It was supposed to be a cheeky, relatable twist on the holiday season. Instead, it became a digital ghost story that haunted the timelines of social media users for three short days before vanishing into the ether.
McDonald’s Netherlands recently attempted to brave the frontier of generative AI with a Christmas commercial titled “The Most Terrible Time of the Year.” The result? A public relations snowball effect that ended with the ad being scrubbed from the internet. As reported by the BBC, the fast-food giant faced such intense backlash that they were forced to issue a mea culpa, turning a marketing campaign into a cautionary tale for the ages.
But beyond the “creepy” visuals and the social media roasting, this incident reveals a much deeper fracture in the world of digital marketing. It forces us to ask: Just because we can use AI to build a world, does that mean anybody wants to live in it?
The “Most Terrible” Concept
The premise of the ad was actually quite clever on paper. We all know the holidays aren’t just twinkling lights and silent nights; they are also stress, burnt turkeys, and family arguments. McDonald’s wanted to tap into that shared frustration. The 45-second spot featured a montage of holiday disasters—Christmas trees crashing down, festive dinners gone wrong, and general winter chaos—all set to a parody track singing about “the most terrible time of the year.”
The punchline? When it all gets too much, you can hide out at McDonald’s.
It’s a classic marketing trope: The Brand as the Hero. But the execution is where things went off the rails. Rather than filming real actors spilling gravy or slipping on ice, McDonald’s and its agency partners (TBWA\Neboko and The Sweetshop) opted to generate the entire commercial using Artificial Intelligence.
The Uncanny Valley of Burgers and Fries
The problem with the ad wasn’t necessarily the cynicism—it was the “soul.” Or rather, the lack thereof.
Almost immediately after the ad aired on YouTube, viewers began pointing out the tell-tale signs of early-stage AI video generation. Characters moved with a jelly-like instability. Expressions shifted morphologically in ways that human faces simply don’t. The lighting had that glossed-over, hyper-real sheen that feels less like a movie and more like a fever dream.
Social media users didn’t hold back. Comments ranged from “soulless” and “depressing” to “AI slop.” One critic noted that for a brand built on the warmth of “I’m Lovin’ It,” the ad felt coldly mechanical. It didn’t feel like a shared joke about holiday stress; it felt like a robot trying to simulate human frustration and missing the mark by a few degrees.
The backlash was so severe that McDonald’s Netherlands disabled comments on the video before eventually pulling it down entirely on December 9th. In their statement to the BBC, they admitted that while they intended to show the “stressful moments,” they realized that for many, the ad missed the “wonderful” spirit of the season. They framed it as an “important learning” moment.
The “7 Weeks of No Sleep” Defense
Perhaps the most fascinating twist in this saga wasn’t the ad itself, but the defense mounted by its creators.
After the criticism began to mount, the production company, The Sweetshop, released a statement claiming that the ad wasn’t just a prompt-and-click job. They revealed that a team of ten specialists spent seven weeks working on the project, generating thousands of iterations to get the final cut. The CEO stated, “AI didn’t make this film. We did.”
They likely intended to highlight the craftsmanship involved in guiding the AI. Instead, they accidentally handed their critics a sledgehammer.
Marketing experts and everyday users alike were baffled. If a team spent seven weeks and countless man-hours to produce a 45-second clip that consumers actively hated—and that looked objectively worse than a standard film shoot—what was the point? The “efficiency” argument for AI collapsed. Traditional filmmaking creates jobs for actors, set designers, lighting technicians, and caterers. This project replaced them with a small team staring at screens, only to produce a result that alienated the customer base.
The “Coca-Cola” Effect
McDonald’s isn’t alone in the naughty corner this year. Coca-Cola also faced significant criticism for its “Holidays Are Coming” AI remake. Both brands, which are titans of emotional storytelling (think the Coca-Cola trucks or McDonald’s family reunions), underestimated how much their audience values authenticity.
When a luxury tech brand uses AI to show a futuristic concept, we accept it. But when a brand that sells comfort food—products deeply tied to nostalgia, family, and physical sensation—uses a cold, digital medium, it creates a dissonance. We don’t want “generated” comfort. We want real comfort.
The SEO & Marketing Lesson: Authenticity Wins
For digital marketers and business owners, the lesson here is worth its weight in gold (or fries).
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Read the Room: The public sentiment toward Generative AI in creative fields is currently hostile. Audiences are hyper-aware of “slop”—content that feels churned out to save money.
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Medium Matches Message: If your message is about human connection, emotion, or “reality” (like the stress of Christmas), the medium should reflect that. AI is great for abstract visuals, data visualization, or surreal humor. It is terrible at capturing the warmth of a grandmother’s smile or the frustration of a burnt cookie.
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Quality over Novelty: Being “first” to use a technology is not as important as being “good” at using it. McDonald’s wanted to be innovative, but they sacrificed quality control to get there.
Conclusion: A Whopper of a Mistake
McDonald’s will undoubtedly bounce back; one bad ad doesn’t topple a burger empire. However, this “terrible time of the year” campaign will likely be studied in marketing classes for years to come. It serves as a stark reminder that while technology can generate pixels, it cannot generate heart.
As we move into 2025, the brands that win will be the ones that use technology to enhance human creativity, not replace it. Until AI can truly understand why a dropped turkey is funny—and tragic—we might want to keep the cameras rolling.
Let’s make your next campaign the most wonderful time of the year.
👉 Visit us today: https://cherrymedia.site
