What was meant to be a quirky holiday commercial for McDonald’s Netherlands quickly turned into a PR disaster. The 45-second spot, titled “It’s the Most Terrible Time of the Year,” featured glitchy AI-generated characters stumbling through a series of slapstick Christmas mishaps — from falling trees and brawling shoppers to people getting blasted by snow.
The ad’s message? Forget the chaos of Christmas and “hide out in McDonald’s until the new year.” But viewers weren’t lovin’ it.
“I had to pause halfway — those faces look haunted,” one YouTube user wrote. “Even without all the AI junk, it just feels depressing. Ditch your family and sit in McDonald’s because Christmas sucks??” another added.
Within days, McDonald’s quietly pulled the ad from its official channels after online backlash spiraled across Reddit, Instagram, and TikTok, where users called it “soulless,” “creepy,” and “corporate AI hell.”
The ad was produced by Sweetshop, a New Zealand-based production company known for stylized global campaigns. In a statement defending the work, the company insisted it wasn’t just machine-made nonsense.
“We generated what felt like dailies — thousands of takes — then shaped them in the edit just as we would on any high-craft production,” Sweetshop said. “This wasn’t an AI trick. It was a film.”
But the explanation did little to calm the outrage. One commenter on Instagram fired back, “No actors, no camera crew… welcome to the future of filmmaking. And it sucks.”
McDonald’s joins a growing list of major brands experimenting with AI-generated marketing — and learning the risks the hard way. Just last month, a Coca-Cola AI campaign was mocked for producing “nightmarish” elves with extra fingers, while a British clothing brand went viral for showing AI models with melted faces.
Industry insiders say the backlash reflects a larger tension between creativity and automation. “Audiences can smell when something’s missing — and that something is the human touch,” advertising analyst Brooke Jensen told AdWeek. “AI may save time, but it can’t fake heart.”
For now, McDonald’s Netherlands has pulled the ad entirely, offering no statement beyond confirming its removal.
Sources: AdWeek, The Guardian, YouTube, Instagram
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OK I must have a warped sense of humor because I was laughing through most of it, even despite the fact it was AI generated. Sometimes you just gotta relax a bit, and laugh and not take things so seriously.
Democrats like everything evil, dark, depressing, creepy, weird, criminal, and murderous…
Let’s go back to Happy Positive Holidays for the kids…