In its 2024 Christmas campaign, Coca-Cola is relying on emotional closeness and technology to make the magic of the festive season tangible for millions of people. The "The world needs more Santas" initiative is being launched for the second time, showing how human relationships and compassion connect people. With a new digital AI snow globe users can share memories with Santa via the Coca-Cola app and send them as an animated, virtual gift. The genAI technology creates unique 3D images and experiences - a digital moment that spreads Christmas joy worldwide.

A highlight of this year's campaign is the "Voting Stop" event: Coca-Cola fans have the opportunity to vote for an additional stop of the famous Coca-Cola Christmas truck in one of the five German cities. This additional stop and the popular tour stops in cities such as Neumünster, Baden-Baden and Aachen promise festive fun for visitors, including photo opportunities with Santa and exclusive Coca-Cola gift boxes. For the first time in cooperation with DB Cargo, the truck will also travel by train to selected stops such as Berlin and Leipzig.

The legendary Christmas elements remain, but are given a new dimension: the "Holidays Are Coming" campaign appears this year as an AI-generated reinterpretation of the cult film. Coca-Cola remains true to its motto and combines tradition with innovation to create real moments of joy.

"The world needs more Santas" - Director: Pontus Lowenhielm, member of the director collective Traktor. Production company UK: Stink Films Credits: The campaign was developed by WPP Open X under the direction of VML, supported by Ogilvy and EssenceMediacom as well as Accenture and JKR.

The GfK Market Monitor Switzerland, published by GfK Switzerland AG in collaboration with over 40 leading retailers, documents an overall subdued picture in the Swiss retail sector for the first three quarters of 2024. With a slight decline of 0.2%, the market as a whole fell just short of the previous year's figure. A differentiated view shows that the food/nearfood sector is performing robustly with growth of 1.3%, while the non-food sector is down 2.8%.

The consumer mood remains subdued and consumers increasingly prefer to make purchasing decisions on promotional days such as Black Friday. Despite the popularity of premium products, restraint and recourse to discounted offers still seem to dominate. The home electronics sector in particular is saturated, which explains the decline in this segment. Only niche products such as hair styling appliances and electric toothbrushes are showing positive trends.

Only the leisure segment recorded a slight increase. Sports products such as e-bikes, treadmills and sports nutrition are in particular demand and are supporting the segment. The fashion sector also benefited from an early fall and rising demand for warmer clothing, although this was unable to compensate for the summer's losses.

The online business, on the other hand, recorded solid growth of 4% and continues to demonstrate stability in the market. Despite the subdued economic forecasts, the growth potential of the online segment remains unbroken.

The expert group's forecasts for Swiss GDP adjusted for sporting events in 2024 are for expected growth of 1.2%, followed by 1.6% in 2025.

GfK Market Monitor Switzerland is a service provided by GfK Switzerland AG in cooperation with over 40 major Swiss retailers. These generate around 40-50 percent of total retail sales. Specialty retailers are not included. The GfK Market Monitor does not claim to be representative of the market as a whole. GfK makes various overall market estimates for this purpose.