Good News: The Japanese branch of the McDonalds corporation has not produced an ad campaign featuring a pervy Ronald McDonald.
Bad News: A different Japanese food chain thought it would be clever to do exactly that.
The original image (right) is a piece by the artist Wizard Skull, which was used by Yotteba, a chain of Japanese tapas restaurants notorious for their edgy and strange advertising. The fry packet is designed to resemble the McDonalds fry holder as well. The advertising copy accompanying the images informs potential buyers that their fries are hand-cut and prepared on site, as opposed to the prepackaged potatoes used at the internationally famous fast-food chain.
That said, I imagine most people are going to be disinclined to order fries after seeing the ad, so Yotteba is probably shooting itself in the foot, even if the national copyright law is more lax than its American counterpart.
Besides, it’s not as if the Japanese branch of McDonald’s isn’t doing itself some damage with poorly considered visuals.
Their McFizz summer drink cup promotion features a set of images, with a boy on one side and a girl on the other side. The cups are clear; as the drink is consumed, a person is treated to an innocent summer romance scene when they look through the side. A peck on the cheek, holding hands, that sort of thing.
But what happens when customers tilt the cups at odd angles? Or put two cups side-by side? Some uncomfortable scenes are instead produced in the middle of the restaurant.
Maybe they just assumed people would be too mature to post obnoxious, tacky jokes to the internet. Which naturally makes one wonder if any of the McDonald’s executives who signed off on the campaign had ever heard of this “internet” thing….
Question of the night: What’s your favorite fast food menu item?
