McDonald's faces backlash after airing 2025 Christmas commercial: 'This is just … terrible'

https://www.thecooldown.com/green-business/mcdonalds-ai-commercial-backlash-netherlands/

143 points · 21 comments · view on lemmy.world

21 Comments

samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 62 pts · 262d (2 replies)

The studio behind it says they 'hardly slept' for several weeks while writing AI prompts and refining the shots — 'AI didn't make this film. We did'

You really shouldn't be so eager to take credit for that monstrosity.

Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world · 40 pts · 262d (1 reply)

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ladicius@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 262d

Simply shows what bullshit comes from AI.

BossDj@piefed.social · 51 pts · 262d (1 reply)

So did Coke and McDonald's do this because the reporting hits more people than the ad does alone?

sauerkrautsaul@lemmus.org · 23 pts · 262d

i was just pondering this today

X@piefed.world · 40 pts · 262d (3 replies)

Yeah, that was fucking atrocious, but given they’re Drowsy Don’s fave, I don’t patronize them anymore. Still an abysmal ad.

Blackfeathr@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 262d

Solidarity. Haven't eaten there since September 2024. Besides essentially endorsing Trump, the food is absolutely not worth the exorbitant prices they charge.

spongebue@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 262d (1 reply)

I mean, as far as I know they're not exactly touting that fact. If they just say "whatever, here's your damn cheeseburger" that's not really much reason to boycott IMO.

Now, Shake Shack switching to beef tallow for their fries and practically worshipping RFK... They can suck one. Which is a shame, because I'd actually like to try that if it were just a thing they did.

Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 262d

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duncan_bayne@lemmy.world · 35 pts · 262d (1 reply)

The studio behind it says they ‘hardly slept’ for several weeks

Are they acknowledging that crunches and sleep deprivation lead to poor results? 😀

ladicius@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 262d

Dumb hustle culture. Idiots.

Wispy2891@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 262d (4 replies)

In a post on LinkedIn, The Gardening.club, the AI division of The Sweetshop, the studio behind the ad, said the ad took them “seven intense weeks” to create. They even admitted “the man-hours poured into this film were more than a traditional production.”

Melanie Bridge, CEO of The Sweetshop, shared similar comments in a post on Instagram, saying, “The hours that went into this job far exceeded a traditional shoot. Ten people, five weeks, full-time. Blood, sweat, tears, and an honestly ridiculous amount of coaxing to get the models to behave and to honor the creative brief shot by shot.”

So why not a traditional shoot? Especially for a multibillion corporation, this money gets used in 5 minutes of operation for the CEO private jet, literally pocket change

JustTesting@lemmy.hogru.ch · 13 pts · 262d

So why not a traditional shoot?

they heard how much publicity coca cola got when they did their AI ad andthere's no such thing as bad publicity? i can't even say that it doesn't work, it does get people talking about it…

very_well_lost@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 262d (1 reply)

Because we're all talking about it. When was the last time you heard someone talk about a McD's ad?

Notyou@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 261d

The last time someone on here found out that Pusha T made the ba ba ba ba ba, I'm lovin it jingle.

HeyJoe@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 262d

In the same article it says the locations used, and amount of money to shoot this on site would have costed way more. Which is funny to me since they seem to be complaining either way about the cost of making a commercial. Honestly, I am not sure how paying 10 people with long hours came anywhere near an on-site full production staff budget to even say that. There's no way it was even close. If it was close then your overpaying for slop.

Aequitas@feddit.org · 9 pts · 262d (1 reply)

Seems to be successful advertising when articles are written about it.

jaredwhite@humansare.social · 3 pts · 262d

For small/unknown companies, all publicity is good publicity may be true, but McDonald's is one of the biggest and most well-established brands around. A horrible ad isn't going to turn many new people onto their products but it sure as hell can turn a lot of people off.

thenoirwolfess@lemmynsfw.com · -3 pts · 262d (3 replies)

This is just analysis of a conversation about the video. Would be nice if we had the video. Damn weak articles.

dogsnest@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 262d (2 replies)

The video is in the embedded xitter. Not sure why you couldn't find it.

geekwithsoul@piefed.social · 14 pts · 262d

I experience the same thing sometimes because of my browser settings - embedded tweets don't show …and (usually) nothing is lost ;)

thenoirwolfess@lemmynsfw.com · 1 pts · 262d

Ah, so they're not always garbage in the way I think. I have a couple ad and tracker blockers, DNS blocker, script blocklist and privacy browsers, one Chromium and one Firefox - no doubt one of those defended me from the video.

thagoat@lemmy.dbzer0.com · -8 pts · 262d (1 reply)

Not everyone is fond of Christmas. It's not universally loved. I hated Christmas for close to 10 years after my mom died and before my son was born. This is a perfectly normal reaction to the holidays. That being said, should you spend your holiday hiding time at McDonalds? Absolutely fucking not.

I did find the video amusing, even if it's made entirely of Ai bullshit.

cecilkorik@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 262d

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