Somehow, McDonald’s’ AI-generated ad about hating Christmas was a failure

If you’re facing a stressful holiday season, the answer is McDonald’s — at least, that’s what a now-removed AI-generated ad suggested, as reported. Futurism.

Set to a song that describes the holiday season as “the most terrible time of the year,” the ad features AI-generated people falling victim to a slew of winter woes, including family dinners, shopping, singing, baking cookies, and putting up a Christmas tree, all of which go wrong in one way or another. The ad concludes by asking viewers to “hide out at McDonald’s until January is here.”

However, unlike the Coca-Cola ad, the McDonald’s ad took the risk of including people, rather than just cartoon jungle animals. Most of the people in the ad are never seen again and some of the shots are a bit off, like one that shows someone falling while snowboarding, only to have their limbs turn to jelly midway through.

in Posted on LinkedInThe Gardening.club, the AI ​​division of The Sweetshop, the studio behind the ad, said the ad took “an intense seven weeks” to create. They even admitted that “the hours of work that were poured into this film were more than just a traditional production.”

Melanie Bridge, CEO of The Sweetshop, shared similar comments in Post on Instagram“The hours that went into this job far exceeded a typical shoot. Ten people, five weeks, full time. Blood, sweat, tears and a ridiculous amount of persuasion to get the models to act and honor the creative brief shot after shot,” he said.