McDonald's pulls AI Christmas ad after backlash
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
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...
Of course, real actors have unions and part of the point of AI is to make labor weaker.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I get that LLMs have problems.
I was recently looking into the differences between a flash drive, an SSD, and an NVMe drive. Flash memory is one of the technologies I had in mind when I wrote my comment.
Flash has a bunch of problems. It can only be written over so many times before it dies. So it needs some kind of wear-leveling abstraction that abstracts over the actual storage space and provides a smaller, virtual storage space that is directed by a controller that knows to equally distribute writes over the actual storage, and avoid dead cells when they manifest.
NVMe extends that with a protocol that allows a very high queue depth that allows the controller to reorder instructions such that throughput can be maximized, making NVMe enabled drives more performant. Virtual address space + reordered operations = successful HDD replacement.
My point here is that LLMs are young, and that we're going to compose them into into larger workflows that allow for predictable results. But that composition, and trial and error, take time. We don't yet have the remedies necessary to make up for the weaknesses of LLMs. I think we will as we explore more, but the technology is still young.
As for copyright infringement, I think copyright has been broken for a long time. It is too brittle in its implementation. Google did essentially the same thing as OpenAI when they indexed webpages, but we all wrote it off as fair use because traffic was directed to the website (presumably to aggregate ad revenue). Now that traffic is diverted from the website, everyone has an issue with the crawling. That is not a principled argument, but rather an argument centered around "Do I get paid?". I think we need to be more honest with ourselves about what we actually believe.
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?
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_.
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?
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...
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.
But I don't understand why you put the ground invasion plans in quotes - are you claiming that all the effort spent on Operation Downfall[0] was just a misdirection intended to fool everyone, including the high-ranking officers involved in the planning?
Things did work out for Japan in the long run, but I still believe a conditional surrender + no atomic bombs should have been the solution. The US was very greedy with its demands, and I think a large part of that is our history of militarism and our desire to use new weaponry. The atomic bomb was already made, and I think realistically we were just itching to use it.
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).
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?
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.
They are the labor equivalent of the factory manager that is dutifully working for the bosses that are working to close the factory.
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.
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
"Wow McDonald's they really have a moral compass and listen to the people!"
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...
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.
I can't find anything; can you show us?
It was a prehistoric meme in the day.
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.
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!
> 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.
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.
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
...Unless you mean Canada of course, however, I bet a well traveled Canadian would say the same thing.
Also, stop vilifying the homeless.
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...
My anecdotal experience says they do. So what makes our observations different?
There's tons of gen-AI in adverts and most of it isn't newsworthy. The frog is stewed.
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....
Big brands are going to push multiple different adverts per week to a single market to see what sticks.
Get ready for the assault.
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.
Google deepmind is working on one too.
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.
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.
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).
Was the concept created by AI?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
a lot of folks talk about it, so, I am sure, somehwere some marketing guy is being congratulated
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.
Even this statement reeks of chatGPT.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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...?
There still aren't enough senior-level VFX artists in a Hollywood. It continues to be a blocker.
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...?
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.
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."
> 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.