Christmas Ad Row: Not Just McDonald's, These Brands Also Faced Fury For AI-Generated Commercials

McDonald’s is under fire after releasing an AI-generated Christmas commercial that left many viewers unsettled, rather than festive. The backlash came fast and furious. At one point, the company disabled comments on YouTube before later making the video private altogether

The ad consisted of a frenetic series of AI-generated video clips showing individuals experiencing various holiday mishaps. Since generative video tools are currently unable to deliver stable, continued footage, the ad used extremely short shots, Forbes reported.

The montage included scenes like malfunctioning Christmas decorations and a tantrum-throwing Santa in traffic. The advertisement was meant to position McDonald's as a haven of calm during the festive rush, but the use of AI drew negative reactions.

McDonald's is not the only one to face flak. As brands race to use artificial intelligence in their advertising, numerous big companies have faced public backlash over quality, ethics and execution of AI-generated campaigns.

In November, Coca-Cola received similar backlash after incorporating AI into its Christmas ad campaign. The Holidays Are Coming advert, released on Nov. 3, featured Santa opening a bottle of Coke as the brand’s now-iconic red trucks moved through a snowy landscape, with animated animals pausing to stare.

Despite experiencing widespread backlash in 2024 over its AI-generated holiday ads, the company persisted with its AI-driven campaign in 2025. Reactions this year were similar to those from last year.

In June 2024, Toys 'R' Us came under criticism after the company published an advert it had made using OpenAI’s video-generation model, Sora. The video represented an attempted fictionalised origin story, about how a young Charles Lazarus creates the company after a dreamlike experience. Critics quickly panned the finished product.

One issue was inconsistency. This child version of Charles changed appearance from scene to scene. As Forbes reported, critics noted that these distorted visuals somehow made it into the final edit, suggesting they were the best Sora could generate at the time.

Google also joined the ranks of those trying their hand on AI-generated commercials. The technology giant recently aired its first ad, which was fully made using its in-house tools. The ad features a soft, toy-like turkey who uses Google Search's AI Mode to look for a place in the world where Thanksgiving isn't celebrated.

Robert Wong, co-founder of Google Creative Lab, told the Wall Street Journal that the company does not plan to produce all its ads using tools like Veo 3.

In 2023, Levi's announcement that it would begin testing virtual, AI-generated clothing models was met with backlash. While much of the criticism centred around diversity and representation concerns, the plan also resurfaced long-standing industry worries about the growing role of automation in creative work.

The idea was to let online shoppers view Levi's products on a wider range of body types and appearances. But critics said the approach offered a low-cost shortcut to diversity, and risked sidelining professional models who rely on such work for their livelihoods.

In April 2024, film studio A24 released a set of promotional posters for its film Civil War, depicting major US cities engulfed in conflict. The images included a ruined Las Vegas, armed patrols in San Francisco, a devastated Miami street and refugee-filled boats on the Chicago River. The posters soon attracted backlash after it emerged they had been created using artificial intelligence.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the AI-generated visuals contained geographic inaccuracies and landmark errors, raising questions about the studio’s use of AI for promotional materials.

The wave of criticism hitting these brands shows that audiences are far from convinced by AI-driven advertising. As companies push deeper into generative tools, the backlash suggests consumers still expect authenticity, consistency and human creativity in the campaigns they engage with.