McDonald’s faced backlash last month after releasing an AI-generated Christmas commercial titled “The Worst Time of the Year.” Critics were not lovin’ it and slammed the video as “disjointed,” “uncanny,” and “stupefying.” McDonald’s was forced by the public backlash to remove the content, which damaged the company’s reputation.
In both November 2024 and November 2025, Coca-Cola used AI to recreate its old “Holidays Are Coming” commercials. The ads were slammed for being “soulless,” “dystopian,” and “devoid of any actual creativity.” Car blog Jalopnik pointed out that the truck in the ad had 10 different axle configurations during the 60-second commercial.
I believe that half the reaction was to the actual content quality, and half was simply the knowledge that these huge companies used AI, which is assumed to be cheap, fast, and easy. The move signaled they were just “phoning it in,” not offering any kind of creative thinking.
