URL over here so everybody on the
Pratik Thakar [00:08:28]:
on the
Jordan Wilson [00:08:28]:
line will try this
Marco Casalaina [00:08:29]:
out. Yeah.
Jordan Wilson [00:08:30]:
Yeah. And and and, you know, you brought up a good point there, you know, Marco, in that AI is multimodal. Right? I, like, I I I think it took so long for many, even enterprise companies, to to fully get on board with generative AI that, you know, initially, people just thought of it as, you know, bits and bytes. The, you know, they thought of it as just text. You know, can you speak a little bit, you know, before we dive back into the, create real magic campaign? Can you speak a little bit on, you know, what the Azure, you know, the new foundry, offers and even the fact that now it's multimodal?
Marco Casalaina [00:09:06]:
Right. Well, the foundry offers I mean, there is a web portal in there, and you can kinda go in there and try out all these different services. You could try the real time playground where you can talk to it and that kind of thing. The multimodal capabilities, you know, put in images and have it, you know, cogitate on that. So there's this web portal. There is an SDK. It's kind of the programming model that you use to actually integrate this stuff into your applications. And the other thing that we announced here at Ignite is the new agent service.
Marco Casalaina [00:09:32]:
Because when you think about it, I mean, where AI is going now is because, you know, it's not just a chatbot, but it's also not just question answering either. Now it's going to a place where it's gonna take action on your behalf. I mean, yesterday, in front of a live audience here of 100 of people, I built an agent on the fly that can make bookings in my Outlook calendar. It actually takes actions on my behalf. It can do all these kinds of things, you know, connect to third party systems and Outlook and Dynamics and, you know, SAP and all these things. It can do stuff for you. It doesn't just have to answer questions anymore. And in the case of, of your application, I mean, it did something for me.
Marco Casalaina [00:10:09]:
It made me a snow globe. Yeah.
Jordan Wilson [00:10:11]:
And and maybe, Pratik, let's talk about that a little more because, you know, you know, when I asked you the first question, you talked about, you know, kind of the history of, you know, Santa and Coca Cola and going back to 1931. As strange as it sounds, I think some of my earliest thoughts as a kid of Santa were probably in those very, you know, nostalgic and classic Coca Cola commercials with Santa. So can you talk a little bit, about that process and maybe even some of the challenges, right, of still, you know, paying, kind of homage to that nostalgic, you you know, Santa Claus of old of Coca Cola Company and still preserving that and giving consumers this new experience. Talk a little bit about what that was like in the process to still make
Pratik Thakar [00:10:56]:
it that authentic Coca Cola Santa. Absolutely. Absolutely. So one thing at Coca Cola Marketing, we we, take care and we're very obsessed about roots into our heritage and who we are. So that's why you have seen that Coca Cola logo has not changed from very, very long. It's 140 year, old or young company. But the enterprise has that belief that it's an icon. It's not logo.
Pratik Thakar [00:11:29]:
It's a pop culture icon, and so is Santa.
Jordan Wilson [00:11:38]:
And let me give a quick shout out to our partners again from Microsoft WorkLab. So why should you listen to the WorkLab podcast from Microsoft? Well, it explores the questions business leaders are asking. How can they guide their organization's AI adoption journey? How can AI help them maximize value and create new products in business models? How should they help their teams reskill for this new era of work? And why is it important to be completely transparent about when and how you use AI? So find the answers on WorkLab. That's worklab, no spaces, available wherever you get your podcast.
Pratik Thakar [00:12:19]:
Santa is a pop culture character, and everyone has their Santa stories and their imageries and all those elements. And now we are talking to new generation. So we need to look at things from how we bring, we keep the connected to who we are, our originality and our authentic perspective of the brand, but then bring those experiences and engagement in much more cutting edge way. So that was the starting point. Now with that, Santa, yes, we went we spent a lot of time in our archive what was the original painting and multiple paintings and how his dress looks like, what is different than others, other imagery of Santa around. How we can create this authentic Santa from 1931 and bring it to so that lot of work from our design team, our global design team. So that's one thing. Working with this company called Milic Production in Germany, they helped us create this 3 d avatar, digital twin.
Pratik Thakar [00:13:32]:
And then, we wanted to make sure that this Santa is not a kind of a one time you can have conversation and get bored. So it's it's very authentic, it's real time. You can ask any question, you can ask any it's not just no globe related question, but you can ask a question about reindeer or what's the weather look in Lapland or or all all sorts of why how he distributes the gifts.
Jordan Wilson [00:13:59]:
Oh, interesting. I should have grilled my Santa.
Pratik Thakar [00:14:01]:
So yeah. So you can ask those kind of a very, authentic questions, whatever comes to your mind, related to Santa and Christmas, and he will he will keep he will converse with you. Right? Christmas, and he will he'll keep he will converse with you. Right? So that element of engagement is very important. That's a deep engagement because people come to this kind of platform. They put their data, they they come. We want them to have a very unique and authentic experience, which only Coca Cola can do.
Jordan Wilson [00:14:29]:
Yeah. And speaking of experiences, Pratik, I wanna ask you, maybe zoom out a little bit because it seems like, you know, Coca Cola Company, one of the most iconic brands ever, has really leaned into generative AI. And, right, you're you're very involved in that. I I remember seeing, you you know, the AI, Coca Cola flavors. And, you you know, recently, I know there's there was even, you know, a couple series of AI commercials. Right? Tapping into the, you know, nostalgic, you know, commercials of around, Christmas time. But maybe talk about maybe some of the other efforts, that the Coca Cola Company has been making around generative AI and, you know, and the response too because everyone's talking about those, you know, the AI commercials right now. I thought they were great, by the way.
Pratik Thakar [00:15:13]:
So Thank you. So, we started working with GenAI in mid 2022, before GPT got launched. Actually, we worked with stability AI, in preparation of our another campaign called the masterpiece. You may have seen that film where the bottle travels through different paintings, and we are working with Andy Warhol Foundation and many other art estates. So that's where we needed to actually bring and sophistication of perfection of the art, right? And every art we were working with, we needed to understand that brushstrokes and the art came from different genre, different century, different time, we had to understand and that's where Jenny I started, we started using. And that's how it was my introduction to Jenny I that way, in in practice. And then, we we were the first one to collaborate with our OpenAI in early 23. And with Bain Alliance, we went into that partnership.
Pratik Thakar [00:16:22]:
We were the first earlier when everyone was so skeptical Mhmm. About, what's GenAI and what's OpenAI UN. We went into that partnership. And then we did this, year 3,000. We created, co created, a flavor of year 3,000, the future, taste of future, with AI. So we used AI. What we want to do, again, we want to create experience, not ads. And I'll come to the story, the films you mentioned.
Pratik Thakar [00:16:57]:
Those are those films are also, coming from, 1995. 30 years back, those films got created, and we cherish them. They're part of our our our history, and we are so much proud of holidays are coming. That jingle, that song, that film, it it has its it's timeless. Mhmm. And what we wanted to do, we wanted to we said, let's take this. Now those films, some films where we create, we be the need of that film is to show reality. Mhmm.
Pratik Thakar [00:17:31]:
The real humans drinking food, drinking and eating food and all those. Some of the films requires fantastical hyper realistic treatment. Yeah. This holidays are coming. Film comes in that genre fantastical, hyper realistic. And AI as a tool does much better job in fantastical world in that type of imagination versus the realistic world.
Jordan Wilson [00:18:01]:
Sure.
Pratik Thakar [00:18:01]:
So that's why we needed to we said, okay. For this particular project, GenAI makes perfect sense. So we need to use every technology for right reason. And for this one, it made perfect sense to us. Then we actually went to 3 different production studios. One in LA, one in San Francisco, a tech lab actually, and one in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Got it. And we said we gave them the brief.
Pratik Thakar [00:18:30]:
We said, look, we want to reimagine this with technology to use whatever technology you need. We actually gave them some guidance about using RunwayML or Luma Labs or Leonardo AI because they they are our kind of long term partners. But the other side, we told them that stay on the narrative, keep your human human create creative directors decides. So all the creative decisions are made by human, but then superpower of imagination got unlocked by AI. Yeah. Right? And that's the perfect combination for any next level kind of work. You it's kind of human and machine working together. And, we thought we go to 3 and maybe couple of them or one of them will will work out well.
Pratik Thakar [00:19:23]:
All 3 worked out well. Yeah. And then all 3 had a slightly different storyline, but it stays on the same brief. Yeah. And we said, why not why don't we just take all 3 and kind of, put it out in a, to to people? And, that's what we did. Now we are really proud of that work. It has created lot of debates and discussions, and, we respect every point of view. But what we saw, lot of people are coming and saying that, my first reaction was how can why Gopala is doing this? But then when I saw it, it made sense to us.
Pratik Thakar [00:20:02]:
Yeah. And then when we saw the long version and it's kind of in its full beauty, it started working for us and kind of for them. And that's where a lot of people actually research agencies are doing their independent research Yeah. On that because the quality of whatever other benchmark we had for filmmaking, AI filmmaking, has changed now.
Jordan Wilson [00:20:25]:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Pratik Thakar [00:20:26]:
So that's one thing. Another point is, like, consumers don't think, like, hey, I'm looking at EI film or I'm looking CGI film. Consumer sees that, okay, it kind of connects with me. It has that music for this all 3 film created by real humans. Yeah.
Marco Casalaina [00:20:45]:
So we rescored music 3 times with 3
Pratik Thakar [00:20:45]:
different, group of musicians. Oh, I didn't know that.
Marco Casalaina [00:20:51]:
So so that's real human.
Pratik Thakar [00:20:51]:
Okay. Yeah. So,
Jordan Wilson [00:20:53]:
so those kind
Pratik Thakar [00:20:53]:
of a thing, it's a it's a right mix, it's a right balance where humans and machines coming together and creating something which is not yet created. Yeah. And we as a Coca Cola company want to stay ahead of the curve Yeah. And and keep pushing that well up. Yeah.
Jordan Wilson [00:21:09]:
I love that. And that's such a great example. So, you you know, alright. Let's take a quick break to shout out our partners at the Microsoft WorkLab Podcast. So why should you listen to the WorkLab Podcast from Microsoft? It explores the questions business leaders are asking. How can they guide their organization's AI adoption journey? How can I help them maximize value and create new products and business models? How should they help their team reskill for this new era of work? Why is it important to be completely transparent about when and how you use AI? Find the answers on WorkLab. That's worklab. No spaces available wherever you get your podcast.
Jordan Wilson [00:21:52]:
As we wrap up here, you know, Marco, I'm gonna ask you because Pratik just gave us a great example of, you know, one of the biggest companies in the world, how they're using generative AI and Azure and, you know, everything that we've been hearing about at the Ignite conference here to really reimagine, what their relationships look like with consumers. So how would you say or what would you encourage as we wrap up? You know, decision makers who are saying, hey. How can we start using Copilot more or Copilot better or, you know, Azure Foundry? Like, what's your takeaway, for those people listening?
Marco Casalaina [00:22:27]:
Well, I mean, taking it back to what they did with the real magic here, trustworthy AI is really the key. And, you know, you think about what you guys did. I mean, you're exposing this to the world. You expect a bunch of kids to be using this stuff. And we work together a lot on, well, we have these products that enable trustworthy AI so that it doesn't go off the rails, so that Santa doesn't say weird stuff. So that if people say weird stuff to Santa, Santa deflects it. He's like, you know what? Let's keep talking about Christmas, reindeer, and stuff like that. So I think I think key to the Azure AI Foundry and really all the AI we do is this notion of trustworthy AI.
Marco Casalaina [00:22:59]:
And that certainly is key to the success of any AI project, including Coca Cola's Real Magic.
Pratik Thakar [00:23:05]:
Absolutely, Marco. And and that's, one thing for films also. We had to work with our production studios to say what is our ethical prompting strategy. So we had given them guidelines, prompting strategy and they need to give back us, their prompts. Mhmm. So we keep that check. Because this is new. This is experiment.
Pratik Thakar [00:23:26]:
This is we are pushing the envelope, but we really need to be responsible. Yeah. So that's where our legal team, our tech team, our design team, everyone coming together and kind of protecting what we need to protect as a responsible brand and as a company. But same time, push the envelope, and let's do something new and cutting edge.
Jordan Wilson [00:23:50]:
I love that. I love that. And, you know, as as we wrap up here, y'all, I think that was a great, one two punch here of, Pratik and Marco. Just really helping us and hopefully helping you all, look at generative AI maybe in a different way. And then, you know, through this, create real magic campaign from the Coca Cola Company, I think that we all just got a very unique, firsthand perspective of ways that you can actually create real, and magical, connections with consumers. So, Marco and Pratik, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to join the Everyday AI Show. We really appreciate it.
Pratik Thakar [00:24:26]:
Thank you.
Marco Casalaina [00:24:27]:
Thank you for having us.
Jordan Wilson [00:24:28]:
Thank you. Alright. And, hey, y'all, that was a lot. And I know we are talking a lot about these campaigns, and you probably wanna go create some real magic too with the Coca Cola Santa. So make sure if you haven't already, go to your everydayai.com. Sign up for the free daily newsletter, and we're gonna be recapping and sharing some. I think we're gonna have some behind the scenes, on on how all of it was made as well. So, thank you for tuning in, and make sure to join us tomorrow and every day for more everyday AI.
Jordan Wilson [00:24:54]:
Thanks, y'all.