The McDonald’s AI Christmas Ad That Left Everyone Cold

December begins with equal parts snowflakes and worry. Families are scrambling to finish décor, dinners that scorch under frantic timers, and everyone is engaging in awkward talks at gatherings. McDonald’s Netherlands tried capture the turmoil in a snappy 45-second ad titled “It’s the Most Terrible Time of the Year.”

This twisted version on a holiday classic depicts December as a veritable minefield of errors, with burnt turkeys, trees crashing over, and family that appear more aggravating than warm, before finally arriving on those golden arches as the only reliable safe harbor. Simple concept, right? However, the device became a lightning rod for criticism, owing mostly to the fact that a computer conducted all of the heavy lifting.

People expecting a warm feeling of nostalgia were met with a parade of digital anomalies that screamed “prototype” rather than “polished.” Faces on a crowded tram stretched like wax melting in a heatwave, and a woman’s arm flickered away in mid-gesture, as if the AI that did it was having second thoughts about what it was doing. Physics was bending in ridiculous ways, with objects jerking around with that ‘wtf is going on’ vibe and lighting flickering like a faulty bulb. The whole thing felt less like snuggling up by the fire with a good yarn and more like a fever dream thrown together with whatever film was available and a few faulty bugs.


Critics pounced quickly, calling it “hideous” and “repulsive,” claiming it was much worse than Coca-Cola’s other AI Christmas debacle, which at least had the courtesy to make polar bears and trucks seem passable. That Coke ad had received a lot of criticism for being soulless, and this one only ratcheted it up by centering humans in the mess, even though they were AI, or at least appeared to be. Uncanny Valley is often more difficult to tolerate when surrounded by fast food wrappers.


The production was a collaboration between Agency TBWA\NEBOKO, directors Mark Potoka and Matt Starr from the LA duo MAMA, Sweetshop, and The Gardening Club team. They spent seven weeks nonstop adjusting prompts with up to 10 different specialists, delving through a slew of tools ranging from Google Earth scans to those strange custom UI components. Thousands of frames were created, each requiring a scrub to remove artifacts, lighting sorting, then composited together like a puzzle with a few missing pieces.
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