A strange and unsettling new holiday custom seems to be emerging in the corporate world: major brands that should, by all logic and experience, understand the importance of safeguarding their reputations are now choosing to celebrate the festive season by unveiling unnerving, almost diabolical advertisements produced with the latest wave of artificial intelligence tools. This year, the unlikely culprit is none other than McDonald’s, which has launched an AI-generated Christmas commercial that has quickly become a cautionary tale in brand mismanagement.
According to the company and its associated studios, the project involved weeks of frenzied labor and sleepless nights devoted to crafting intricate AI prompts and endlessly refining visuals. The film’s producers proudly asserted that although artificial intelligence played a role, it was, in their words, a human creation through and through—“AI didn’t make this film. We did.” Yet despite the insistence that the production was an earnest fusion of technology and craftsmanship, McDonald’s soon disabled YouTube comments after overwhelming negative feedback transformed what should have been a celebration into a digital debacle. The ad’s theme purportedly revolved around the idea that the holiday season can be miserable—a sardonic take on Christmas cheer—but instead of offering clever satire, it presented viewers with something awkward, visually off-putting, and emotionally tone-deaf.
Critics across the internet, normally divided on almost every issue, found themselves unified in disapproval. Even commentators who rarely share common ground agreed that the spot was baffling and unpleasant to watch. Adforum noted that the commercial was commissioned by TBWA\NEBOKO in the Netherlands, apparently produced for the Dutch market, though the original upload was hastily made private on YouTube following the storm of criticism. Another outlet, 80 Level, reported that the production company behind the piece, The Sweetshop, posted and later deleted a lengthy statement defending the creative process. This message detailed an almost obsessive level of technical experimentation: the use of Google Earth plates, advanced style-transfer algorithms, pixel restoration, control nets, custom-built AI graphs, and meticulous compositing work. Their defense concluded with the declaration that their true achievement was not in automation, but in the human ingenuity and teamwork that transformed complex datasets into a supposed piece of cinema.
However, audiences were not angry simply because the creators used AI. The backlash arose because the result, despite all the technological sophistication, was a fundamentally poor commercial. Its core jingle, a parody of the beloved song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” seemed artificially generated to convey irritation with the holidays rather than lighthearted humor. The melody faltered, the rhythm stumbled, and the lyrics wandered without direction—producing something neither charming nor coherent. The visuals compounded the issue. None of the depicted scenes resonated with authentic holiday experiences: instead of familiar gripes or humorous vignettes, the viewer was greeted with absurd tableaux of unrealistic, AI-distorted scenarios—a wind-battered choir, a bizarre shopping duel over a toy bear, and an impossible pedicab carrying a colossal Christmas tree up an icy slope. These images, presumably meant to satirize seasonal chaos, instead collapsed under their own artificial weight and alien logic.
Even on a technical level, the inconsistencies multiplied. At one point, diners at a flaming holiday table laugh joyfully at the blaze only to appear disappointed when it is extinguished; moments later, a cat topples a Christmas tree not through realistic motion but as though the entire object were pivoting on a mechanical hinge. The AI’s confusion over perspective and physics seemed relentless, leaving viewers unsure whether the characters were indoors or braving a freezing rain outside. Such disjointed imagery turned what might have been charming absurdity into unsettling incoherence.
Beyond the visuals and audio, the conceptual failure of the commercial lies in its attitude. Its sardonic message—that the holiday season is dreadful—feels not witty but outdated. This form of cynical humor echoed a bygone era, particularly the mid-1990s, when nihilistic slogans like “Life sucks!” adorned novelty shirts and commercials embraced open disdain for sentimentality. Even back then, sarcasm worked only when balanced with human warmth or clever self-awareness. A classic example is a decades-old Staples advertisement that humorously depicted a father rejoicing over his children’s return to school, successfully blending dry humor with relatable human emotion. The McDonald’s AI ad, in contrast, offers no such connection; there are no real actors, no genuine performances, and therefore no emotional anchor. The sterile perfection of machine-generated faces can never convey authentic joy, irritation, or nostalgia—emotions that make even the most awkward commercials memorable.
Ultimately, audiences reacted not to the presence of AI itself, but to the absence of humanity. Despite the immense technological effort, the final product evokes none of the warmth, irony, or empathy that makes holiday marketing effective. Instead, it feels like a mechanical imitation of festive despair—perfectly illustrating why artistry and emotional intelligence still matter far more than digital novelty. Perhaps the lesson is simple: no matter how advanced the tools become, no algorithm can replicate the emotive spark of a human being trying to tell a meaningful story. And that, paradoxically, is what makes this failed piece of holiday cheer the season’s most instructive parable. Merry Christmas, indeed — and may the next round of AI marketing remember that audiences crave sincerity more than spectacle.
Sourse: https://gizmodo.com/everyone-hated-the-mcdonalds-ai-christmas-ad-so-much-it-got-taken-down-2000697045
