The minimalist European McDonald's ads are getting creepy

Yes, I've seen those TBWA Paris ads that are an Art Director's wet dream. But this one from Heye Group, Munich, is more of a nightmare.

What is the message, really? That you should have fewer friends, so that you get to keep more fries? Just seeing those hands reach in like that kills my appetite anyway.

Via Creative Criminals

McRib: More comebacks than The Who

McRib is back. Again. And McDonald's Canada is celebrating its return with a rock 'n' roll theme. On the McRib Comeback Tour page, there's a McRib song, merchandise, and other stuff.

It was obviously inspired by The Who's habit of repeated comebacks. The McRib, after all, was first introduced the year The Who first called it quits. Considering the remaining members of the who plan to retire "for real" in 2015, I wonder which act has more staying power?

Should we expect global brands to respect universal human rights?

Following the scorn heaped upon IKEA for deleting all adult women from the Saudi version of its catalogue, I think it's time to start talking about how we hold global brands accountable for how they operate in places without basic human rights.

This week, I noticed a picture going around that claimed to be from the door of a Pizza Hut in Jeddah:

Digging a little deeper, I found a 2007 blog post with more documentation of major brands giving in to sexist Saudi social and religious policy:

In this case, the policy of sex segregation is because women must expose their faces to eat, so no unmarried and unrelated man can be allowed to see them.

At McDonald's, the segregation is has created the "need" for restaurants to build parallel and non-communicating sections for (male) "singles" and "families".

Admittedly, this was five years ago. But has anything changed?

From 2009:

An American businesswoman was carted off to jail by religious police in Saudi Arabia for sitting with a male colleague at a Starbucks in Riyadh, the Times of London reported.
The woman, who spent a day behind bars, was strip-searched and forced to sign a false confession before being released, the newspaper said. The Times declined to publish her name at her request. 

The 37-year-old businesswoman works for a finance company in Riyadh. Her problem began when her office lost electricity. She and her male colleagues then went to a nearby Starbucks to use the coffee shop's Internet connection. 

She sat with a male colleague in the Starbucks' family area, the only place women are allowed to sit with men.  

"Some men came up to us with very long beards and white dresses. They asked 'Why are you here together?' I explained about the power being out in our office. They got very angry and told me what I was doing was a great sin," she told the Times. 

Following her arrest and interrogation, the woman was hauled before a judge.
"He said 'You are sinful and you are going to burn in hell.' I told him I was sorry. I was very submissive. I had given up. I felt hopeless," she told the Times. 

The newspaper said the woman had received a visit from officials at the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia. A U.S. official told The Times that it was being treated as "an internal Saudi matter" and refused to comment on her case.

And this year:

Western companies on Saudi land must comply with Saudi religious regulations. Fast-food restaurants such as McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, and other US firms, for instance, maintain sex-segregated eating zones in their restaurants. The facilities in the women's section are usually lower in quality.

I will just flat out say it: I don't think brands that want to do business in a world that respects the equality and dignity of women should be doing business in places where women have no basic rights. Full stop.

Recently, I refused to work on a project for a North American educational institution (NDA prevents me from naming names) that wanted to recruit teachers for a Saudi school. They would happily accept applications from anyone, but in reality only wanted white males. Fuck that.

Everyone — EVERYONE — deserves the same rights and opportunities as everyone else, and cannot be denied them simply because of what's between their legs. Whether that is a major right such as education and voting, or more mundane things like being able to drive or buy junk food, the continued denial of this equality is an affront to anyone who believes women are free individuals.

IKEA, when they were called out by the media in their base of Sweden, issued this statement:

We should have reacted and realized that excluding women from the Saudi Arabian version of the catalogue is in conflict with the IKEA Group values. We are now reviewing our routines to safeguard a correct content presentation from a values point-of-view in the different versions of the IKEA Catalogue worldwide.

You may not like where I'm going with this post. After all, don't universal human rights guarantee freedom of religion? Isn't it the Saudis' business how they run their society?

Personally, I have no problem saying that the way women are treated in Saudia Arabia, and many other countries is wrong. I don't care whether the reason given is religion, tradition, or just fear of women's liberation. Human beings deserve better.

I cannot change Saudi Arabia. But I can let western brands know that we're watching them. If expansion into wealthy but oppressive countries is more important to them than respect for women's rights, then that belief should be seen as part of their global brand.

If you want a Starbucks coffee, go ahead and order one. What you have in your hand is a beverage that stands for sex segregation and arrest of women who dare order one without their husband or brother present. If you have a Big Mac attack, remember that somewhere a single woman has had to hire a taxi driver to take her through the drive-through to get one, because to walk into the restaurant would put her at risk of being beaten and arrested by so-called morality police. Same with your Pizza Hut hot dog stuffed greasewheel, or your Double Down.

When you support a brand, you are making its values part of your own. That's the way branding and identity work. Would you like fries with that misogyny?

Subway spot ignores its own fat issues

Ads of The World shared this new Subway ad on their Facebook Page:



Compelling and memorable visuals. And it's hard for me to come to the defence of McDonald's, etc., on this account, but Subway really stretches the boundaries of deception.

Here's the issue: they compare grease used in cooking things like fries to the fat that's in a small sub, and then show hamburgers on a grill as where it ends up. What?

Look, hamburgers are junk food, but the fat in a burger has little to do with a fast food restaurant's waste oil. And deep fried foods, when cooked hot enough, do not absorb a great deal of it (otherwise, they'd have to refill their fryers continuously).

My point here is not that McDonald's or Burger King deserves defence. It's that Subway is fast food too.

Sure, you can get a 6" ham on whole wheat without cheese, mayo, or any topping but veggies (6g of fat). You can also order a salad at McDonald's. Big whoop.

But what do you get at Subway? A 12" meatball marinara (44g fat)? Spicy Italian (56g)? ...Tuna (60g)?

I had to do math here, BTW, because Subway only gives nutritional values for half subs. How's that for misleading?

Meanwhile, the dreaded Big Mac has 29g of fat. In other words, less fat than a 6" Subway tuna sub. (Large fries add another 27.)

More fat than a Big Mac and large fries. (via Flikr)

Everyone should eat better. And I'd often far rather eat a sandwich than a burger. But Subway should stop overplaying its hand and admit that it, too, is making people fat.

What a beautiful (and misleading) McDonald's ad!

I have a six-year-old son, and despite my best efforts he thinks McDonald's is really, really awesome. But this ad was made to appeal to me. And it failed.



Cute, eh? The apple tree grows up, and the bird has babies who eventually leave the nest. And the John Denver-y music! Oh, so tear-jerking for a parent!

Because, despite the fact that McDonald's food really appeals to kids, ads like these are all about two things:

1. If you love your kids, you will take them to McDonald's to show it
2. The food isn't nearly as nutritionally useless as you might imagine

We all know that when kids think "Happy Meal", they think apple slices and milk! Right?

At least I'm honest about it. When I rarely cave and take Ladman to McD's, he gets whatever he wants. And that's Chicken(esque) McNuggets, fries, and (possibly) a shake. He eats healthy food at home. Why on earth would I pay McDonald's to slice his apple for him? (And give him some sugary crap to dip it in.)

"WTF, Mom?!? I said HAPPY meal!"

I know what they're doing here. They're trying to make parents feel less guilty. But it's a shame that junk food can't just be a treat. I hate it when people want to fool themselves, and I hate it even more when advertisers want to help them do it.

Ad by Leo Burnett. See more of the campaign at Ads of The World.

McDonald's awkward multiculturalism

Sociological Images shared this unfortunate "career ladder" snapped at an unidentified McDonald's by Near Earth Object:

From the context, you have to assume these are real people. And their ethnicities may reflect socioeconomic realities in the United States. But it's unfortunate because McDonald's tries so hard to be an equal opportunity employer, and this makes it seem like the higher positions are locked up by whitey.

By the way, if you are African, Latino or Asian American, and want to see how McDonald's is reaching out to you, please check out one of their painfully stereotyped sub-sites:

365Black: "Like the unique African baobab tree, which nourishes its community with its leaves and fruit..."

MeEncanta "We share your passion for music"

Myinspirasian: "Let's go do some karaoke!"

Kiddie Advertising

In today's Ottawa Citizen:

Canada's big-name food and drink companies are meeting their commitments to advertise less to children and to promote more nutritious products and an active lifestyle when they do target youth, according to a compliance report from Advertising Standards Canada.

The article references the Canadian Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, which companies such as McDonald's, Kellogg and Kraft voluntarily sign on to.

It states:

In advertising directed to children, it is appropriate to favour foods that contribute important nutrients that may otherwise be at insufficient levels in children’s diets; moderate the consumption of fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sugars, and sodium, which are generally over-consumed in the typical Canadian diet; or, of particular importance, moderate total calories in their diets.

Sounds great, eh? But this little gem was buried in the Citizen article:

The nutrition criteria also varies by company. The guidelines that McDonald's uses meant the only brand it advertised directly to children last year was its Chicken McNuggets Happy Meal with milk and apple slices. McDonald's has also changed the way it uses its famous Ronald McDonald mascot in advertising and the red-headed clown character now promotes an active lifestyle, not hamburgers and fries.

Okay, so McDonalds complies with this by putting Ronald in yoga pants and telling them to eat their McNuggets with milk and apples dipped in sugary sludge? Seriously?

Suspiciously, McDonald's nutrition calculator doesn't even seem to have options for kids meals. But I'll propose that deep fried chicken and caramel are not exactly "healthy" meal choices. Fun, sure. Even tasty. But it's not something I'd let my son eat regularly. It's treat food — not sustenance.

And there's the problem. McDonalds is still advertising to children. (As are others, but McDonald's is the leader.) It's still targetting kids so they'll associate McDonald's engineered flavours with comfort foods early on, and will drag their parents to the golden arches at every opportunity.

This is progress in responsible advertising? I must be missing something.

Or maybe I'm just mad because my son recently told me that my gourmet, hand-made, organic beef burgers grilled with hickory smoke and served on a whole wheat bun don't taste as good as McDonalds. That's right — they got him too.

(Image taken from here)


UPDATE: Validation from Quebec...

In light of the report released on the Canadian Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, the Quebec Coalition on Weight-Related Problems (Weight Coalition) is encouraging Canada to develop legislation that is similar to Quebec's, to govern this type of advertising. According to the Coaliton, Canadian companies do not deserve the congratulations they are nevertheless receiving from Advertising Standards Canada (ASC), following the self-regulation measures that were implemented in 2007 and are being evaluated today.