McDonald’s team admits workload on hated AI Christmas ad ‘far exceeded’ live-action shoots

Another advertiser wants consumers to know how hard people worked on its artificial intelligence-driven ad.

Sweetshop Films is behind the recently pulled McDonald’s Christmas commercial that appeared on YouTube but lasted only about four days before being dropped like a hot Christmas coal.

‘The results aren’t worth the effort.’

The ad was generated entirely by AI for McDonald’s Netherlands, which took ownership of the fact that it was poorly received.

“The Christmas commercial was intended to show the stressful moments during the holidays in the Netherlands,” the company said in a statement, per the Guardian.

“However, we notice — based on the social comments and international media coverage — that for many guests this period is ‘the most wonderful time of the year,'” they added.

Sweetshop Films defended its use of AI for the ad. “It’s never about replacing craft; it’s about expanding the toolbox. The vision, the taste, the leadership … that will always be human,” said CEO Melanie Bridge, per NBC News.

Bridge took it one step farther, though, and claimed her team worked longer than a typical ad team would.

“And here’s the part people don’t see,” the CEO continued. “The hours that went into this job far exceeded a traditional shoot. Ten people, five weeks, full-time.”

These statements were not met with holiday cheer.

RELATED: Coca-Cola doubles down on AI ads, still won’t say ‘Christmas’

X users went rabid at the idea that Sweetshop, alongside AI specialist company the Gardening Club, put more effort into producing the videos than a typical production team would for a commercial.

The Gardening Club reportedly made statements like, “We were working right on the edge of what this tech can do,” and, “The man-hours poured into this film were more than a traditional Production.”

“So all that ‘effort’ and they still managed to produce the ugliest slop [?] just goes to show how useless gen AI is,” wrote an X user named Tristan.

An alleged art director named Haley said she was legitimately confused by the idea of the “sheer human craft” claimed to be behind the AI generation.

“What craft? What does that even look like outside of just clicking to generate over and over and over and over again until you get something you like?” she asked.

Another X user name Bruce added that “AI users are like high schoolers who got good grades because they tried hard, then are shocked to find at university they get judged on results, not effort. I have no doubt they try hard. But the results aren’t worth the effort.”

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Photo by Tim Boyle/Getty Images

The Sweetshop CEO did indeed express that the road to the McDonald’s AI ad was a painstaking endeavor, claiming that “for seven weeks, we hardly slept” and “generated what felt like dailies — thousands of takes — then shaped them in the edit just as we would on any high-craft production.”

“This wasn’t an AI trick. It was a film,” Bridge said, according to Futurist.

The positioning of AI generation as “craftsmanship” is exactly what Coca-Cola cited for its ad in November, when it said the company pored through 70,000 video clips over 30 days.

The boasts resulted in backlash akin to what McDonald’s is receiving, which included reactions on X like, “McDonald’s unveiled what has to be the most god-awful ad I’ve seen this year — worse than Coca-Cola’s.”

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