McDonald’s pulls AI Christmas ad after backlash

McDonald’s has taken down a Christmas advert made with Artificial Intelligence (AI) following online backlash.

The 45-second advert was produced with generative AI clips and released publicly on McDonald’s Netherlands YouTube channel on 6 December.

Viewers on social media denounced the use of AI in the film, with one commenter calling it “the most god-awful ad I’ve seen this year”.

On 9 December McDonald’s Netherlands removed the video, adding in a statement to BBC News that the moment served as “an important learning” as the company explored “the effective use of AI”.

The advert was created for McDonald’s by Dutch company TBWA\Neboko and US production company The Sweetshop.

Adverts which include generative AI have become a growing trend among major brands, such as Coca-Cola, particularly for the Christmas season.

The McDonald’s advert depicted things that can go wrong during the Christmas break, using the slogan “the most terrible time of the year”, and suggesting the time was better spent in the company of the fast food giant.

Following its release, viewers criticised the film’s uncanny-looking characters and large number of stitched together clips, calling it “creepy” and “poorly edited”.

As clips made using generative AI are more likely to distort the longer they run for – most clips made using the process tend to be roughly six to 10 seconds long – even a 45-second advert would likely consist of many videos edited together.

The video also provoked concerns for job displacement in the industry, with one Instagram comment noting: “No actors, no camera team..welcome to the future of filmmaking. And it sucks.”

Following the video being made private on the McDonald’s Netherlands YouTube channel, The Sweetshop’s chief executive Melanie Bridge defended the advert.

As quoted in Futurism, she said the production process took “seven weeks” where the team “hardly slept” and created “thousands of takes – then shaped them in the edit just as we would on any high-craft production”.

“This wasn’t an AI trick,” she said. “It was a film.”

In a statement to BBC News, McDonald’s Netherlands said the video was meant to “reflect the stressful moments that can occur during the holidays” but had decided to remove the advert.

“This moment serves as an important learning as we explore the effective use of AI,” it said.

Where normally a high-publicity Christmas campaign could take up to a year to pull off, companies have begun to look to firms which can produce films in a much shorter time span, using prompts from generative AI tools to create new video content.

Coca-Cola seems to have been able to sway at least some of the general public with its second AI-generated Christmas ad in a row.

While the use of AI to create the advert has been divisive, a report from analytics company Social Sprout found it had a 61% “positive sentiment rating” from commenters online.

But several other businesses such as the Italian luxury fashion house Valentino have come under fire for using the technique in their campaigns, with critics calling Valentino’s advert “cheap” and “lazy”.

BBC News has contacted The Sweetshop and TBWA\Neboko for comment.