Monday 4 May 2009

Pieces of advertising material that have recently annoyed me - part five of at least three.



Wow! Surely, this is the very epitome of daring fusion cuisine - McDonalds, but thrillingly combined with the exotic tastes of western America! It seems like madness, but McDonalds dare to dream. And what is it they most dearly hope to gain from this previously unheard-of 'western' influence on their burgers? Why, sophistication, of course! Because if there's one quality the people of Utah, Wyoming and Arizona pride themselves in having above all others, it's sophistication. They might not be able to rope a steer like those folks in Boston, and you can bet they're always gonna come off worst in a fist-fight with a Parisian, but hoo boy, when it comes to sophistication, they've got 'em all licked.


9 comments:

Richard O. Smith said...

Mmmm…..sophistication.

Notoriously litigious, yet often deserving recipients of public scorn, sometimes McDonalds really do appear to make it easy to be disliked.

Of course, it’s the advertising theory of opposite attraction. Should you be peddling an aggressively unhealthy sweet brown soft drink (yeah, they’re litigious too) – a beverage containing an amount of sugar that a builder would consider ridiculous – you ensure the product is associated with sponsoring Olympics, football and general healthy activities.

That’s the Mclogic here, coupled with a winking, stocking-top-flashing invite to be seduced into their promised sophistication. Supermarkets similarly fishhook social aspirants by adorning microwave ready meals packaging with posh photos and an accompanying text that Brian Sewell would regard as unnecessarily flowery.

Nowadays a creative writing degree is seemingly a necessity for working in the food industry (“dew picked hand planted potatoes lovingly harvested in the traditional way from the misty heritage slopes of Jersey’s rich soil”) has usurped the previous product description of “potatoes”. P-lea-se.

Still, all things in moderation, eh? And I’d better stop dissing well known soft drink providers and burger chains, or else I’ll be hearing a crackling noise whenever picking up my phone, and wondering why there’s a GPO van constantly working outside my house every day (I’d have good grounds to be suspicious, given the GPO ceased to exist sometime back in the 80s).

Johnny E said...

There've been a whole series of ads lately claiming that McDonalds, in one of their perennial themed promotions, have come over all American. A line something like "It's McDonalds, but a little bit Yee-Ha!" was involved.

You know, like the great British tradition of McDonalds we know and love, but with a bit of that oh-so-exotic American influence that people were wild about 50 years ago, which was already on the wane by the time McDonalds came here (in a little-known bit of irony, from AMERICA!) and is all but a shambling corpse in the wake of the Bush presidency. But don't worry, they'll still do a traditional English cheeseburger and Coke for all you conservative sorts!

Kat said...

OHMYGOD! That is absolutely horrifying. And we (Americans) can't understand why we're not liked. Well HELLO! - there is perfect evidence WHY! I am utterly and completely embarrassed and horrified by this ad. Seriously - the ads are bad here.. and that.. there... is just.... I am speachless.

Jess said...

I live in Wyoming, and there's a joke here that's been around for about a hundred years that says the height of good manners in cowboy country is to mark the sheep that kick.

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