Coca-Cola’s innovative ‘Create Real Magic’ holiday campaign, powered by Microsoft Azure, has successfully engaged over 1 million consumers across 43 markets and 4 global regions in just 60 days. The campaign utilized Azure’s open ecosystem and Azure AI Foundry’s global speech services infrastructure to create a custom model for Coca-Cola’s iconic Santa Claus, enabling real-time conversations in 26 languages with sub-millisecond performance.
The Challenge and Solution
The campaign aimed to create a two-way dialogue with Santa, marking a new frontier in Coca-Cola’s ability to quickly launch marketing campaigns across multiple countries and languages. By leveraging Azure’s capabilities, Coca-Cola replicated their beloved Santa in digital 3D, enabled real-time conversations, and created personalized musical snow globes that consumers could instantly share.
Key Technologies Used
- Azure AI Foundry: Provided the AI toolchain for developing and testing the application
- Azure AI Speech: Simplified the process with prebuilt multimodal and multilingual capabilities
- Azure Container Apps: Hosted the campaign’s back end and front end, ensuring reliability and scalability
- Azure Functions: Simplified serverless workflow orchestrations across AI, data, and event sources
Achieving Success
The campaign’s success was driven by Azure’s interoperability, which unified diverse technologies and enabled seamless integration with third-party solutions. Azure AI Foundry played a crucial role in managing and deploying AI models at scale, while Azure AI Speech supported natural multilingual conversations.
Measurable Impact
- Over 1 million users interacted with Santa across 43 markets
- Personalized snow globes were created and shared widely on social media
- The campaign reinforced Coca-Cola’s image as an innovative, customer-centric brand
“When I saw videos of kids giggling as Santa spoke to them, and families bonding over their snow globes, I knew we had created more than just a campaign. We were creating memories.” – Pratik Thakar, VP and Global Head of Generative AI at Coca-Cola
The ‘Create Real Magic’ campaign demonstrates how cloud migration and AI integration can drive innovation, efficiency, and customer engagement. With Azure, Coca-Cola achieved unprecedented global scale and personalization, setting a new standard for future marketing campaigns.
