McDonald’s Netherlands has pulled an AI-generated holiday commercial after the spot was widely mocked across social media, reigniting criticism around the growing use of generative artificial intelligence in advertising.
The forty-five-second Christmas ad was created for McDonald’s Netherlands by agency TBWA Neboko and produced by The Sweetshop. Fully generated using AI, the spot flips the classic seasonal refrain by declaring the holidays the “most terrible time of the year.”
The creative features a rapid montage of chaotic, surreal scenes, including exploding Christmas trees, meals catching fire, and shoppers being dragged through city streets, all set to a reworked version of Andy Williams’ song, retitled It’s the Most Terrible Time of the Year. Watch the full video below:
The visual style quickly drew criticism. Viewers pointed to disorienting edits, inconsistent physics, and the uncanny appearance typical of many AI-generated videos. Short, fast-cut scenes have become a common workaround for AI’s inability to maintain continuity, and the approach here only amplified the discomfort for many viewers.
Though the ad garnered only around 20,000 views on YouTube, the reaction was swift and harsh. McDonald’s disabled comments on the video over the weekend and later removed it entirely from its channel. Marketing databases later preserved copies of the spot.
“The future is here, and it’s not looking good,” one commenter wrote under an Instagram repost. Another added, “So a company with that amount of resources couldn’t create a full production with a big team of people to work together and create something actually worthwhile?”
Following the backlash, The Sweetshop issued a lengthy and defensive response defending the production. “For seven weeks, we hardly slept, with up to 10 of our in-house AI and post specialists at The Gardening Club working in lockstep with the directors,” the company’s CEO wrote.
The statement argued that the labor involved in managing AI hallucinations justified the final result. “We generated what felt like dailies, thousands of takes, then shaped them in the edit just as we would on any high craft production,” the statement continued. “This wasn’t an AI trick. It was a film.”
“I don’t see this spot as a novelty or a cute seasonal experiment,” the CEO added. “To me, it’s evidence of something much bigger: that when craft and technology meet with intention, they can create work that feels genuinely cinematic. So no AI didn’t make this film. We did.”
Agency leadership at TBWA Neboko also defended the concept. Chief creative officer Darre van Dijk said the team wanted to challenge holiday advertising conventions by rewriting a familiar Christmas song. “From the start the idea was to rewrite one of the most iconic Christmas songs,” van Dijk said. “The rights holder heard our interpretation and approved changing the title to ‘the most terrible time of the year.’”
Van Dijk said the decision was made to embrace AI fully rather than partially. “And not an almost AI film but one with real production value combined with the craziness that AI makes possible. Challenge accepted.”
McDonald’s Netherlands marketing manager Karin van Prooijen said the ad was inspired by research suggesting many consumers feel overwhelmed during December. “December is a busy month for everyone. We want to give people something to look forward to each day, not only on the traditional peak dates, and this campaign brings that idea to life in a new way,” she said.
The pulled commercial is not McDonald’s first encounter with AI backlash. Earlier this year, McDonald’s Mexico faced criticism for posting AI-generated images inspired by Studio Ghibli across its social channels.
While agencies involved continue to defend the creative experiment, public reaction appears far less forgiving. The episode adds to a growing list of brand missteps, suggesting that audiences may tolerate intrusive advertising, but not when it comes at the expense of human craft.
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