Tone-deaf advertiser pretends the outcry was against the AI aspect (though there was some of that) instead of the generally Scroogish slant of the entire ad. Ditch the holiday and hide out in McDonalds! Har har. Didn't go down well.

Honestly I love it, didn't see it before till I search for it, I think they just picked the wrong target audience...

Did it really backfire?

From any important marketing measurement I can think of it was a big success.

Also, people around me seem to have liked it.

The only ones who are sore about it happen to be people who work on "creative" roles because they saw the writing on the wall, lmao.

More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46217176