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...

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.

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

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!"

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...

Apple intelligence: "why try to make an effort for others?" McDonalds germany: "Christmas sucks actually, but you know what doesn't?"

Great sample size of 2 I know... still enough to make me wonder if ad agencies are just playing a game of chicken between themselves to see who can spit on the face of customers the most before they realize they're being spit on.

McDonald's case is pretty funny, because their JP branch on social media is on a streak of well-received PR stunts where they just grab whoever made a popular song/meme over the years and pay them to redo it as an ad (+ releasing an original song for their moon-viewing line of product that I do enjoy).

https://youtu.be/dBqhIVyfsRg?si=WQ44V1CXuuFMGnca

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.

The entire idea of the ad is Grinch-worthy. It was conceived and directed by someone who hates the season. It makes you want to close the browser, not going out to eat.

Several of the scenes in here are extremely similar to one from a year or two ago, which I think was to the same song.

Was the concept created by AI?

a lot of folks talk about it, so, I am sure, somehwere some marketing guy is being congratulated

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.

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.

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