Featured Image Credit: TBWA/McDonald's
Topics: McDonalds , Social Media, Fast Food
Ben Williams
For most people, the run-up to Christmas is a comforting swirl of festive jingles, classic holiday films, and favourite themed menus from the top brands.
So, when McDonald’s dropped its latest seasonal commercial, many viewers were shocked to see the fast food behemoth follow the same controversial path as Coca-Cola.
A glossy, tightly structured spot commissioned for McDonald’s Netherlands, it initially played like any other modern Christmas advert, but it didn’t take long for people to notice its AI origins and practically send social media into a frenzy.
The brand partnered with US agency TBWA, an international team of AI specialists, and production company The Sweetshop to build the visuals entirely through artificial intelligence. The creators insisted the ambition was never to make an AI advert, but simply to craft a short, comedic festive piece without blowing through a live-action budget.
Advert
If it were perhaps a smaller, local business feeling a harder pinch in the current world of ever-increasing costs, resorting to AI might have been met with some sympathy, but the situation has been the exact opposite — as people remember this is a multi-billion-dollar fast food empire we’re dealing with.
The general tongue-in-cheek vibe the advert seemed to be going for, a song parody of Andy Williams’ ‘The Most Wonderful Time of the Year’ about how Christmas is actually terrible, can easily be argued as actually not the worst idea ever for a commercial on paper.
Nevertheless, the execution led to the final product leaving a very sour note in everyone’s mouths.
Still, the company is sticking to its guns about the challenge of forcing an unconventional tool into the shape of a conventional Christmas narrative.
According to the team behind it, this took weeks of refining imagery, rewriting instructions, and adjusting details to hit the right tone.
Melanie Bridge, CEO of The Sweetshop, specifically said: "AI didn't make McDonald's Christmas ad. We did."
In fact, the team supposedly ‘hardly slept’ while writing prompts, describing the process as craft-driven rather than experimental.
That defence didn’t land smoothly with everyone. Unsurprisingly, the reaction on social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter) has not shared the empathy that Bridge’s words seem to have tried to generate.
"F**k off," one person wrote bluntly.
Another used a clip from Dragon Ball of Piccolo being knocked out to jab at the creators’ claims, saying the team’s ‘hardly slept’ is definitely an exaggeration.
Someone else combined Bridge’s ‘AI didn't make this film. We did’ quote with the blank-faced stare of The Bear’s Richie, implying anyone seeing that statement knows it’s more of a stretch of the truth than being genuine.
One other sarcastically added: "‘Comments have been turned off’ is usually a great sign in the confidence of how well received something will be."
One more viewer went straight for a punchline: "At least the lyrics match the quality."
FOODbible has reached out to McDonald’s NL and TBWA for comment.