{"id":340746,"date":"2025-12-11T02:33:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T02:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/340746\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T02:33:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T02:33:07","slug":"ruined-my-christmas-spirit-mcdonalds-removes-ai-generated-ad-after-backlash-mcdonalds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/340746\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Ruined my Christmas spirit\u2019: McDonald\u2019s removes AI-generated ad after backlash | McDonald’s"},"content":{"rendered":"

McDonald\u2019s says it has removed an AI-generated Christmas advertisement in the Netherlands<\/a> after it was criticised online.<\/p>\n

The ad, titled \u201cthe most terrible time of the year\u201d, depicts scenes of Christmas chaos, with Santa caught in a traffic jam and a gift-laden Dutch cyclist slipping in the snow. And the message? Retreat to a McDonald\u2019s restaurant until January and ride out the festive season.<\/p>\n

But the generative AI advertisement from the Big Mac maker\u2019s Netherlands division sparked a flurry of criticism on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis commercial single-handedly ruined my Christmas spirit,\u201d said one user. \u201cGood riddance to AI slop,\u201d posted another.<\/p>\n

McDonald\u2019s Netherlands said in a statement on Wednesday: \u201cThe Christmas commercial was intended to show the stressful moments during the holidays in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, we notice \u2013 based on the social comments and international media coverage \u2013 that for many guests this period is \u2018the most wonderful time of the year\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Melanie Bridge, the chief executive of the Sweetshop Films, the company which made the ad, defended its use of AI in a post on LinkedIn.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s never about replacing craft, it\u2019s about expanding the toolbox. The vision, the taste, the leadership \u2026 that will always be human,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd here\u2019s the part people don\u2019t see: the hours that went into this job far exceeded a traditional shoot. Ten people, five weeks, full-time.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that too sparked online debate.<\/p>\n

Emlyn Davies, from the independent production company Bomper Studio, replied to the LinkedIn post: \u201cWhat about the humans who would have been in it, the actors, the choir?<\/p>\n

\u201cTen people on a project like this is a tiny amount compared to shooting it traditionally live action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coca-Cola recently released its own AI-generated holiday ad, despite receiving backlash when it did the same last year.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s new offering avoids close-ups of humans and mostly features AI-generated images of cute animals in a wintry setting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McDonald\u2019s says it has removed an AI-generated Christmas advertisement in the Netherlands after it was criticised online. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-340746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}