Previously, on WITFITS:

Kato: ...Shamrock Shake, damnit...now!
Clerk: ...machine is broken.
Kato: (shaking fists at sky)
Clerk: ...chocolate, vanilla...
Kato: ...strawberry...
(random car explosion)
Woman: (storming out) You guys think you have enough fries!
Kato: (pressing the fry box to the window) Hey lady, you like fries? I got her number. How do you like them fries?

And now, the conclusion...

McDonald's of today isn't what it use to be. For starters, Ronald McDonald no longer has a curly red afro. They have replaced him with some wavy-haired imposter, which is an insult to all of us kids who grew up with the clown-from-the-seventies Ronald. When I think "Service With a Smile" I think of a bright red curly clown wig and gender-ambiguous pom-pom like fry guys. I don't want my mascots to be hip, cool, and down with the street. I want them to be consistent, damnit! This ranks right up there with the current rock-n-roll Snap, Crackle, and Pop, and extreme sports Tony the Tiger ("Slamming your manhood into a metal handrail while grinding--it's grrrrreat!") Advertisers: stop ruining my childhood memories!

What's worse from a "so annoying I want sharpen a pencil and jab it in my eye" perspective is McDonald's recent wave of retch-inducing advertising campaigns. In an effort to broaden the appeal of their franchise and reach out to different demographics (urban professionals, minorities, the brain-slug constituent) they have succeeded in coming up with a series of campaigns that show they aren't in touch with any of these groups. The promos starting a few years back with the kids breakdancing and, <ahem>, "rapping," has a sort of Warren Beaty-in-Bullworth quality about them that makes me shudder. I can honestly say they offend me as both a fan of hip-hop music and as a homo-sapien in general. Clearly the most obnoxious of their recent efforts, however, comes in the form of their overriding theme for the past two years: "I'm lovin' it!" Ugh, I can't believe I typed those words, I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Picture it: Barcelona, Spain, 2003. A few good friends and I are there for two weeks, livin' la vida loca, and doing other things that resemble the names of Ricky Martin tunes. After determining that the food in Spain consists of either meat that has been hanging in a butcher shop (see Museum of Ham) for three years or a strange sea creature cooked in a fluid from another strange sea creature (i.e. eel boiled in squid ink), we located the nearest McDonald's and gorged ourselves on whatever it is they call a quarter pounder with cheese over there (Reyal con Queso?). McDonald's, to us, was like the American Embassy. We felt like we were on American soil, right down to the minimum-wage employees who only spoke Spanish. I believe they even pumped muzak versions of American pop tunes through the speakers, as opposed to the euro-pop crap and "traditional Spanish music" playing everywhere else. Not only that, we were relatively sure that we were guaranteed certain rights and could get away with things like double-parking and smuggling contraband in our diplomatic pouches. "American soil," we'd yell as la policía approached, "Diplomatic immunity, bitches!" And that's how I spent my first night in a Spanish jail.

It was at this Spanish McDonald's that we first spotted shirts, cups, window clings, etc., all bearing the phrase that would live in infamy. How odd, we thought, that in a country that speaks, you know, Spanish, they would have this English phrase written all over everything. At first I thought it might have been an effort by the corporate heads to make Americans feel more at home abroad, at which I applauded their efforts. Then I actually thought about it for a second and determined it was too horrible a slogan for even that purpose and so it must have been some crappy European marketing campaign.


So for several days the guys and I joked about these poor Europeans having to suffer through some really crappy marketing ploys. Lo and behold we get back to the States and find out that, no, it wasn't a crappy European campaign, it was a crappy international campaign. I wanted to wang myself on the head with a surgical two-by-four until I could no longer remember the phrase.

As a footnote to this story, I was reading last week about Micky D's latest gaffe. As I said, they've clearly shown they are not in touch with the audiences they are trying to market to. The proof? They were running a series of banner ads that showed a guy looking either hungry or guilty with the text: "Double Cheeseburger...I'd hit it!" Yes, indeed, McDonald's advocates copulating with items on their dollar value menu.

I couldn't make that up, even if I tried.

Tags: Advertising, Humor, Life, McDonald's