McDonald's Unveils an AI-Generated Christmas Ad That Somehow Looks Worse Than Coca-Cola's
Terrible AI visuals? Check. Horrible messaging? Check. A like-to-dislike ratio that says it all? Oh, you better believe that's a check.
No doubt you've all seen that grotesque AI-generated Coca-Cola commercial, which, unfortunately, continued the company's 2024 trend of tarnishing the coming holidays with ads that make you want to take a shower.
But did you know that this glass of pop-slop actually comes accompanied by its own meal? Well, it does, and this year, it is paired with an abominable AI advert from McDonald's Netherlands that somehow manages to be even worse than Coca‑Cola's. Don't believe me? Here it is in all its glory:
Besides featuring AI-generated visuals that look outright uncanny – at least Coke was considerate enough to barely include any humans – this ad also outdid Coca-Cola's in the awfulness contest by framing Christmas and New Year celebrations and everything related to them – meeting family, gifting and receiving presents, decorating your crib, cooking festive dishes, winter in general – as "the most terrible time of the year," only made bearable by a trip to your local Macca's.
Unsurprisingly, the reaction from those who saw it – a relatively small crowd compared to Coke's ad, since this one comes from the Netherlands and had been unlisted on YouTube until recently – was overwhelmingly negative, with the disabled comments and the like-to-dislike ratio telling the whole story.
As for those responsible for this monstrosity, the blame falls on the TBWA\Neboko advertising agency, directing duo MAMA from The Sweetshop, and McDonald's Netherlands Marketing Manager Karin van Prooijen, who stated that the goal was simply to show that "December is a busy month for everyone," not to diss the biggest holiday for much of the Western world. "We want to give people something to look forward to each day, not only on the traditional peak dates, and this campaign brings that idea to life in a new way," the manager commented.
In a separate statement, The Sweetshop dared to claim that "AI didn't make this film – we did," complaining about spending seven sleepless weeks writing prompts. No comment can capture the full extent of the delusion, so here's the full quote:
"For seven weeks, we hardly slept, with up to 10 of our in-house AI and post specialists at The Gardening Club working in lockstep with the directors. Every shot travelled through a rigorously engineered toolchain: real Google Earth plates, advanced style-transfer, pixel-level photo repair, custom LoRAs, control nets, bespoke ComfyUI graphs, and thousands upon thousands of tightly steered iterations.
Then came compositing, lighting balance, physics corrections, artefact removal, and final finishing in Flame. We generated what felt like dailies – thousands of takes – then shaped them in the edit just as we would on any high-craft production. This wasn't an AI trick. It was a film. And here's the thing I wish more people understood: magic isn’t the technology. The magic is the team behind it, people who pushed, questioned, experimented, swore at broken models, solved impossible problems, and refused to stop until every frame felt cinematic.
I don't see this spot as a novelty or a cute seasonal experiment. To me, it's evidence of something much bigger: that when craft and technology meet with intention, they can create work that feels genuinely cinematic. So no – AI didn't make this film. We did."
So, what's your take on the ad and its messaging? Were those seven weeks well-spent? Share your thoughts down in the comments below!
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