Honest McDonald’s Billboards
January 26, 2010
I’ve never eaten a burger at McDonald’s that looks like the picture on this billboard. I have eaten a burger that left an oily film on my mouth for three days. On the plus side, I didn’t need lip balm. The oil that leeched off my tongue kept my lips moist.
I guess that’s what I expect from a burger that is cooked in 60 seconds.
I question what McDonald’s consider “beef” and wouldn’t describe the affect-effects of their grease pucks as “glory.” Their advertisements are not a true likeness of their food. It’s time to add real photos and make their billboards a little more honest.
(Originally posted May 20, 2009.)
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Truth in advertising is an oxymoren.
McD should have Mcfuneral parlors across the US to further serve their loyal customers who eat that stuff. Love the crushed burger, ha
That burger has two tops!!!!
You need to see this:
http://thewvsr.com/adsvsreality.htm
I read Fast Food Nation years ago, and was surprised to find that the enormous clout of the industry allows them to obtain ‘cleaner’ meat than we can purchase in the local grocery. By cleaner, I mean that there are far fewer pathogens like ecoli. It still tastes like cardboard.
Arbys is King at this starting with the 5 for 5 specials. You can remove the beef from all five and stack it on one of the buns to “almost” look like one of the beauties in the ad photos.
You have hit on the root of a major cultural problem. With over 60 years in advertising and marketing,I have often ranted about the way ALL advertising and semantics has desensitized us to rational thinking. I include an except from my blog:
“They do it to alter the way we understand and feel about the world around us. Politicians and activists of all stripes have taken the theories of General Semantics perverted them to advance their various agendas. They have replaced common sense with what amounts to total nonsense. Thus by renaming “welfare programs” and calling them “entitlement programs” what was originally conceived as a charitable effort ceases to be community largesse and becomes a “human right” It is all a sign of the beginning of the end of the life and culture we have known and loved. (cf. Isaiah 5:20–21)
Minds and emotions are continually manipulated for the purpose of obtaining tacit agreement to concepts barely understood. I have spoken often of what I call the “hamburger hoax”; showing a beautifully staged photo of a hamburger and then presenting something which in no way resembles the photo on the menu board. Somehow we find that acceptable. Too many are then distracted from the resulting fallacious images and ideas by gulping down the placating pap that comes through the TV.
Wow. That’s deeper than what I went for. Thanks for the comment Hugh.
There are people that are hired to “stage” the food in ads. There was one woman that flew all over the US to put the Cool Whip dollop on photos for ads. They put things like marbles in soup to make the vegetables come to the top and look like there are more of them.
I love this.
Thanks tottenbaum.
There’s a lovely scene in Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” with a bunch of people sitting in a restaurant eating squares of glop from their plates, while directly in front of each plate is a photo showing what each gelatinous square is supposed to be. Maybe Gilliam was prescient.
I just peed my pants.
I cringe when I go to a fast food place with my aunt, because if the burger she gets doesn’t look like the picture on the menu, she will call the manager & insist that they make her one that looks just like the one in the picture-and she get’s what she wants because they don’t like the attention her complaint gets from other customers-but I sure wouldn’t want to eat her burger,no telling what they “added” to it back there while they were re-making it!