McDonald’s commercials drive me up the wall. I never liked their food, but their rotten ads are worse. The “I’m Lovin’ It” thing makes me long for the commercials they had in the 80’s that had kids breakdancing with Big Macs.
You know this campaign was the bright idea of a bunch of over-50 white businessmen saying, “Hey, we see what the kids are hip to these days! Let’s throw some of this newfangled Hip-Hop music into our ads!”. Well, they try to make it sound like Hip-Hop, but it just comes out as an embarrasing pile of garbage.
I’m not a listener of Hip-Hop, but I know there is some good talent out there, and I think McDonald’s pseudo-music probably drives potential listeners away.
I’d especially like to know what the Black community and producers of Hip-Hop music think of middle-aged white McDonald’s men’s interpretation of a music form that has a largely African-American base. I’m part Native and I know that if McDonald’s commercials started throwing in drum songs and showing sparkling dreamcatchers with burgers in the middle, I’d be fuckin’ mad.
Is there any special reason why this justified a thread of its own instead of being nestled within your ad rant?
And why would black people take offense to rap or hip-hop being used in a McD’s commercial? It’s no worse than the current JC Penny’s ad with the hip-hop music and kids(all races, BTW), dancing around. It’s just a fucking commercial. Some black kids who can spin(or dance as in the case of the JCP ad), and make music earned some scratch by appearing in it.
Why would that be offensive to a whole race/community of people? If anything it’s just the opposite and someone in the community sold out and is making something of himself without falling to stereotypes.
In short, I think it’s time for TiVo for you. That way you can record everything and skip the commercials. I think it would do your blood pressure some good.
The other thread I had concerned TV commercials. Here I’m pitting McD’s acutal ad campaign - the whole idea of it. I don’t think I mentioned anything about TV, besides the old breakdancing commercial.
BTW, I’ve never seen the J.C. Penny commercial you mention. There are a lot of American commercials that we don’t get in Canada. In my province at least, there are no J.C. Penneys’.
As far as a commercial offending a certain group of people, I think you have to be part of a “minority” group to understand how that would work. Note the example I gave regarding myself.
I think you have to be horribly oversensitive and in a minority group for it to bother you. If they can’t use rap, what should they use? Banjo? Bruce Springsteen? Country music only? Ridiculous.
Or maybe if the marketing guys were black it would be ok? So how about you have a black dude from the ad agency endorsing the commercial as “black friendly”, and then it would be ok. Or maybe we could form more “black” TV channels, and show only the hip-hop ads there, and show the Springsteen ads on regular network TV. We could work on a totally heterogenous society.
I’m sure you see the issue with that…
Sam
P.S.- I’m a Jew, so I know what it’s like to belong to a minority group. Belonging to a small minority group like Natives, or Jews, using our music would, in most cases only be construed as derogatory. However, belonging to a larger minority group like Black Americans(or Canadians), and using music that is chiefly of that minority, but MAINSTREAM, cannot truly be misconstrued as insulting unless you’re being culturally over-sensitive.
The slogan wouldn’t be so bad, if they came up with decent jingles for the damn thing, but they’ve got what has to be the dumbest jingles I’ve ever heard. In one, a guy’s grateful for McDonald’s dollar menu since it enables him to spend more money on his girlfriend. :rolleyes: Another has something to do with a gal being excited about going out on a date with “Mr. Right.” :rolleyes: WTF? Why can’t McD’s just say, “We serve good crap.”? (Yeah, Yeah, I know, I know, truth in advertising, but come on, what restaurant is gonna say, “We serve greaseballs.”?)
This ad campaign brings out my inner redneck, I’m afraid. I don’t listen to rap/hip-hop/whatever they’re calling it these days, at least not by choice. But this crap is thrust on me on every conceivable kind of radio station, as well at the idiot box, and it’s very difficult to get away from. You can say it’s “mainstream” now, but I still have trouble understanding how anyone can listen to it without feeling the urge to kill someone (which I always thought explained the drive-bys nearly as much as the gang & drug stuff).
I won’t buy so much as a beverage at McDonald’s until their ad campaigns stop being so irritating.
I hate McDonald’s, so no matter what commercials they run, I’m not going there unless I’m on the road and need a bathroom break.
I can deal with the stupid music, but one of the current ads makes me want to bash heads in. You know the one with the couple out on a date, and the jerk orders for her without even asking, and then thinks, “Control freak!” when she orders what SHE wants to eat? The date would have ended right then and there if a guy had done that to me. Asshole.
As previously mentioned these McDonalds ads run everywhere. Including places they shouldn’t. I’ll give you an example of what I’m talking about:
I work in radio. McDonalds spends big money with all of our stations. This means that the :30 spot that sounds like an awful rap song runs on the “Oldies” station! Those poor listeners must almost drive off the road when their Elvis and Beatles is interupted by by this noisy crap. It just makes no sense. Alas we have to run what they tell us to run per the contract. It sucks, but Mickey D’s spends big money with us. I still don’t understand why they (McDonalds ad reps) don’t realize what a huge mistake this is. I mean it has to almost have the opposite effect - its so out of place and jarring to the listener that they have to hate the blasted restaurant.
