{"id":1273,"date":"2025-12-13T15:39:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T15:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/?p=1273"},"modified":"2025-12-13T15:39:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T15:39:32","slug":"mcdonalds-scrapped-a-creepy-ai-christmas-ad-after-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/?p=1273","title":{"rendered":"McDonald\u2019s Scrapped A Creepy AI Christmas Ad After Backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-journey-body=\"standard-article\">\n<ul data-node-id=\"0\" class=\"css-kw9lqy emevuu60\">\n<li data-node-id=\"0.0\">McDonald\u2019s Netherlands released an AI-made Christmas ad that quickly drew backlash online.<\/li>\n<li data-node-id=\"0.1\">Viewers criticized the ad&#8217;s uncanny visuals and its cynical &#8220;escape the holidays&#8221; tone.<\/li>\n<li data-node-id=\"0.2\">The company removed the spot and said it recognizes that many people see the season as wonderful.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr data-node-id=\"1\" class=\"css-18pb4rg emevuu60\"\/>\n<p data-journey-content=\"true\" data-node-id=\"2\" class=\"css-6wxqfj emevuu60\">McDonald\u2019s Netherlands tried to do the promotional holiday thing this year with a Christmas commercial built almost entirely with generative AI, set to a remixed version of the classic &#8220;It\u2019s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.&#8221; But the keyword there is &#8220;tried.&#8221; Their punchline wasn&#8217;t joy. It was basically: December is mayhem, and you should hide out at McDonald&#8217;s until January shows up with a fresh attitude.<\/p>\n<p data-journey-content=\"true\" data-node-id=\"3\" class=\"css-6wxqfj emevuu60\">In theory, that&#8217;s relatable. In practice, viewers weren\u2019t exactly hitting rewind.<\/p>\n<p data-journey-content=\"true\" data-node-id=\"4\" class=\"css-6wxqfj emevuu60\">The 45-second spot leaned hard into holiday mishaps of shopping disasters, decorating fails, seasonal slapstick, and a general &#8220;everything is going wrong&#8221; kind of vibe. But instead of reading like silly, warm Christmas-movie shenanigans, the AI visuals landed in that uncomfortable zone where faces and movement feel slightly off, props don&#8217;t quite make sense, and the whole thing is just a hodgepodge.<\/p>\n<section data-embed=\"watch-next\" data-lazy-id=\"P0-13\" data-node-id=\"5\" class=\"embed\"\/>\n<section data-embed=\"youtube\" data-lazy-id=\"P0-14\" data-node-id=\"6\" class=\"embed\"\/>\n<p data-journey-content=\"true\" data-node-id=\"7\" class=\"css-6wxqfj emevuu60\">The tone itself felt like a weird choice for a season that usually sells coziness, warmth, and togetherness. The message many people heard was less &#8220;holiday stress is real&#8221; and more &#8220;ditch your family, Christmas sucks.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-journey-content=\"true\" data-node-id=\"8\" class=\"css-6wxqfj emevuu60\">The backlash was loud enough that the brand pulled the ad from its social channels. Before that, comments were reportedly getting hammered so aggressively that they were disabled. If you&#8217;ve been to a party where someone turned off the music and announced, &#8220;Okay! Everyone out!&#8221;, yeah, this is like that.<\/p>\n<p data-journey-content=\"true\" data-node-id=\"9\" class=\"css-6wxqfj emevuu60\">If McDonald&#8217;s had the goal of creating a conversation, it should consider their mission accomplished. It&#8217;s just probably not the one they expected.<\/p>\n<section data-embed=\"editorial-link\" data-lazy-id=\"P0-15\" data-node-id=\"10\" class=\"embed\">\n<aside class=\"css-fcvumo e94w1mj1\"\/><\/section>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>McDonald\u2019s Netherlands released an AI-made Christmas ad that quickly drew backlash online. Viewers criticized the ad&#8217;s uncanny visuals and its cynical &#8220;escape the holidays&#8221; tone. The company removed the spot and said it recognizes that many people see the season as wonderful. McDonald\u2019s Netherlands tried to do the promotional holiday [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}