After the backlash that greeted Coca-Cola\u2019s AI-generated Christmas ad last month, you\u2019d expect other corporate giants to be more cautious about releasing their own AI-infused efforts.<\/p>\n
But no.<\/p>\n
McDonald\u2019s Netherlands decided it\u2019d be a really good idea to use generative AI tools to knock together its own festive commercial. But folks didn\u2019t respond well following its release on December 6.<\/p>\n
In fact, the criticism was so bad that the company has now pulled the commercial.<\/p>\n
The 45-second ad, which runs with the idea that Christmas is \u201cthe most terrible time of the year,\u201d depicts various mishaps taking place during the festive period, from Christmas light entanglements to Santa getting stuck in traffic. The solution, according to the ad, is to seek refuge in a McDonald\u2019s.<\/p>\n
If at all curious, you can watch it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n But while AI-generated video is getting better all the time<\/a>, the odd color grading, not-quite-right body movements, and short clips made the McDonald\u2019s ad an uncomfortable watch for many, along with the fact that these cost-cutting productions are taking the jobs of skilled production crews.<\/p>\n \u201cPlease bring back people doing things again,\u201d a commenter on Instagram wrote, while another said, \u201cA $200 billion dollar company who doesn\u2019t even sell real food also can\u2019t make a real commercial.\u201d A commenter on Reddit was a little more blunt, saying simply, \u201cIt\u2019s shit.\u201d<\/p>\n The ad was the brainchild of creative agency TBWANeboko, which hired a production company called The Sweetshop to make it, using AI tools.<\/p>\n Following the backlash, The Sweetshop issued a somewhat bizarre statement, shared by Futurism<\/a>, that appeared to seek some understanding.<\/p>\n \u201cFor seven weeks, we hardly slept, with up to 10 of our in-house AI and post specialists at The Gardening Club [our in-house AI engine] working in lockstep with the directors,\u201d The Sweetshop\u2019s CEO said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe generated what felt like dailies \u2014 thousands of takes \u2014 then shaped them in the edit just as we would on any high-craft production. This wasn\u2019t an AI trick. It was a film.\u201d<\/p>\n The statement continued: \u201cI don\u2019t see this spot as a novelty or a cute seasonal experiment. To me, it\u2019s evidence of something much bigger: that when craft and technology meet with intention, they can create work that feels genuinely cinematic. So no \u2014 AI didn\u2019t make this film. We did.\u201d<\/p>\n With both Coca-Cola and McDonald\u2019s now having felt the heat over their respective AI ads, it\u2019s going to be interesting to see if other major companies lean into the technology \u2014 or steer well clear of it \u2014 for their own TV commercials.<\/p>\n The post McDonald\u2019s pulls its AI-generated Christmas ad after backlash<\/a> appeared first on Digital Trends<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After the backlash that greeted Coca-Cola\u2019s AI-generated Christmas ad last month, you\u2019d expect other corporate giants to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,59528,603,61,60,4856,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-189026","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-backlash","12":"tag-coca-cola","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-mcdonalds","16":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}