Controversy over McDonald's Christmas ad created with AI

The new Christmas ad McDonald's Netherlands, created almost entirely with artificial intelligenceIt has become one of the most talked-about topics of the holidays, but not exactly for positive reasons. What was intended to be an innovative campaign humorously portraying the stress of December has ended up unleashing a wave of criticism on social media and international media.

While AI-generated advertising is gaining ground with major brands, this ad has raised concerns about to what extent can technology replace human creative work? without losing empathy or connection. The McDonald's case joins other recent examples of AI-powered campaigns by Coca-Cola or Toys"R"Us that have received a similarly lukewarm reception.

A chaotic Christmas ad, created almost entirely with AI

The commercial was commissioned by McDonald's Netherlands and developed by the creative agency TBWA\NEBOKO, in collaboration with the production company The Sweetshop and its artificial intelligence innovation division, TheGardening.ClubThe project was conceived as the The brand's first advertisement in the Netherlands was generated from start to finish using AI.both in characters and settings.

The piece, which lasts about 45 seconds, shows a rapid succession of completely synthesized Christmas scenesOverwhelmed families, chaotic dinners, decorations gone wrong, gifts falling out of the car, exploding Christmas trees, burnt cookies, or even Santa Claus stuck in a traffic jam throwing a sort of tantrum. All of this with the slightly distorted and sometimes clumsy style typical of current generative models.

Instead of the classic saccharine holiday message, the ad reinvents the Christmas carol. It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year , the “the most terrible time of the year”changing the font to emphasize that, for many people, December is more synonymous with stress, rushing, and social pressure that brings calm and happiness.

The underlying idea was to present McDonald's as a kind of A peaceful refuge amidst the Christmas chaosA place to disconnect when everything around you seems like a disaster. However, the AI-driven visual execution has provoked the exact opposite reaction to what the brand expected.

Inspired by the real-life stress of December

The campaign is supported by a study by the firm MediaTest in the NetherlandsThe study concludes that around two-thirds of consumers would like to have more time for themselves during December. In other words, a majority perceive the holidays as a period filled with commitments, family and work expectations, rather than as a time for rest.

Based on that, McDonald's and TBWA\NEBOKO decided break with the perfect image of Christmas that you usually see in advertisements: no immaculate tables, idealized families, or spotless living rooms. Instead, they opted for to show the less glamorous and more everyday side of the holidaystaking domestic chaos to an exaggerated and almost cartoonish point.

According to industry sources, the creative objective was Connect with a younger generation, especially Gen Z, who tend to distrust overly sentimental messages and value honest stories more, even when they are uncomfortable or show vulnerability.

In practice, the spot is part of the brand's historic platform “December could use a little McDonald's”, a line of communication that the network uses to position itself as a small respite in one of the busiest months of the yearThis year, in the Netherlands, the campaign is complemented by a digital gift calendar within the app, which offers a daily surprise throughout December.

How the announcement came about: much more than pressing a button

Far from being a light experiment, the production company The Sweetshop, along with its AI division TheGardening.Club and the directing duo Maternity (Sweetshop UK) maintains that behind the piece there was a intense and prolonged production processSeveral people in charge of the project have insisted that "AI didn't make this movie, we did," emphasizing the role of the human team.

According to statements published in specialized media, Around ten AI and post-production specialists worked full-time for about five to seven weeks in the campaign. The work consisted of generating thousands of shots, iterating on them, selecting the most effective ones, assembling the narrative, and making manual shot-by-shot adjustments to achieve a coherent result.

The team describes the process as a kind of virtual filmingInstead of physical cameras and sets, generative models were used to create environments, characters, and animations. Even so, they emphasize that there were creative direction minute by minute, with human decisions regarding rhythm, tone, composition, and emotional focus.

For those in charge of the campaign, AI is conceived as a tool within a broader “resource box”and not as a direct substitute for audiovisual craftsmanship. In their view, this type of project can expand the visual language available in advertising, allowing more surreal situations or difficult to recreate in a traditional film shoot.

The aesthetics of AI and the problem of the “uncanny valley”

Despite all that work, one of the most criticized aspects of the advertisement has been precisely its AI-generated visual appearanceIn many scenes, features can be seen that are immediately associated with this type of technology today: somewhat rigid movements, faces that are slightly deformed, hands and body parts that seem to twist unnaturally, or backgrounds that change subtly from shot to shot.

These imperfections, combined with a very fast assembly (extremely short shots due to the models' difficulty maintaining consistency in long sequences), have led numerous viewers to describe the result as "strange," "disturbing," or downright "creepy." Several comments mention an advertisement that It falls squarely into the so-called "uncanny valley": realistic enough to seem human, but artificial enough to produce rejection.

Some marketing analysts have pointed out that, although the tone was intended to be ironic and exaggerated, The sum of chaos, synthetic aesthetics, and a cynical message about Christmas It ends up generating a feeling of coldness that is not very compatible with what the public expects from a festive campaign by a major brand.

The choice to transform “the most wonderful time of the year” in “the most terrible” Nor has it helped to soften that perception. For some viewers, the combination of an altered Christmas song, an awkward staging, and a fast-food brand as a last-minute lifeline ends up being... More depressing than funny.

Reaction on social media: from bewilderment to outright rejection

The online reception has been harsh almost from the start. Users on Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms have shared the video, calling it... “horrible”, “depressing” or “soulless”Some have compared the ad to Christmas parodies, pointing out that the implicit message seems to be "screw Christmas, just go to McDonald's."

Several viral comments have insisted that It's not just a matter of visual glitches in the AI.but rather from the interpretation of the campaign itself. For some viewers, the fact that a multinational corporation with McDonald's resources would opt for a piece generated by automated models instead of a traditional shoot with real people is perceived as a a gesture to cut costs and dehumanize the creative process.

On YouTube, the reaction was so negative that McDonald's even disable comments in the video ad and then to leave it in private modeThis has been interpreted as a de facto withdrawal of the campaign from that platform. Despite this, copies of the ad continue to circulate on social media and in media outlets that have covered the controversy.

On X, some users celebrated that the brand had hidden the video, even writing that “Bullying works”This referred to the collective pressure that supposedly forced the company to back down. Others took the opportunity to satirize the contrast between the industry's narrative, which sells AI as a way to save time and money, and the producer's admission that They spent weeks with hardly any sleep fine-tuning the result.

The agency and the production company's defense

Faced with a barrage of criticism, The Sweetshop and its AI team released a public statement (later deleted) in which they defended the project. That text emphasized that the campaign was not a “AI trick”but a full-fledged film, with a work process comparable to that of a traditional audiovisual production.

Those in charge explained that They generated what they describe as "diaries" of thousands of shotswhich were then carefully organized, filtered, and assembled. According to their account, the use of generative models did not eliminate the need for artistic judgment, but rather added an extra layer of complexity, since the AI ​​had to be "convinced" to respond to creative instructions shot by shot.

The director of The Sweetshop, Melanie Bridge, even stated that the objective was not to replace the human handbut rather to broaden the range of available tools. “Vision, taste, and leadership will remain human,” he argued in a social media post, emphasizing that they would never undertake an AI project without a director to guide the process.

However, that same defense generated further ridicule. On social media, many users questioned why, if AI supposedly save time and resourcesIt had taken so many weeks and so much effort to finally produce an advertisement that a large part of the public considers a failure. The tone of some statements, which presented the “writing AI instructions” almost as an artistic achievement in itself, something that numerous creatives and spectators rejected outright.

An open debate on AI-powered advertising in Europe

The case of McDonald's Netherlands' Christmas advertisement fits into a broader context, in which Major European brands are beginning to seriously experiment with generative AI in their campaigns. Coca-Cola, for example, had previously launched a Christmas commercial using this technology. which was also met with suspicion and criticism, especially for its aesthetics and for fear of the replacement of creative professionals.

In Europe, where the debate on the regulation of artificial intelligence And with the protection of cultural workers especially alive, this campaign has served as ammunition for those who consider generative AI an "anti-human" technology or directly threatening to employment in advertising, design and audiovisual production.

Several analysts point out that, although technology is advancing rapidly, its use in brand communication carries an obvious risk: break the emotional connection with the audience If the result is perceived as cold, cheap, or purely opportunistic, that risk is multiplied in a sensitive area like Christmas, where emotional expectations are high.

At the same time, some marketing experts acknowledge that initiatives like McDonald's Netherlands' show the creative potential of AI to explore new visual codes and to bring up uncomfortable topics, such as the true weight of holiday pressure. The clash, they suggest, may be due more to the early phase of adoption of these tools that to a total incompatibility between AI and emotional advertising.

In any case, the rollout of this ad and the subsequent public response have already become a case study for the European advertising industry, which closely observes the extent to which the public is willing to accept—or reject—campaigns created almost entirely by algorithms.

What happened with McDonald's shows how The combination of generative AI, a cynical tone about Christmas, and the enormous visibility of a global brand It can quickly ignite controversy. Although the campaign was conceived with the intention of being honest, showing the real chaos of December, and offering a respite in the form of a hamburger, its execution has ended up fueling skepticism towards machine-generated advertising and has reopened, both in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe, the fundamental question: How much space are we willing to give to artificial intelligence in the stories we consume daily?.