Epic Ethnic Marketing McFail

No, it's not a new version of Lorem Ipsum — it's a billboard supposedly written in the Hmong language that McDonald's placed in St. Paul, Minnesota, to reach the sizeable local Hmong population. (The language unusually, for East Asia, uses a Romanized alphabet.)

Unfortunately, as I learned from AdFreak's David Gianatasio, the agency (Arnold Bloomington) failed to accurately translate the headline. 

It was supposed to read "Coffee gets you up, breakfast gets you going." David quotes Thai Lee, a local doctor, who told the St. Paul Pioneer Press "as it stands right now, it doesn't make sense at all."

Apparently, the wording of the ad was awkward and is a run-on sentence, missing key word breaks.

Dr. Lee added, "Chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension and obesity are already a major health concern in the Hmong community. Most of this is attributed to the changing Westernized eating behaviors that Hmong people have adapted to." He also mentioned that coffee is not really part of Hmong culture.

In the same article, Kelli Bovin, vice president of management for Arnold Advertising in Bloomington told Pioneer Press"This is the first time that McDonald's anywhere in the country has advertised in Hmong. We looked at all of the ethnic groups in the Twin Cities and talked about the Hmong consumer and wanted to make sure we were communicating effectively with them." 

McFail.

F'd Ad Fridays: Human rights for sale... cheap

George Takei's equal rights group shared a link that led me to this:

That's right. All you have to do is get five of your fellow citizens to throw gay people under the bus in the next election, and you'll be entered in a draw for a $100 Visa card!

According to Minnesota for Marriage:

"Recently, a bi-partisan majority of the legislature voted to place the Minnesota Marriage Amendment on the 2012 statewide ballot to ensure that the people of Minnesota have a voice on this important issue. Please join us today to preserve marriage!"

But the Minnesota Independent points out:

"Bribery, advancing money, and treating prohibited. A person who willfully, directly or indirectly, advances, pays, gives, promises, or lends any money, food, liquor, clothing, entertainment, or other thing of monetary value, or who offers, promises, or endeavors to obtain any money, position, appointment, employment, or other valuable consideration, to or for a person, in order to induce a voter to refrain from voting, or to vote in a particular way, at an election, is guilty of a felony."

So in this case, perhaps the "F" for this campaign could also stand for "felonious"...