AI-made commercials that sparked controversy: lessons from Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Toys“R”Us

Major brands, with generous budgets and experienced teams, have already aired films produced with generative artificial intelligence. Some of these launches made international headlines because of the negative comments they received. Looking at these cases calmly helps you anticipate risks before approving your next campaign.

In this third article of the series, we bring together four episodes documented by news outlets. In all of them, the audience's reaction revolved around the same perception: a sense of artificiality in campaigns designed to bring the brand closer to people.

Coca-Cola and the remake of a Christmas classic

In November 2024, Coca-Cola launched an AI generated Christmas commercial that recreated its 1995 "Holidays Are Coming" campaign, with the brand's convoy of trucks arriving in a snow covered town. According to the Storyboard18 portal, social media users called the film "creepy", "soulless" and "dystopian". A YouTube comment described the piece as "AI-generated slop", an English expression for low quality AI content.

The report also recorded defenders, who argued that the production probably cost less and that AI is a tool for creative people.

In November 2025, the company made the same bet with a new AI generated Christmas film. The review published by TechRadar acknowledged technical progress compared with the previous year, stated that the commercial still lacked the emotional warmth of the 1995 original and described the piece as an imitation of nostalgia.

McDonald's and the film that was pulled

In December 2025, McDonald's Netherlands published on YouTube a 45 second commercial made with AI, produced by The Sweetshop Films with the agency TBWA/Neboko. The film showed holiday season mishaps and invited the audience to take refuge at McDonald's until January.

According to NBC News, director Melanie Bridge, from the production company, defended the project in a post that was later deleted. She said the work kept a team of ten people busy full time for five weeks. Her account shows that a film made with AI can require a professional team and weeks of work.

Toys"R"Us and the brand film made with Sora

In 2024, Toys"R"Us presented at the Cannes festival a film of about one minute made with Sora, OpenAI's video tool. The piece told the company's origin story through its founder Charles Lazarus and was produced by the agency Native Foreign, with about a dozen people over three months, according to NBC News.

The reaction on social media included criticism from creative professionals worried about work in acting, screenwriting and design. A comic artist quoted by NBC News said that hiring actors would have made the video far less strange. Kim Miller Olko, president of Toys"R"Us Studios, called the project a test, considered the result successful and said generative AI would join the company's toolkit as one tool among many.

Guess, Vogue and the models who do not exist

In August 2025, Guess ads published in the American edition of Vogue used models created with AI by the London agency Seraphinne Vallora. According to ABC7, TikTok users criticized the choice, and one of them said the ad did not make her want to buy anything at all. The agency's founders stated that they do not intend to take the place of the modeling industry.

The pattern that repeats in all four cases

The episodes have points in common. All of them involved well known brands and professional teams, in emotional campaigns or ones tied to the company's identity. In all of them, the audience reacted to a sense of artificiality, and the conversation on social media came to revolve around the technology used in the film.

If you lead the brand, the cost shows up on several fronts: team time spent answering criticism, media budget spent on a film that was pulled, wear and tear with the audience and an uncomfortable association with the word "slop". The ninth article of the series returns to this topic with guidance to keep your film from becoming a joke.

In our view, the cases also show that the decision to use AI involves the story the film tells. Sentimental dates, such as Christmas, and narratives about the brand's origin call for a human connection that the audience demands rigorously.