"Win the Holidays"

18 December 2025

90s

Help is at hand.

The AI apologists who defended the lamentable Dutch ad for McDonald's that the fast food giant withdrew after a backlash spent several weeks trying to persuade everyone that the problems was not the technology used to make the ad so much as the poor idea at its core, suggesting that you can't be cynical about Christmas.

The weakness of that argument is exposed by ads like this one for Samsung which, alongside this year's Christmas ad for Tesco, uses humorous cynicism to remind viewers that the season of goodwill is a stressful time of year.

As these ads have not been badly received, it can reasonably be assumed that the problem with the McDonald's ad was its dependence on AI... although, DAVID would add the rider that the backlash was likely provoked in the first instance by TBWA/Nebenko's determination to crow about their use of the technology.

Gray Freedman's presentation of Christmas is nightmarish as a couple battle the odds to get everything lined up for a perfect experience for their family. Help is at hand, literally, from the Samsung devices they are holding, and they manage to carve sweet order from the chaos, and before you know it, everyone is chilling and calmly enjoying each other's company.

UK

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