Today’s guest post is by Peppercommer Dandy Stevenson.
In their latest attempt to turn their sow’s ear of an eatery, (swimming in a pool of fat,) into a silk purse of fresh and healthy food, McDonald’s unveiled their new mascot. Its name is ‘Happy.’ But don’t be fooled by that cheerful name.
He looks like a big, fat front loading washing machine ready to gobble-up poor unsuspecting kids.
This red box with golden arch eye brows and serpent-like arms has terrorizing little Pierre in France since 2009, chomped his way thru Latin America and now has set his beady eyes on the US.
Social media sites are awash with criticism including reports of children having ‘Happy’ nightmares. As a brand ambassador touting McD’s healthy choices, such as subbing apple slices for fries, and milk for sodas, he is an epic fail.
Happy really is nothing more than a grown up Grimace, that original fast food mascot/monster first introduced by McD’s in the 60s. Happy doesn’t REALLY care what your kids eat- he only wants to get them in the door. And he sure doesn’t care if he strikes fear into the hearts of our children.
It’s hard to imagine that a country as big as McDonaldLand cannot see that no matter what they do, they will not ever change the image on which they were founded. They created the fast food market, and their business model hasn’t changed. They can offer apples, carrots and skim milk till the cows come home, but folks do NOT go to their restaurants for healthy choices. Never have. Never will.
Very astute replies, Ms. Stevenson.
Uhhh… OK?
Hey I’m not the biggest fan of McDonald’s either but in a free market system there are bound to be companies we don’t favor. So McDonald’s has a new mascot. I’m sure they tested the mascot on plenty of kids before they released it. You are not the target.
You’re “Not so happy” either 🙂
I must say that for a communications firm that prides itself on fresh, creative and innovative thinking and communications, this blog doesn’t really highlight that. Instead, every few posts seems to be about McDonalds/fast food, the demise of advertising or about the big bad pr firms that dominate the industry. In fact, a casual search of these words/terms on this site brings up MANY posts on these 3 topics. And so I ask- where is the fresh. creative, innovative content on this blog?
Where are the posts about Boeing and their image/rep in the wake of MH370 still missing?
Where are the posts about Michael Jordan’s rep as it compares to Donald Sterling when he openly admits his feelings/beliefs towards white people growing up?
How about Hillary Clinton and Benghazi and what her image is like as she considers a run for President?
How about the NFL and the image of the Rams for selecting Michael Sam in the draft.
The list goes on and on but instead we keep reading about how America is getting fat, big PR makes lots of money and is bad, and advertising is dead (yet last I looked many firms are still alive and kicking and many companies continue to increase advertising budgets).
We get it- you don’t like McDonalds and people gaining weight. And I’m sure we will read about in 2 weeks again. But in the meantime, would love to read your POV on something fresh.