On Big Arches & Big Arses
...McDonald's launched a burger called the Big Arch. Glasgow fired back at them.
Before kicking off…
I’ve got a new consultancy deck, showing a lot of use cases (in other words: what I bring to the party). If you’d like to take a look, it’s here:
…while the American version (‘humour’ spelt ‘humor’) is here:
*** WARNING: It contains a few funny adverts, such as the one above, so you might find it 99% more entertaining than most PDFs you'll encounter today. ***
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This week we’re off to the great city of Glasgow.
Why? Because a few days ago I was alerted to a fascinating Reddit thread about a billboard on the outskirts of the city.
Here it is:
Dear Reader, I can assure you that McDonald’s do not have a burger called the Big Arse, but the Big Arch — a new ‘limited edition’ burger — launched a fortnight ago.
Here’s an unvandalised version:
…And here’s the TV spot to go with it:
You can see the thinking behind it. McDonald’s is often known as the Golden Arches, and the ad below appeared two years ago, to near all-round acclaim. Arching eyebrows, geddit?
…So to launch a product called a Big Arch, well, it makes perfect sense, right?
Not in certain parts of Glasgow.
That said, there’s nothing new in defacing billboards. In fact, it’s an honourable tradition. This is a Fiat ad from 1979 and, personally, I wouldn’t argue with that graffiti:
While Go Compare, the price comparison website, did some great self-graffiti in a campaign from 2012. When their warbling singer, Gio Compario, was voted as being in the most irritating ads for 2009 and 2010, they turned against him with two versions of the same ad1.
Clever? I should coco. Go Compare and their ad agency, Dare2, knew that people would pay more attention to a defaced ad than to the original.
Getting back to McDonald’s, the irony of the whole thing is that no-one would put a picture of the pristine, untouched McDonald’s billboard on Reddit. But the vandalised one gets a lot of attention. Indeed, one Reddit thread on the subject was removed by the moderators.
Now I’m no expert on Reddit but it’s fair to say pretty much all the comments approve of it. Here’s one…
Here’s another…
…while 7w4rcr4ft7 sums up the thread wonderfully:
The lesson for everyone? People look, and share, and comment on funny stuff. Sometimes that funny stuff happens to be an ad; sometimes a defaced ad; often it’s not an ad at all. Therein lies the challenge for marketers.
The lesson for McDonald’s? Given the marketing firepower of that mega-company, that fact that no-one at all saw the near-resemblance of the words “Big Arch” to “Big Arse” is astounding. But maybe, like with so many big corporations, they had been drinking the Kool-Aid along with, ahem, a portion of large fries.
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It’s summertime so Brands & Humour is gonna catch some rays next week (below) and come back, sunburnt like a tomato, on 21st July3.
Many thanks for reading,
Paddy
Curiously enough, I worked there when this campaign went live. But on the Barclays account, grrrr! It was a lot more square.
Photo ©Martin Parr, MAGNUM Photos.
