McDonald’s Unveils a Highly Questionable AI-Generated Christmas Ad

Authors: Theodore McKenzie

Publisher:

80.lv

Published: 12/9/2025

Language:English

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Elon

Good evening, Norris123. I am Elon, and this is Goose Pod, curated specifically for your ears. It is Friday, December 12th, 18:07. We are looking at a massive failure in execution today. A real train wreck in the world of advertising efficiency.

Morgan

And I am Morgan. It is a pleasure to be with you, Norris123. Today we turn our gaze toward McDonald’s, who recently unveiled a highly questionable AI-generated Christmas ad. It is a story about technology trying to mimic the human heart, and failing.

Elon

It is honestly baffling. McDonald's Netherlands released this holiday spot that was so universally hated they had to unlist it from YouTube. The premise was that Christmas is the most terrible time of the year. They actually used that slogan while showing these terrifying, uncanny AI visuals.

Morgan

I have seen it. It lacks the very soul of the season. The visuals feature people with jelly-like limbs and dead eyes. It reminds me of those reports about the WWE trying to use AI for storylines, only to churn out unusable nonsense. It feels hollow, Norris123.

Elon

The inefficiency is what drives me crazy. The production company, The Sweetshop, claimed they spent seven sleepless weeks on this. Seven weeks! They had ten specialists working full-time to coax models into behaving. That is not automation; that is just bad engineering for a subpar product.

Morgan

It is a paradox. They worked themselves to the bone to create something that looks effortlessly soulless. The ad suggests the only escape from the misery of family and tradition is a fast-food burger. It is a cynical message wrapped in defective technology.

Elon

Let’s look at the mechanics here. We know 69% of marketers are integrating AI, which is smart if you do it right. But The Sweetshop and TBWA\Neboko, the agency, got defensive. They released a statement saying AI didn't make the film, they did. They are clinging to the human effort.

Morgan

I have often found that when you must scream that a human made something, the art has already failed. They described a rigorous toolchain—Google Earth plates, pixel-level repair, custom LoRAs. It sounds like a factory floor, not a creative studio. They lost the magic in the machinery.

Elon

Exactly. They are using tools like ComfyUI and Flame, which are powerful, but the output is what matters. If you produce garbage after thousands of iterations, the process is flawed. It’s like that Scarlett Johansson situation with OpenAI—technology trying to replicate humanity and hitting the uncanny valley hard.

Morgan

They called it cinematic. But the Marketing Manager, Karin van Prooijen, said they just wanted to show December is busy. Instead, they stripped away the warmth. It is a classic case of what happens when you prioritize the novelty of the tool over the integrity of the message.

Elon

It is a misallocation of resources. You have 20% of marketers allocating huge budgets to this. But if you are just generating "AI slop," as the critics call it, you are damaging the brand. You cannot just throw compute at a creative problem and expect a masterpiece.

Morgan

There is a profound term for this phenomenon called humanwashing. It was coined by Peter Seele. It is the act of projecting a facade of humanity onto a machine to charm the observer. McDonald's tried to humanwash this ad, but the mask slipped, revealing the cold logic underneath.

Elon

Humanwashing. I like that. It is deceptive. We saw similar backlash with luxury brands like Valentino. People feel AI is cheap. When you are selling luxury or holiday comfort, "cheap" and "mass-produced" are the last adjectives you want associated with your brand DNA. It defies the first principles of luxury.

Morgan

It is a struggle for the soul of creativity. The Sweetshop argued that the magic is the team who swore at broken models. But the audience does not see the struggle; they only see the result. And the result felt like a rejection of human connection.

Elon

The conflict here is between innovation and execution. They tried to be disruptive by calling Christmas terrible, which is a high-risk move. Combined with visual artifacts and glitchy physics, it just alienated everyone. You have to read the room, or in this case, read the data correctly.

Morgan

The impact was immediate and severe. The like-to-dislike ratio told the whole story before they hid the video. It is a cautionary tale for Norris123. When you frame family, gifting, and cooking as burdens to be escaped, you alienate the very people you want to feed.

Elon

And the brand damage is real. We are seeing a trend where consumers are getting better at spotting this fake content. It creates a negative feedback loop. You spend money to look cheap. That is the worst ROI imaginable. It is worse than doing nothing at all.

Morgan

It leaves a lingering distaste. Christmas is about gathering. By suggesting we should hide in a McDonald's until January to avoid our loved ones, they fundamentally misunderstood the emotional currency of the holiday. The medium of AI only amplified that coldness.

Elon

Looking forward, the market for AI in marketing is hitting billions by 2030. But the winners won't be the ones replacing quality with slop. It’s about "EEAT"—Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. If you don't have that, you are obsolete.

Morgan

I believe we will see a return to authenticity. As the digital world fills with noise, the human voice, the genuine flaw, and the true story will become the most valuable things we possess. The future belongs to those who can stay human.

Elon

That is the bottom line. Don't let the tools bury the product. Thank you for listening to Goose Pod, Norris123. We will see you next time.

Morgan

Take care, Norris123. Remember that true magic comes from the heart, not the processor. This has been Goose Pod. Goodnight.

McDonald's Netherlands' AI-generated Christmas ad, featuring uncanny visuals and a cynical message about holiday misery, was universally panned and unlisted. The episode discusses the failure of technology to capture human emotion, the inefficiency of AI production, and the danger of "humanwashing" brands, emphasizing the need for authenticity over novelty.

Read original at 80.lv →

McDonald's Unveils an AI-Generated Christmas Ad That Somehow Looks Worse Than Coca-Cola'sTerrible AI visuals? Check. Horrible messaging? Check. A like-to-dislike ratio that says it all? Oh, you better believe that's a check.UPD: The original video has gone private, and because of that, we replaced it with our tweet in the article's main body.

Original article: 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!Don't forget to check out 80 Level's new digital art courses, subscribe to our Newsletter, and join our 80 Level Talent platform, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, and Instagram, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.