Artificial intelligence has become the corporate world’s favorite shortcut. From customer service chatbots to automated hiring tools and now advertising, AI is increasingly deployed not to enhance human creativity, but to replace it outright. The results have been mixed at best—and sometimes disastrous.
McDonald’s Netherlands learned this lesson the hard way.
In December 2025, the fast-food giant quietly released a fully AI-generated holiday commercial intended to mark the Christmas season. Instead of delighting viewers, the ad triggered a wave of mockery, discomfort, and outright hostility across social media platforms. Within days, McDonald’s disabled comments, delisted the video, and found itself at the center of a growing debate about the ethical, creative, and cultural consequences of corporate AI adoption.
This was not just a failed advertisement. It was a case study in what happens when technological novelty is mistaken for progress.
The Ad That Broke the Holiday Spell
The commercial, produced for McDonald’s Netherlands by advertising agency TBWA\Neboko, ran for approximately 45 seconds. It was entirely generated using artificial intelligence—from visuals and characters to motion and scene transitions.
The narrative premise was unconventional, even provocative. Rather than celebrating warmth, togetherness, or nostalgia, the ad framed the holiday season as “the most terrible time of the year.” What followed was a rapid-fire montage of surreal, unsettling imagery rendered in the unmistakable aesthetic of generative AI.
Characters morphed unnaturally. Physics bent inconsistently. Faces appeared grotesque, colors oversaturated, and scenes shifted so quickly that viewers struggled to orient themselves. To many, it felt less like a festive commercial and more like a visual stress test.
The reaction was swift and brutal.
Why Audiences Instantly Recognized It as AI
Even without disclosure, most viewers immediately identified the ad as AI-generated. This speaks to a growing public literacy around generative media.
AI video tools, despite rapid improvement, still struggle with continuity, spatial logic, and emotional nuance. As a result, many AI videos rely on short, rapidly changing shots to mask flaws. Ironically, this tactic has become one of the most obvious indicators of AI involvement.
In McDonald’s case, the technique backfired. Instead of appearing innovative, the ad felt chaotic and unfinished—more like a demo reel than a polished campaign.
Viewers did not see creativity. They saw cost-cutting.
Social Media Backlash and Corporate Retreat
Although the video accumulated relatively modest viewership—around 20,000 views on YouTube—the response in comment sections was overwhelmingly negative.
Users questioned why a corporation with McDonald’s resources would abandon traditional production involving writers, artists, actors, and crews. Others criticized the ad’s unsettling tone, particularly given its holiday context.
Within days, McDonald’s disabled comments on the video. Shortly after, the company delisted it entirely. Only archived versions captured by marketing databases remain accessible.
The move confirmed what audiences already suspected: the campaign had failed.
“The Future Is Here, and It’s Not Looking Good”
One comment circulating widely on Instagram captured the prevailing sentiment: “The future is here, and it’s not looking good.”
This reaction highlights a growing disconnect between corporate enthusiasm for AI and public perception of its use. While executives often frame automation as innovation, audiences increasingly interpret it as dehumanization—especially in creative fields.
Advertising, after all, is not just about selling products. It is about storytelling, emotional resonance, and cultural context. These are precisely the areas where AI still struggles most.
The Production Company’s Defensive Response
Following the backlash, The Sweetshop, the production company involved in creating the ad, released a lengthy and defensive statement.
The company emphasized the human labor involved, claiming that teams worked for seven weeks with little sleep, generating thousands of AI outputs and painstakingly editing them into a final product. Executives argued that the effort demonstrated craftsmanship, not automation.
They insisted the ad was “a film,” not a novelty, and framed the criticism as resistance to inevitable technological progress.
The statement did little to calm public reaction.
Instead, it raised uncomfortable questions: if AI production still requires massive human effort, what exactly is being optimized? Time? Cost? Or simply the ability to eliminate visible human contributors?
When Effort Does Not Equal Quality
One of the most striking aspects of the controversy is that defenders of the ad cited labor intensity as justification for its quality.
But audiences judge outcomes, not workflows.
Spending thousands of hours correcting AI hallucinations does not inherently result in better art. In fact, it underscores one of the core problems with generative AI: the technology often creates more problems than it solves.
Rather than empowering creatives, AI in this context appeared to burden them—forcing teams into a reactive role, constantly fixing machine-generated errors instead of shaping original ideas.
McDonald’s Troubled History With AI Experiments
This was not McDonald’s first misstep involving artificial intelligence.
Earlier in 2025, McDonald’s Mexico experimented with AI-generated imagery inspired by Studio Ghibli’s visual style. The campaign was widely criticized for ethical reasons, including copyright concerns and aesthetic appropriation.
The company has also faced backlash for AI-powered hiring tools, drive-thru automation failures, and data privacy issues affecting job applicants.
Viewed collectively, these incidents suggest a pattern: aggressive AI adoption without sufficient consideration for user experience, ethics, or brand identity.
Why AI Advertising Feels So Wrong to Many People
At its core, the backlash is not about technology. It is about trust.
Advertising has always been a curated illusion—but it was historically crafted by humans who understood social cues, humor, irony, and emotional boundaries. AI lacks lived experience. It does not understand holidays, nostalgia, or cultural traditions. It only recombines patterns.
When companies replace human storytellers with statistical models, audiences sense the absence immediately.
The result often feels hollow, uncanny, or even hostile.
The Ethics of Replacing Creative Labor
Beyond aesthetics, the McDonald’s controversy touches on a deeper ethical issue: the displacement of creative workers.
AI-generated ads are often promoted as efficient, scalable, and cost-effective. What is less frequently acknowledged is that these efficiencies often come at the expense of writers, illustrators, animators, actors, and production crews.
At a time when creative industries are already under pressure, AI advertising is increasingly seen not as innovation, but as erosion.
Public backlash reflects this anxiety.
The Myth of “AI Did Not Make This”
One of the most controversial claims made by The Sweetshop was the assertion that “AI didn’t make this film. We did.”
Technically, human hands assembled the output. But authorship is not merely about assembly. It is about intention, originality, and expression.
When the raw material is generated by a machine trained on vast quantities of existing human work, the distinction becomes blurred.
Audiences are increasingly unwilling to accept semantic defenses that obscure this reality.
A Cultural Turning Point for Generative AI
The McDonald’s incident did not occur in isolation. It arrived amid growing fatigue with AI-generated content across social media, news, and entertainment.
Terms like “AI slop” have entered the mainstream lexicon, reflecting frustration with low-quality, mass-produced content flooding digital spaces.
This backlash signals a potential turning point: a shift from uncritical adoption to public scrutiny.
What Corporations Should Learn From This Failure
The lesson is not that AI has no place in advertising. It is that AI should support creativity, not replace it.
Used responsibly, AI can assist with concept exploration, logistics, accessibility, and production efficiency. Used recklessly, it undermines authenticity and alienates audiences.
McDonald’s AI holiday ad failed because it misunderstood this balance.
The Bigger Picture: Automation Without Accountability
The controversy also raises broader concerns about corporate accountability in the age of automation.
When AI-generated content offends, disturbs, or misleads, who is responsible? The brand? The agency? The algorithm?
As companies increasingly rely on opaque systems, accountability becomes diluted. Public trust erodes accordingly.
A Warning, Not Just a PR Misstep
McDonald’s decision to pull the ad may limit short-term damage, but the incident will linger as a cautionary tale.
It illustrates how quickly audiences can reject technology-driven initiatives that feel disconnected from human values.
In an era where AI is reshaping industries at unprecedented speed, this backlash serves as an important reminder: progress without purpose is not progress at all.
FAQs
1. Why did McDonald’s pull its AI holiday ad?
Due to widespread negative public reaction and social media backlash.
2. Was the ad fully AI-generated?
Yes, visuals and scenes were created using generative AI tools.
3. Who produced the ad?
Advertising agency TBWA\Neboko with production support from The Sweetshop.
4. What was the main criticism of the ad?
It was unsettling, visually incoherent, and emotionally disconnected.
5. Did McDonald’s issue an official apology?
No formal apology, but the ad was quietly removed.
6. Why do people dislike AI-generated ads?
They often feel inauthentic and lack emotional depth.
7. Does AI replace human creatives in advertising?
Increasingly, but public resistance is growing.
8. Is this McDonald’s first AI controversy?
No, the company has faced multiple AI-related criticisms.
9. Can AI be used responsibly in advertising?
Yes, when it supports rather than replaces human creativity.
10. What does this incident mean for AI adoption?
It signals rising public scrutiny and demand for ethical use.