April 1991: Mac Attack

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If I were McDonald’s, I’d hire Carl Sagan to endorse its products.

Picture the following scenario and script for a TV ad we’re calling Fat Chance:

Carl Sagan stands next to Ed Rensi, McD’s prez. Behind them, twinkling in the midnight sky is the McD galaxy of sandwiches: Big Macs, cheeseburgers, Quarter Pounders, hamburgers, McDLT’s. Billions and billions of them. Never a falling star.

A comet of fries streaks across the sky. Next to the Milkshake Way, the Salad Way glistens with a cornucopia of produce. Some of it just-picked.

A cow jumps over the moon (nice symbolism, eh?) and bears down on Ronald who, dressed like a bullfighter, unfurls a red cape, drapes it over a butcher knife that he plunges between the cow’s shoulder blades. Ronald, the tip of his red nose blinking—the matador as clown; or vice versa.

Everything twinkles, blinks, and glistens.

Sagan and Rensi turn to face the horizon; they lift their arms skyward. “Billions and billions,” says Sagan. “Fat City,” says Rensi.

“Hey,” shouts Ronald (or, “Ole,” if you prefer). “Hold on a minute.” At his feet lies a dead cow.

“What’s all this fat talk?” he asks. Quick as a flash, he and the dead cow fall to earth where they land—ka whump—between Sagan and Rensi.

Ronald places one red-booted foot on the head of the cow, withdraws the butcher knife and raises it skyward.

“No more fat talk,” he sing-songs. “Long live McLean.” Ronald removes the ears and tail of the cow, grills them, then places them inside sesame seed buns and presents them to Sagan and Rensi.

Rensi turns to Sagan: “Billions and billions and billions,” he says. “Fat chance," says Sagan. Fade to black.

Rensi can use this if he wants to, but he’s got to clear it through me first, a clearance I’ll not grant or, more to the point, ignore.

You see, I’ve got this problem with McD. Up until recently, it refused to talk to anyone in the foodservice press; refused to participate at industry functions.

McD’s was above the fray, marching self-righteously to its own impudent beat—kind of the Hearst of fast food with Citizen Kane Rensi at its head. Smugly and insolently over the years, it continued to march—a threat to anyone who dared suggest its organization was anything but immaculate, its service flawless, its products, always instantly available, endlessly durable, give or take a McRib here or there. That was its preeminence and it didn’t think it needed to explain or defend it.

McD’s neither tendered intelligence nor accepted it, except from sources handpicked and homegrown. No one, no thing could influence its marketing strategies.

“You cannot teach us anything,” it seemed to say. “We know it all.”

Now what? Here’s what: Rensi is president and he wants to change all that. He wants to speak at industry meetings; he wants to return phone calls, he wants his name on a Silver Plate (the penultimate foodservice association award). He’s contrite; wants to make amends.

Forgive me: am I the only one who smells a rat?

Is Rensi sincere or is he merely reacting to a new consumer authority that demands responsible behavior (accountability, anyone?) from companies it buys products from?

 

What is the difference, if any, between paper and a clamshell? What is the big deal about a McLeanburger? It all sounds like a public relations gimmick to support a nation’s obsession with its health and its planet with products and services that don’t solve much of anything.

When did we begin to glorify corporations just because they substituted, cavalierly, one undesirable service or product for another; substitutions that lasted no longer than the consumer’s short-lived fascination with them. Can you say, “McLeanburger”? How long before it’s dropped from the menu?

Do not mistake McD’s change of heart for altruism. It is Basic Marketing, pure and simple and it knows that. Fine with me: corporate p.r. is as much a function of sales and profits as the products it crows about. However, substituting paper for clamshells doesn’t solve the problem if, indeed, one exists. One is no more recyclable than the other, more biodegradable than the other. What it is, is nifty p.r., reacting to public pressure to do something—anything—for Pete’s sake. McLeanburger, anyone?

Deliberately dodging public scrutiny has hurt McDonald’s. Its reluctance to be drawn into any dialogue with colleagues and competitors has blemished its credibility. Its latest gambit to restore its trust within the foodservice community strikes me as just another marketing ploy to defuse its gall. 

Consumers may return to its stores because of the attention heaped on it of late—Hey, let’s go get a Big Mac. I hear good things—but they will do so only for the short term. They will return to chains they have learned to trust, that implemented services and products not out of desperation, but out of concerns for consumer needs.

McD’s competitors, largely because of their interests in consumer and industry behavior which they satisfied partially with ideas rolled-out at industry functions are, despite forecasts and investor analyses, doing just fine, thank you. Their impressive strides have turned what once was a race of also-rans into a race where, sooner or later, one of them will be in a position to threaten McDonald’s leadership.

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