After Coca-Cola, McDonald’s faces backlash, withdraws AI Christmas ad

Christmas cheer is in the air, but McDonald’s Netherlands doesn’t seem to think so. It dubbed the popular song "It’s the most wonderful time of the year" as "It’s the most terrible time of the year," but that was not the reason the fast food chain had to take down the advertisement. 

The demands of the festive season may have overwhelmed the Dutch, leading them to forgive the ad's depiction of Christmas mayhem. 

Fallen gifts, stormy carolling, department store brawls, and Christmas trees too big to fit inside homes, along with ice-skating, decorating, gifting, and baking accidents shown in the ad called McDonald’s eateries a safe and neutral haven until January. 

What the internet, however, did not forgive was how the ad was made, using AI. In collaboration with the Dutch company TBWA\Neboko and American production company The Sweetshop, McDonald’s Netherlands aired its holiday special ad on December 6.

Produced within weeks instead of the usual months/year that it takes when employing humans. This trade-off seems to have backfired, as the backlash was so severe that the company decided to take it down entirely three days later, on December 9. 

Denouncing the commercial for its AI origins on social media, one viewer dubbed it "the most god-awful ad I've seen this year". Countless others echoed the sentiment, calling the ad "creepy" and "poorly edited".

"No actors, no camera team – welcome to the future of filmmaking. And it sucks," read one comment voicing the anxieties surrounding the use of cheaper and faster artificial intelligence tools in creative industries.

As per the BBC, McDonald’s Netherlands issued a statement declaring, "This moment serves as an important learning as we explore the effective use of AI." 

Meanwhile, in a now-deleted LinkedIn post, The Sweetshop's chief executive Melanie Bridge posted that the production process took "seven weeks", during which the team "hardly slept" and created "thousands of takes – then shaped them in the edit just as we would on any high-craft production". She defended the ad, claiming, "This wasn't an AI trick. It was a film."

An American creative agency called All Trades Co. took charge of the situation, creating a provocative satire film as a counter-campaign to the AI ad, using an AI character from the same ad, making her not only endorse a Burger King meal but also badmouth McDonald’s and its products.

The creepy AI lady in the ad also claimed that the trash-talk would have never happened if the fast food giant had just paid humans to do the ad, before she morphed into a burger that was eaten by rats. 

"It almost seems like we should value human labour, craft and creativity. But what do I know? I'm just AI. I'll say and do anything," were her last words. 

Historically, Christmas ads and generative AI do not do well together. Coca-cola had to take down its legacy Christmas ad in 2024 after it received similar backlash from the audience.

The beverage giant, however, came back with another AI-generated ad for Christmas 2025, this time accompanied by a documentary talking about the humans involved in the creation process. The 2025 ad was not taken down.