McDonald's pulls AI Christmas ad after backlash

Re:McDonald's pulls AI Christmas ad after backlash by ComplexSystems on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @03:02PM (#46222931)

I am as tired of AI slop as everyone else but I think the backlash to this is way too exaggerated. Commercials are already "slop." There is no expectation of quality at all. The average Christmas commercial involves a bunch of elves singing "Taking Care of Business" while dancing in front of office supplies.

This commercial sucked because nobody wants to hear "it's the most terrible time of year." I don't really care if they used AI.

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Re:McDonald's pulls AI Christmas ad after backlash by averageRoyalty on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @04:16PM (#46223976)

Exactly. Most ads are cringy and rubbish. This concept could easily have been made with real actors and a VFX crew and been equally as shitty.

I find people complaining about bad ads odd. Do people want good ads? Do they want to be engaged as they're being sold Pepsi? I work hard to avoid ads, their quality isn't even a factor for me.

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Re:McDonald's pulls AI Christmas ad after backlash by em-bee on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @07:15PM (#46225984)

yes, ads actually being good would make them so much more tolerable, and maybe even watchable. there used to be a show that presented the worlds best ads of the year or something like that. it showed some awesome memorable ads

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Re:McDonald's pulls AI Christmas ad after backlash by port11 on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @03:16PM (#46223118)

I think this one was especially bad because a massive corporation can't be arsed to do better. Like, Apple exaggerates a lot on their advertising, but at least there's some heart to it. (Coming from someone that doesn't like Apple.)

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Re:McDonald's pulls AI Christmas ad after backlash by danielbln on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @03:25PM (#46223250)

Unless they do an ad where they literally crush creativity into a thin slab, an ad they had to later apologize for. Pepperage Farm remembers.

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Re:McDonald's pulls AI Christmas ad after backlash by ronsor on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @03:36PM (#46223414)

People care way too much about this.

Ads suck, in general. They're slop whether a human or an AI made it, and I don't want or care about them regardless.

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Re:McDonald's pulls AI Christmas ad after backlash by danielbln on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @03:38PM (#46223461)

So don't. But if mega corps want to juice our brains with their slop, to the degree that it's difficult to escape it, then we should also be able to sneer at the ads that miss the mark even more than usual.

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Re:McDonald's pulls AI Christmas ad after backlash by ronsor on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @03:40PM (#46223481)

You're foolishly giving them attention. Marketing teams know this.

If an ad is bad, it's better to ignore it and not write news articles about some marketing-fabricated controversy. Now you're thinking about McDonalds, which is what they wanted! They don't actually expect you to buy a burger tomorrow because of this.

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Re:McDonald's pulls AI Christmas ad after backlash by port11 on Friday December 12, 2025 @04:13AM (#46242288)

Yeah, that one must've looked super cool on paper. This McDo one can't have looked good anywhere but the price tag.

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