McDonald’s is leaving a bad taste in America’s collective mouth with its new commercial, which debuted after the Golden Globes, Sunday, Jan. 11. The commercial showed pictures of the famous golden arches with different messages written in the menu sign, which read, “Boston strong,” “Thank you Veterans,” “All of us weep for the Columbia families,” “God gave us a miracle,” and “We remember 9-11.” Though intended to better connect McDonald’s with their customers, according to Business Insider, critics found it manipulative and disrespectful.“I’m all for marketing, for advertising, letting a company show people how good they are, but I think there’s a line, and that ends with respect. Be respectful of the depth of people’s feelings. Using 9-11 in their commercial? Their mascot is a clown,” said Gabriell Sabalones, a senior in ICS.Headlines echoed Sabalones’ opinion with bold letters asking, “Should tragedy sell Big Macs?” and “McDonald’s Slammed for Using 9/11 to Sell Burgers,” from the Associated Press, the Christian Science Monitor, and other news organizations.McDonald’s advertising generally uses bright red and yellow cartoon graphics and tries to be humorous, even dealing in puns, like the "eco-nom-nom-nomics" of the Jalapeno Double Cheeseburger commercial released in August of 2014. Compared to this new commercial released six months later, which attempts to be heart-wrenching and emotive, critics say McDonald’s mocks rather than memorializes tragedy. Ironically, the McDonald’s website tells its employees, “Branding only works when an organization behaves and presents itself in a consistent way.” McDonald’s commercial is not particularly offensive in its marketing approach, as other companies have used similar tear-jerker tactics, like the SPCA Global Animal Rescue. While McDonald’s commercial features a children’s choir singing a cover of Fun’s “Carry On,” Sarah McLachlan sings “Arms of an Angel,” and pleads with viewers to aid dogs like the one she holds in the SPCA commercial. However schmaltzy the tactic, “It’s not the commercial so much as the context of it and the company it’s coming from,” said Alyssa Asplund, a freshman in graphic design from California. While Sarah McLachlan’s commercial is consistent with the other sad kitty advertisements released by the SPCA, “this isn’t McDonald’s business,” Asplund said, calling the new McDonald’s commercial exploitive. She said, "9-11 gets people. It changed people. To use that to get gain is degrading. It’s horrible. The commercial trivializes the lives that were lost.” Uploaded on Jan. 21, 2015
Writer: Alyssa Walhood ~ Multimedia Journalist
