McDonald's pulls AI Christmas ad after backlash

Posted by mindracer 11 hours ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abRie4vAvJ4

Comments

Comment by macintux 10 hours ago

It seems like a statement from The Sweetshop, who made the ad, has also been pulled.

This piece links to a Futurism article[0], which in turn links to "an incredibly defensive statement"[1] from the ad agency.

> “For seven weeks, we hardly slept, with up to 10 of our in-house AI and post specialists at The Gardening Club [our in-house AI engine] working in lockstep with the directors,” Sweetshop’s CEO wrote.

(Sounds more like sweatshop than sweetshop, but I digress.)

However, that "defensive statement" link is broken, and I see no sign of it on the linked site, but I did find this older lamentation[2] from The Sweetshop regarding AI, or more specifically regarding the attitude that AI should allow you to cut costs and fire people.

> Being asked to cut 20–30% of creative costs and labour under the banner of ‘AI’ is unimaginative at best, and corrosive at worst. It drains the value of human creativity and concentrates it in fewer and fewer hands, hollowing out the very industry it claims to improve.

[0] https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/mcdonalds-ai-ge...

[1] https://lbbonline.com/news/melanie-bridge-sweetshop-the-gard... (missing page, and the Wayback Machine doesn't have a copy)

[2] https://lbbonline.com/news/Damn-The-Race-to-the-Bottom-AI-Sh...

Comment by Centigonal 1 hour ago

How does this kind of work take 7 weeks for 10 people?

10 animators could hand-draw every frame of a 44 second ad in that time. They could spend an hour on each frame, completely trash and redo the entire commercial, take an extra week for meetings and rework, and still have time to spare.

Comment by dfxm12 10 hours ago

Seems like one could have created a cheaper, higher quality ad with real actors.

Of course, real actors have unions and part of the point of AI is to make labor weaker.

Comment by falcor84 9 hours ago

As I see it, the purpose of AI is the same as the purpose of every technology ever since the hand axe - to reduce labor. Humans have a strong drive to figure out ways to achieve more with less effort.

Obviously there are higher order effects, but same as we wouldn't expect the Homo Erectus to stop playing with stone tools because they'd disrupt their society (which of course they did), I don't understand why we should decide to halt technological progress now.

Comment by dfxm12 9 hours ago

I'm not sure what from my comment suggested pausing technological progress, unless you assume technical progress can only be achieved by exploiting workers. While that is happening, I don't think this it is a requirement.

What we see happening in the workforce with AI isn't reducing labor. We see firms making fewer workers do more work and laying off the rest, as in this case, where workers are talking about "hardly sleeping". Similarly, in my org, workers aren't expected to do any less work since adopting AI tools. This case suggests quality is down as well, but maybe that's subjective.

Comment by falcor84 7 hours ago

I don't see any evidence of worker exploitation being caused in any even semi-direct way by AI integration. In the field of animation and VFX in particular, while I've never worked in that area myself, essentially everyone I've heard talk about it over decades has mentioned unbearable crunch being routine.

You mentioned earlier that AI makes labor weaker, but I really don't see a case for it. If anything, given how relatively cheap GenAI is, it should allow most anyone with artistic sensibilities and skill in the area who is willing to leverage it to go into business themselves with minimal capital. Why should GenAI give power to employers, especially if they're just paying another company for the AI models?

Comment by rpdillon 9 hours ago

I mean, we're watching the world try to figure out how to use a new set of tools. As with so many disruptive technologies, the initial stages of development appear to be drop in quality and inferior to the status quo. That usually reverses within five to ten years.

That said, I agree with you that AI is not going to lead to people doing less work, in the same way that computers didn't lead to people doing less work.

Comment by eek2121 2 minutes ago

The non-technical folks don't understand the very real limitations, hallucinations, and security risks that LLMs introduce into workflows. Tech CEOs and leadership are shoving it down everyone's throats without understanding it. Google/Microsoft are shoving it down everyone's' throats without asking, and with all the layoffs that have happened? People are understandably rejecting it.

The entire premise is also CURRENTLY built around copyrighted infringement, which makes any material produced by an LLM questionable legally. Unless the provider you are using has a clause saying they will pay for all your legal bills, you should NOT be using an LLM at work. This includes software development, btw. Until the legal issue is settled once and for all, any company using an LLM may risk becoming liable for copyright infringement. Possibly any individual depending on the setup.

Comment by rsynnott 9 hours ago

This seems a bit like trying to replace stone axes with axes made out of pottery, though. Neolithic pottery, of course, had its uses, but didn't make for a good axe. This is clearly worse than actually doing the job properly in every conceivable way.

I'm not convinced that generative AI video will _ever_ hit the 'acceptable' threshold, at least with current tech. Fundamentally it lacks a world model, so you get all this nightmarish _wrongness_.

Comment by nhod 7 hours ago

So let’s add a world model!

Comment by mistrial9 7 hours ago

you completely forgot to include the technologies invented to enslave, imprison and monitor labor. Back to the library you!

ps- include the technology built to kill the enemy-labor in large numbers. Start with the Atomic Bomb in Japan.. that saved a lot of labor, right?

Comment by falcor84 6 hours ago

Well, obviously it's not the most representative example, but yes, if a country intends to kill hundreds of thousands of people, then an atomic bomb is probably the most cost-effective way, even after accounting for R&D. Moreover, if the calculus is how to win the war with the lowest number of additional lives lost, the atomic bombs dropped on Japan were quite likely significantly less deadly, even when comparing just against the expected number of Japanese civilian casualties from the alternative scenario of a Normandy-like invasion of Japan.

EDIT: It's worth saying that humans have been killing each other from the dawn of humanity. Studies on both present-day and historical tribal societies generally show a significantly higher homicide rate than what we're used to seeing in even our most dangerous cities and across our biggest wars.

A bit old, but extensive numbers - https://ourworldindata.org/ethnographic-and-archaeological-e...

Comment by array_key_first 14 minutes ago

> if the calculus is how to win the war with the lowest number of additional lives lost, the atomic bombs dropped on Japan were quite likely significantly less deadly

This is just US propaganda. These numbers come from the fact that the US was "anticipating" a ground invasion of Japan or vice versa.

Which, to be clear, was always a made-up alternative. By the time the atomic bomb was dropped, Japan had already tried to surrender multiple times, both to us and the soviets. The reality is we just wanted to drop an atomic bomb.

Comment by palmotea 3 hours ago

> As I see it, the purpose of AI is the same as the purpose of every technology ever since the hand axe - to reduce labor. Humans have a strong drive to figure out ways to achieve more with less effort.

Yes.

> Obviously there are higher order effects, but same as we wouldn't expect the Homo Erectus to stop playing with stone tools because they'd disrupt their society (which of course they did), I don't understand why we should decide to halt technological progress now.

The difference is the relationship of that technology to the individual/masses. When a Homo Erectus invented a tool, he and every member of his species (who learned of it) directly benefited from the technology, but with capitalism that link has been broken. Now Homo Sapiens can invent technologies that may greatly benefit a few, but will be broadly harmful to individuals. AI is likely one of those technologies, as its on the direct path to the elimination broad classes of jobs with no replacement.

This situation would be very different if we either had some kind of socialism or a far more egalitarian form of capitalism (e.g. with extremely diffuse and widespread ownership).

Comment by falcor84 2 hours ago

I think you might have an overly noble view of Homo Erectus. I believe that a fellow member of the species is at least as likely to get that hand axe smashed into their skull as they're likely to benefit from it.

Comment by ToucanLoucan 10 hours ago

The attempts by both this outfit and the one that did the Coke ad to walk the line of simultaneously touting what a labor saving device these models are while also trying desperately to make it seem like they did some actual work somewhere so they can also be respected as creatives is honestly hilarious.

Like I thought the whole point of these stupid things was that any John Q off the street could make awesome videos? If that's the case, then what in the utter hell is the point of a making of video featuring people playing at being creative?

Comment by dfxm12 9 hours ago

Like I thought the whole point of these stupid things was that any John Q off the street could make awesome videos?

Have you played around with stuff like sora 2 or veo 3 or seen the work of regular John Q's who have? In general, the quality of marketing for AI tools is far better than the quality of AI-generated video. These tools are also kinda expensive for the average John Q off the street...

I also think most people greatly underestimate just how much creativity is required to make a good movie, or how hard it can be to direct.

Comment by IAmBroom 8 hours ago

Counterpoint: a blind monkey could have accidentally made a better commercial than this one by entering random letters into an AI prompt.

Comment by lioeters 1 hour ago

“For seven weeks, our blind monkeys hardly slept, banging away at the typewriter in an inspired rush to produce the best prompts for the next McDonald's ad."

Comment by mingus88 7 hours ago

The editors of the AI clips haven’t figured out yet that you can just train a second LLM to act as editor

They are the labor equivalent of the factory manager that is dutifully working for the bosses that are working to close the factory.

Comment by erikig 10 hours ago

Having spent enough time with marketing and PR folks, I really wouldn't be surprised if this supposed backlash is overhyped as a way to get more people interested in seeing the ad.

Comment by ErigmolCt 6 hours ago

If this was intentional PR, then someone wildly misread the room

Comment by Centigonal 1 hour ago

Some marketers thrive on "bad PR." The Paul brothers and Tesla are good examples.

Comment by zemo 10 hours ago

they want more people to see it so they removed it from YouTube?

Comment by Ekaros 6 hours ago

If I was cynical marketer I would say make a couple of copies. And then pull it from your channel. Then spread those on social media.

Comment by DonHopkins 4 hours ago

If I was a cynical troll I would generate something ghastly, spread it on social media, and claim it was from McDonalds.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1184701899747516

Comment by edwin2 6 hours ago

they probably understand it’s impossible (or very hard) to fully delete viral content and that it’d get re-shared

PLUS they double dip as they get extra search traffic for their brand from people trying to find the video

the forbidden fruit is more enticing

Comment by kakacik 5 hours ago

Outrage and clickbait has more than one form and it works surprisingly well on masses, part of orange mans success story. Just look at us discussing it, it wouldn't happen with (much more costly) normal MCD ad.

Comment by swarnie 10 hours ago

I've encountered far too many people who actively seek out ads or look forward to them, people I usually respect, its baffling.

Comment by koakuma-chan 10 hours ago

It worked

Comment by joshstrange 5 hours ago

It's a bad ad and the AI just makes it worse. The song doesn't rhyme well, the lyrics doesn't make much sense (they feel very forced), the things they portray are mostly unrealistic/exaggerated, and the cherry on top is that McDonalds is somehow a respite from the chaos of Christmas. I've never once in my life thought of McD as somewhere comforting to go. It's just a bad ad period.

Also, no one wants a bad (probably also AI-generated) song about how terrible Christmas is. I'm not saying it's not terrible but no one wants a song about it.

Comment by pryelluw 10 hours ago

It’s just a bad ad. People don’t want to hear a multinational corporation singing about Christmas being shitty. Whatever ad company made this should be forced to work retail during the season.

Comment by IAmBroom 8 hours ago

OMG! The song is literally called "The Most Terrible Time of the Year"!

They managed to say something disheartening to everyone on Earth except first-act Scrooges and Grinches. Doubt Ebenezier ever set foot in a McDonald's, and Grinch never left his mountaintop home, so... [Yes, I know not everyone celebrates Christmas, but that song title is just a massive dump on your day, regardless.]

What's their next marketing step? "Everything causes cancer, so you might as well get it from McDonald's!"

Comment by ErigmolCt 6 hours ago

The song title basically ensured the audience would bounce before the uncanny eyeballs even appeared

Comment by rsynnott 9 hours ago

> As quoted in Futurism, she said the production process took "seven weeks" where the team "hardly slept" and created "thousands of takes - then shaped them in the edit just as we would on any high-craft production".

This isn't really a field where you get points for effort. The end product was extremely bad, which is ultimately what matters.

Comment by dukeyukey 19 minutes ago

McDonald's championing the labour theory of value is a new one.

Comment by bgbntty2 8 hours ago

As much as I hate McDonalds and think they should go bankrupt, and as much as I hate ads in general, I enjoyed this one. It's funny, it has lots of small clips of things going wrong one after the other. Compared to the standard corporate ads with a long family- and Jesus-oriented message that pretend to give some significance to Christmas besides how it affects their profits, this one is bold and different.

Who cares if it's made by AI and has obvious mistakes? It's not the new Star Wars movie where it's expected to focus on VFX issues. It's an ad - a 30 second clip that will run for a while to get people to buy products. If you can make an ad with AI for less money, why do it without AI?

As for the message - we need more of this. It's kind of a taboo to hate Christmas, but I loathe it and everything about it. And so do many people. Maybe they won't say that in the office or around religious family members, but we do exist.

You can't escape the shitty Christmas jingles that start in late November in almost all stores. You can't escape The tacky decorations, especially the blinking lights. If you mention the wasteful spending of taxpayer money on city decorations, people look at you as if you're crazy. You have to fight the implied obligation to participate in the celebration and to exchange gifts; having to tell people not to buy me anything. And the religious aspect of it, even though it started as a pagan holiday - people showing off how Christian they are even though a lot of them only remember their faith in twice a year. And finally, the commercialization of it - corporations pretending to care about it while trying to make everyone buy more products...

Comment by hkpack 5 hours ago

> Who cares

I think this sums up the feeling about this new era. Indeed, who cares?

Empathy is the biggest sin according to our new elites.

By the end of the day when you don’t care enough, you may finally start enjoying this AI slop.

Comment by bgbntty2 5 hours ago

Empathy towards what, in this case?

Comment by port11 4 hours ago

Each other.

Christmas is a holiday of the family, especially if you reject the consumerist overtones. It's — for me — a lovely week of spending time together, eating too much, and watching bad old movies.

I really like everything about that atmosphere, so the McDonald's ad felt shitty, heartless, and cynical. Why bother making the holidays better for others, just come to McDo!

Comment by afavour 3 hours ago

> It's an ad - a 30 second clip that will run for a while to get people to buy products. If you can make an ad with AI for less money, why do it without AI?

> Who cares

If it has mistakes and is overall a shitty ad I imagine it'll be less persuasive in getting people to buy the product. I have to imagine someone cares very much about that.

Comment by IAmBroom 8 hours ago

It's funny, but shitty in attitude. It makes a great viral parody. It does not sell hamburgers.

That poster of a duck with a sledgeghammer getting ready to "PRESS ANY KEY" made me laugh, but IBM didn't put it out.

And to your point about AI: yeah, irrelevant. The ad sucks regardless.

Comment by HelloUsername 6 hours ago

> That poster of a duck with a sledgeghammer getting ready to "PRESS ANY KEY" made me laugh, but IBM didn't put it out.

I can't find anything; can you show us?

Comment by bombcar 6 hours ago

https://deadon.wordpress.com/2007/10/09/ask-tuffy-hit-any-ke...

It was a prehistoric meme in the day.

Comment by bgbntty2 8 hours ago

I agree it's not an effective ad for most people and will likely damage their brand. Shitty ad from a business perspective. One more reason to like it.

Comment by scandox 10 hours ago

As bad as this is in conception and execution what I see is a blip on a path towards the new normal.

Comment by rsynnott 7 hours ago

I've yet to see AI-generated video which _doesn't_ have this sort of problem; everything moves unnaturally and physics doesn't work properly. Unless it can shed that nightmarish quality, it's DOA, and it's not at all clear that it _can_, via current techniques.

I would actually wonder if AI generation of 3d models and movement instructions, coupled with a conventional physics engine, might be more viable, though it would obviously rule out attempts at photorealistic stuff.

Comment by rprend 7 hours ago

Yep, they call them World Models. Here’s the cutting edge: https://www.worldlabs.ai/blog/marble-world-model

Google deepmind is working on one too.

Comment by phatfish 10 hours ago

This is going to end in an plague of video marketing material, the sort of professional looking creation that is too expensive currently to get wrong so the same advert is shown for months and sometimes repeated yearly.

Big brands are going to push multiple different adverts per week to a single market to see what sticks.

Get ready for the assault.

Comment by ourmandave 10 hours ago

If they can get to "normal". This was so uncanny valley and disjointed it was like a preview to a horror movie.

Comment by nobleach 10 hours ago

Perhaps. Watching my GenZ kids react to AI commercials during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, there was general revulsion. It seems many of them are seeking authenticity not uncanny. I know this would be an anathema in a board room where the cost of producing an amazing commercial via AI would make a C-suite sparkle with delight. No paid actors? No sound stage? No reshoots?

And yet, my kids reject it. It's odd. This is coming from a guy who loved watching frogs belch out the name of a beer company in the 90s....

Comment by ablation 10 hours ago

Feels like a trial balloon. Yes, this one went badly. It was awful slop. But there will be another. And another. And I feel like for most people catching an ad on TV, the realisation that AI made it will decrease or won't bother them over time. The frog will be boiled.

Comment by xnorswap 10 hours ago

Those "trial balloons" happened years ago, this is only news because it was pulled and because it was a pretty bad advert anyway. Coca-cola had some backlash for its use of AI in adverts ages ago and carried on anyway.

There's tons of gen-AI in adverts and most of it isn't newsworthy. The frog is stewed.

Comment by dymk 9 hours ago

On top of it being visually unappealing, I hate ads that take the misanthrope route to appeal to people’s worst nature. Wow, you hate Christmas, thanks McD.

Comment by onionisafruit 10 hours ago

What is especially bad about this ad? To me it seems no worse than the infernal Paintin Manning ad from last year or the State Farm Megan Trainor ad this year. If this was on rotation in NFL games it wouldn’t make me scramble for the mute button any faster than other ads.

Comment by bavarianbob 10 hours ago

I thought similarly to you, until I saw it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abRie4vAvJ4

Comment by jamesbfb 10 hours ago

It almost seems intentionally AI? If anything, if my job at Maccas…ahem, McDonald's (sorry, spot the Aussie) is in marketing, I’d expect to to be promptly fired if this wasn’t expected to pass for anything less than satire.

Comment by NuclearPM 1 hour ago

Do you have children’s names for other restaurants?

Comment by kraquepype 10 hours ago

Yeah, seeing it just once it looks like an ad with a terrible premise.

It certainly has an AI feel to it though, and I'm sure the more times you see it the more it falls apart.

On 1st watch the part that sticks out is the couple sitting by a window, who seem to be somehow sitting both inside AND outside at the same time.

Comment by nixass 10 hours ago

I still cannot see the bad part

Comment by array_key_first 10 minutes ago

You have to turn your monitor on, silly!

Comment by dymk 9 hours ago

I am legitimately sorry

Comment by alamortsubite 8 hours ago

Have you ever ridden a bike over a canal? The ad was pushed in front of a lot of people who have. I thought it was creepy throughout, but I can't believe they used that clip up front.

Comment by rsynnott 9 hours ago

Well, for a start it's a bad concept, but also the actual images are kinda nightmarish. The living teddy bear is particularly off-putting. And it's very obviously AI slop; physics is at best a mild suggestion.

Comment by soco 9 hours ago

I have taken it as a tongue in cheek reference to the current AI slop discussions, so like purposefully made sloppy. Appropriate joke? Apparently not, according to the masses. Well, just a matter of taste.

Comment by rsynnott 9 hours ago

I mean, it's _possible_ they were aiming for "so bad it's good", missed, and ended up at just "really, really bad", I suppose. In practice, conscious attempts at "so bad it's good" virtually never work out; it is a thing which happens, not which is deliberately done.

Comment by ErigmolCt 6 hours ago

The difference is that those ads were annoying on purpose

Comment by hasbot 10 hours ago

No way anyone wants to hang out at McDonald's. If they're trying to make McDonald's a third space they need to do some remodeling first. Restaurants aren't warm and appealing; they're hard and easy to clean.

Comment by fidotron 10 hours ago

The one near me is always full of old people just hanging out. They use it in a similar way to many kids with starbucks, but they speak to each other instead of using laptops.

Comment by koakuma-chan 10 hours ago

Every McDonald's in North America I have been in had homeless people sleeping in it. I also actually worked at McDonald's and we would have to call ambulance every now and then because someone got high and passed out or something in the washroom.

Comment by crazygringo 8 hours ago

Then you've probably only been to/worked at McDonald's in the built-up parts of major cities.

McDonald's in the suburbs and more rural areas and smaller cities are quite pleasant. Spacious, clean, just local folks.

If your local McDonald's has a homeless person problem, then all your local fast food franchises do. It's a social services problem, not a McDonald's problem.

Comment by array_key_first 9 minutes ago

I live in the suburbs, and it's not like this. The entire place smells like feet (???), all the tables are sticky, and there's a constant stream of "beep boop beep boop... bebebebeb"

Comment by freedomben 4 hours ago

Exactly my experience. I've been to a lot of McDonald's everywhere from rural to old inner city, and the difference is Stark. The more rural locations tend to be clean and relatively comfortable and enjoyable to be in. The inner city locations tend to be dirty, crowded, and generally not very pleasant to be in.

And it's not just McDonald's, as you mentioned. I've observed the exact same thing with Wendy's and many other restaurants as well.

There are of course plenty of exceptions. It's perfectly possible to find a dirty uncomfortable restaurant in a rural area, and it's also not difficult to find a nice comfortable place in the inner city. But generally speaking the above is what I have observed most

Comment by antonymoose 7 hours ago

As others have suggested, you have a narrowly scoped view of the world and the use of McDonalds in it. While my city slicking McDonalds trips are usually not great, for many it’s actually very good.

Photographer and author Chris Arnade has written fairly extensively of his travels around the “forgotten” parts of America, which frequently lands him in McDonald’s stores that do serve as a community third-space, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/08/mcdonalds-c...

Comment by hasbot 6 hours ago

I can't believe you'd bring up one article written nine years ago! "Narrowly scoped!" Give me a break, you know nothing about the scope of my travels. Please don't make assumptions and condescensions about people you don't know.

Comment by snypher 5 hours ago

>No way anyone wants to hang out at McDonald's.

My anecdotal experience says they do. So what makes our observations different?

Comment by ErigmolCt 6 hours ago

Yeah, it's tough to sell "gather here for warmth" when the chairs feel like they were engineered to speed-run customer turnover

Comment by 10 hours ago

Comment by paleotrope 9 hours ago

Basically, "Clean with a hose" decor.

Comment by onionisafruit 10 hours ago

[flagged]

Comment by ricardobeat 2 hours ago

For some reason dutch advertising agencies went all-in on AI. There are tons of local commercials using the most terrible generated content and voiceovers.

Comment by ekjhgkejhgk 5 hours ago

How do you explain that an ad agency gets a contract from macdonalds and goes cheap on it? Is it greed or is it stupidity?

Comment by JSR_FDED 5 hours ago

Just watched it, the uncanny valley is a perfect match for their simulacra of food.

Comment by JSR_FDED 5 hours ago

It seems that when you’re selling fast food you’re in a world very far away from the one where livelihoods are being threatened by AI

Comment by lbreakjai 3 hours ago

Not if your customer base can't afford to eat your food because they lost their jobs to AI.

Comment by jqpabc123 10 hours ago

Mickey D's disses Christmas.

Was the concept created by AI?

Comment by ComplexSystems 4 hours ago

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.

Comment by port11 4 hours ago

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.)

Comment by danielbln 3 hours ago

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.

Comment by ronsor 3 hours ago

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.

Comment by danielbln 3 hours ago

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.

Comment by ronsor 3 hours ago

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.

Comment by averageRoyalty 3 hours ago

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.

Comment by em-bee 4 minutes ago

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

Comment by ErigmolCt 6 hours ago

Consumers have a surprisingly good nose for when something was made to save time instead of to say something meaningful

Comment by b3ing 5 hours ago

Other than the clips/scenes being short I couldn't tell too much that it was AI.

Comment by jmclnx 5 hours ago

What can I say, I thought it was funny. But seeing it over and over could get annoying.

Comment by MisterTea 10 hours ago

How else are you going to justify what I assume is a 5-6 figure invoice for essentially doing nothing.

> "This wasn't an AI trick," she said. "It was a film."

Unfortunately you can't trick us with this nonsense. I am pretty sure no editing software was used beyond hammering on a prompt for a weekend.

Comment by camillomiller 10 hours ago

>>This wasn't an AI trick," she said. "It was a film."

Even this statement reeks of chatGPT.

Comment by ablation 10 hours ago

I must say, my first thought was ChatGPT's signature writing style coming through loud and clear in that statement.

Comment by brazukadev 10 hours ago

If the budget was USD10k it is actually good.

Comment by sublinear 6 hours ago

This is one of those moments that will look silly in the future.

The ad sucks because it's cynical and poorly made. People would have complained on this basis alone. The ad also sucks because current generative AI is mass plagiarism.

I am pretty sure all this nuance will be lost on people of the future though. Even right now video ads don't reach audiences like they used to. Maybe that will be another layer for people to fail to wrap their heads around and laugh about.

Comment by lofaszvanitt 1 hour ago

If an RNG god exists, it will manifest soon, thanks to genAI, lol.

Comment by lizardking 10 hours ago

Beyond the critique of the AI slop, what a rotten message that was. If their goal was to bum me out, they were successful.

Comment by chromehearts 10 hours ago

McSlop

Comment by Fricken 11 hours ago

This is the slop that BBC failed to show you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-YwjXEVGo8

Comment by aitchnyu 10 hours ago

I've seen individual AI fans create these in minutes, hardly '"seven weeks" where the team "hardly slept" and created "thousands of takes"'.

Comment by amonith 10 hours ago

The thing is, if you want AI output to be heavily directed, which is probably the case here, I can imagine that thousands of random takes had to be made to make the damn thing follow the director's imagination. If you don't care too much about the output you can make these very quickly, yeah.

Comment by 9 hours ago

Comment by eurekin 10 hours ago

Oh, that can also mean they were out partying using the ad budgets funds :D

Comment by crazygringo 10 hours ago

That... doesn't bother me more than any other commercial.

Commercials are mostly dumb. This is another pretty dumb one. It has clunky AI just like plenty of other commercials have clunky traditional VFX.

Can't really see myself getting worked up about it?

If AI frees up VFX artists so they can work on movies rather than commercials, I'm all for that.

Comment by aswegs8 10 hours ago

Don't get it either. LGTM. Sure, it's no high budget (pre-AI) Coca Cola Christmas Ad, but it's not disturbing or particularly bad. Feels like people are just jumping on the "AI ads bad" bandwagon.

Comment by sssilver 10 hours ago

> If AI frees up VFX artists so they can work on movies rather than commercials, I'm all for that.

This isn’t how it works. Excel didn’t free up bookkeepers to become CFOs. Digital photography didn’t free up photo lab technicians to become cinematographers.

The person who in 1970 would have been an accountant at Ford Motor Company with a pension and a mortgage is now, displaced by Excel, working at two burger joints to make ends meet, with no realistic path to anything better. The VFX artists will follow in the exact same footsteps. The shareholders will keep the difference, as they have time and again.

Comment by crazygringo 9 hours ago

> This isn’t how it works.

It absolutely is how it works. You've got your economics wrong.

Your analogies are wrong because you're talking about people getting massive promotions.

I'm talking about doing the exact same job, just for a different type of company.

Also, you realize that accountants still exist and it's a well-paying job? They just use Excel now. They're not "working at two burger joints".

Comment by watwut 10 hours ago

> If AI frees up VFX artists so they can work on movies rather than commercials, I'm all for that.

There are way more people who want to be movie VFX artists then positions. Artists do commercials, because it pays that is where jobs are. They would gladly do cool movies.

Comment by crazygringo 9 hours ago

> There are way more people who want to be movie VFX artists then positions.

Not good ones. Good VFX studios are actually a major blocker in movie production, because there aren't enough of them. And their only limit is the number of qualified artists available.

Comment by watwut 4 hours ago

Really not. If the movie studios were willing to pay for that, there would be more studios.

We are talking about very competitive field where employers call all the shots. You know how you recognize lack of workers in an area? By high salaries, low competitiveness and very good working conditions.

Comment by mikkupikku 9 hours ago

> If AI frees up VFX artists so they can work on movies rather than commercials, I'm all for that.

If they've run out of bread, let them eat cake.

Comment by crazygringo 9 hours ago

> If they've run out of bread, let them eat cake.

Genuinely don't know what you're talking about.

There's massive demand in Hollywood for good VFX people. It's not some luxury job or something...?

Comment by mikkupikku 7 hours ago

There's demand for VFX artists like there's demand for video game developers; so many people want to do it that it drives wages down and there's demand for even cheaper labor. Nobody dreams of making TV commercials, movies are what people want to make.

Comment by crazygringo 7 hours ago

Yes there are so many people that want to do it. Unfortunately, they're mostly junior-level. There continues to be a real shortage of senior-level VFX talent.

Comment by mikkupikku 7 hours ago

Okay, so the junior VFX guys who could only get jobs making commercials should, now that there is less demand for them to make commercials, go make movies instead? Make it make sense.

Comment by crazygringo 6 hours ago

Why are you assuming it's the junior VFX guys making commercials? Commercials have big budgets too.

It's the same studios. They do work both for Hollywood and ad agencies.

But if ad agencies decide they're happier with lower-quality AI for 5% of the price (whereas they weren't if junior artists were still 50% of the price), while movie producers are not, then yes. They can make movies instead.

Does that "make sense" enough for you...?

Comment by mikkupikku 6 hours ago

Okay, so the senior VFX artist who has the experience to get a job in the movie industry if he wants it, instead gets a job in the commercial industry because the pay is better or maybe he just prefers it, now has to work in the movie industry contrary to his preferences.

No matter which way you slice it, you're not doing anybody a favor by eliminating their job. People generally already work the best job they can manage to and by eliminating that job you're making them pick another job they otherwise wouldn't have picked, or worse and more often, leaving them without a job because they were already working in the best job they were qualified for.

The whole "now that these jobs have been eliminated, the former workers are free to find a new job!" thing is bullshit cope. Always has been. They were already free to chose another job, and chose the one you think you're 'freeing' them from. You're not giving them choice, you're taking it from them.

Comment by 7 hours ago

Comment by doph 8 hours ago

There's a reason nearly all of the old guard VFX studios were driven to bankruptcy over the last decade and it doesn't have anything to do with massive demand for talent.

Comment by crazygringo 7 hours ago

Yes, the reason was massive underbidding and fixed-bid contracts that would overrun. In other words, mismanagement.

There still aren't enough senior-level VFX artists in a Hollywood. It continues to be a blocker.

Comment by HardwareLust 10 hours ago

Holy shit that's awful.

Comment by jackdoe 10 hours ago

but cheap

Comment by BoredPositron 10 hours ago

The agency said they spent over 5000 hours just in the execution.

Comment by gdulli 10 hours ago

I haven't watched it but I'm sure they also either said or implied McDonalds is worthwhile on some level so we can pump the brakes on taking them at their word.

Comment by 10 hours ago

Comment by creata 10 hours ago

Is there any doubt that the agency is lying?

Comment by 9 hours ago

Comment by bediger4000 9 hours ago

No. Advertising is all lies, so by any system of logic, as agencies are habitual, consistent liars.

Comment by josefritzishere 10 hours ago

This is worse than what the average college kid can do over a weekend. What garbage.

Comment by rsynnott 9 hours ago

There's a link to the ad in the article (the linked text "The Advert"). It is, indeed, astonishingly bad, even for AI slop.

Comment by jumpocelot 10 hours ago

What is the actual complaint here? Are people demanding commercials be beautiful? Before being AI slop, it is marketing slop. Why are they demanding 'soul' from an ad in 2025? Everything in this late-stage capitalist landscape is slop. They could have filmed it with real actors (or just reprised a spot from 15 years ago) and it wouldn't make any difference.

Comment by input_sh 9 hours ago

Because it's the TV yelling at you something along the lines of "Hey look, we replaced the creativity of dozens of people with this shitty result from a prompt, your job is next."

The fact that it's so bad that it obviously doesn't adhere to any sort of quality standards we expect from humans is just adding an insult to injury. It tells people "AI doesn't even need to be better at your job than you to replace you."

Comment by em-bee 2 hours ago

AI never needed to be better, it only needs to be cheaper.

Comment by 10 hours ago

Comment by rsynnott 9 hours ago

Companies generally want their ads to not be horribly off-putting.

> They could have filmed it with real actors (or just reprised a spot from 15 years ago) and it wouldn't make any difference.

I mean, it was conceptually bad to start with, but also it has a lot of unsettling AI video stuff (in particular, broken physics) that you wouldn't get with a real ad.

Comment by theturtle 10 hours ago

[dead]

Comment by t0lo 11 hours ago

Executive dysfunction