Thanks to TiVo, I hardly watch commercials anymore, but a strange ad caught my eye the other day. (I’ve looked all over, and for the life of me I can’t find it online–if anyone can locate it, please drop a line in the comments.) It was for McDonald’s, and it was this hip young guy in his cramped apartment who realized that since he ate at McDonald’s all the time (so cheap!) he didn’t really need to cook. So he starts filling up his kitchen cabinets with clothes, etc., everyone has a good laugh, jingle, back to CSI: Dayton.
Wait a minute, though. Either
- McDonald’s and their ad agency are completely tone-deaf (a distinct possibility)
- They’re actually poking fun at themselves and the recent shocking revelation that their food is nothing but highly processed rat spit, or
- They’re semi-seriously suggesting that one could reasonably eat McDonald’s every day, Morgan Spurlock be damned.
Does this strike anyone else as odd? I recall one of the most reasonable reponses to Super Size Me (for those of you who dislike clicking things, it’s a documentary in which Spurlock nearly kills himself by only eating McDonald’s for a month straight) being, “Well, you’re not supposed to eat McDonald’s every day, everyone knows that.” I admit to enjoying a little McDonald’s myself now and then, and of course it can be part of a healthy diet in the same way that “Froot Loops is part of this complete breakfast” as the camera pulls back to reveal a table stacked with real food.
It just seems strange that McDonald’s would invite this debate anew with an ad that wasn’t particularly clever to begin with. Any thoughts?
they have a radio ad that talks about a guy who wants to eat mcdonald’s breakfast every day, too.