McDonald's Netherlands pulls an AI-generated Christmas ad, made by ad agency TBWA\NEBOKO with film production company The Sweetshop, after social media backlash
There's just one issue: pretty much everybody hates it. — This year, McDonald's decided to get in on the corporate slopfest …
FuturismJoe Wilkins
Context & Ripple Effects
The withdrawal lands in a holiday-ad cycle already marked by resistance to synthetic creative: Coca-Cola’s earlier AI Christmas video drew criticism from social-media users and creatives, yet the company returned with new AI holiday ads in 2025 after concluding that many people did not know or care about the technology.
For McDonald’s, the episode is a visible reversal after its earlier experimentation with AI in customer-facing operations. It shows that acceptance of AI can differ sharply between operational tools and brand storytelling.
First-order effects
McDonald’s Netherlands removes the Christmas campaign, ending its immediate use and limiting further audience exposure to the backlash.
TBWA\NEBOKO and The Sweetshop face a high-profile example of an AI-led creative execution being rejected by the client’s audience rather than simply judged on production efficiency.
Second-order effects
Brands and agencies planning AI-assisted seasonal campaigns will have stronger reason to test audience response and contingency plans before launch, particularly where handcrafted creative is part of the message.
The contrast with Coca-Cola’s decision to run AI holiday ads again in 2025 underscores that advertiser tolerance for backlash will vary by brand, market and campaign rather than follow a single rule.
Third-order effects
If repeated withdrawals outweigh the production advantages of generative tools, AI-content commercialization may shift toward work where AI is less conspicuous or more clearly paired with human creative direction.
The key competitive question for agencies may become reputational risk management around AI use, not merely whether they can produce synthetic assets quickly; the available coverage does not establish a uniform consumer response.
The trend: Holiday advertising is becoming a practical test of whether brands can commercialize generative AI without weakening the authenticity audiences expect from emotional campaigns.
McDonald's has released an AI-generated Christmas ad The studio behind it says they ‘hardly slept’ for several weeks while writing AI prompts and refining the shots — 'AI didn't make this film. We did' Comments have been turned off on YouTube [video]
Hi! I'm one of the prompt writers that worked on this ad. It's a lot harder than people think! Prompts that my team used include: -make it funny -make it epic AND funny -funnier!!! Please be nice to my team as many of them will be laid off/replaced by AI
The message of the ad, ai aside, is “the holidays sure do suck! spend time at mcdonalds instead” and I don't know who this is supposed to be appealing to
It genuinely pains me when reading about AI and people use the phrase “writing AI prompts” like it's something to be proud of artistically. Cannot believe our advancement of society is the plague of AI.
When a corporation makes an AI ad to sell hamburgers, releases PR spin about how hard it was to make an AI ad about hamburgers, then turns off the comments of their AI ad for hamburgers it becomes very clear it was never about selling hamburgers This is an ad for AI.
Haha damn, McDonald's and the ad agency took down that awful AI ad because of the relentless mockery. Serves those fuckers right! 🙏 futurism.com/artificial-i...
It's truly wild to me that this just keeps happening. Coca-Cola runs an AI ad and people overwhelmingly react with disgust. They do it again, and people are disgusted again. Now McDonald's makes an AI ad that's so bad that so many people are furious about it they pull it down.…