McDonald’s Calls Christmas ‘Most Terrible Time of the Year’ in AI-Generated Ad

McDonald’s Netherlands division recently published an AI-generated advertisement labeling Christmas “the most terrible time of the year.” When the fast food giant faced intense backlash for its AI slop insulting the holiday season, it yanked the video down from YouTube.

Futurism reports that in an attempt to embrace the growing trend of generative AI, McDonald’s Netherlands division collaborated with ad agency TBWANeboko to create a 45-second AI-generated Christmas advertisement. However, the fast-food giant’s foray into AI-powered marketing backfired as the ad was met with intense criticism and mockery from viewers for both its “AI slop” features and anti-Christmas message, ultimately leading to its removal from the company’s YouTube channel. The video is available in archive form, and has been reuploaded to YouTube by others:

The advertisement, which depicts the Christmas season as the “most terrible time of the year,” featured a series of rapidly-changing, disjointed scenes generated by AI. The video’s jarring visuals, poor color grading, and unconvincing physics were typical of the limitations often seen in AI-generated content popularly referred to as AI slop. The ad’s short, fast-paced scenes were likely an attempt to mask AI’s inability to maintain continuity for extended periods.

Public reaction to the advertisement was overwhelmingly negative, with comments on YouTube and other social media platforms expressing disappointment and ridicule. One Instagram user commented, “The future is here, and it’s not looking good,” while another questioned why a company with McDonald’s resources couldn’t invest in a full production team to create a worthwhile ad. The backlash was so severe that McDonald’s initially disabled comments on the YouTube video before removing it entirely from the platform.

In response to the criticism, The Sweetshop, the production company hired by TBWANeboko to create the ad, issued a defensive statement. The company’s CEO highlighted the extensive labor put into the project, with up to 10 AI and post-production specialists working on the ad for seven weeks. The Sweetshop argued that the time spent refining the AI-generated content justified the end product, likening the process to shaping dailies in a traditional film production.

Despite The Sweetshop’s defense, public sentiment remained clear: while advertising may be pervasive, viewers prefer ads created by human professionals rather than AI. This incident marks McDonald’s first AI-generated commercial, though the company had previously experimented with AI-generated content on its social media accounts, such as posting AI-generated Studio Ghibli-style memes, which were also poorly received.