College sports teams aren’t the only ones with mascots. Corporations (and Japanese cities) have them too… and sometimes they aren’t particularly successful.
Long before Burger King visited the plastic-faced nightmare of their namesake upon television audiences, McDonalds created its own blunders.
No, I’m not talking about the original Ronald McDonald, although he was admittedly so terrible that without dramatic changes he would likely have been disavowed more quickly than a discovered Mission Impossible team.
Nor am I addressing the failure that was Mac and Me. I’m looking at Mac Tonight.
Mac Tonight was an attempt by the company to advertise a change in operating hours. They had successfully run a similar campaign in 1980, when Birdy the Early Bird was created to promote a shift to providing breakfast options in McDonalds across the nation. Prior to Birdie campaign, some stores had been offering breakfast items for a few years, and after checking the data the decision had come to expand the option to all of the franchises. Now, in 1986, the company had watched as some test markets were successfully opened past 9 PM, sometimes up to midnight. The shift was going to be expanded nationwide and they were going to use another mascot to spread the word.
Because the character was being promoted to adults (under the assumption few 8-year-olds would be wandering in for a post-concert happy meal at 11 PM) the character would be an adult. They wanted it somewhat stylish, but they also wanted cartoonish, to fit with the rest of their lineup. They also needed something that would by synonymous with nighttime, as “early bird” was with breakfast.
They settled on a crooning crescent moon, with a namesake song of “Mac Tonight”… played to the tune of Bobby Darin’s hit “Mack the Knife”. The advertising blitz started.
Unfortunately for McDonalds, the creature was easily the biggest failure the company had ever experienced with a mascot. Sure it was ugly. Yes, it was an odd anthropomorphism. Absolutely, it was a weird take on a popular song. But the same could be said about the California Raisins, and that would prove to be popular in the same year:
What doomed Mac Tonight was the law.
While the California Raisins paid Marvin Gaye royalties for their use of the song and the direct imitation of Darin’s playing and singing style, McDonalds didn’t bother to pay Darin’s family anything. They didn’t ask permission to use the song, and in 1989, when Darin’s son sued them, McDonalds insisted they would win the case.
They didn’t. After some pressure to drop the lawsuit, McDonalds settled out of court for costs approaching the $10 million demanded. After all, the songs were nearly identical, there was no parody involved, McDonalds was clearly using the music to profit and, having been used repeatedly in commercials, they were obviously trying to form a direct connection in the minds of the public between the song and their mascot.
McDonalds would eventually bring the character back, decades later, in a Southeast Asia campaign, but without the song, without the moves, and even without his piano… the character had been shifted to the saxophone.
Question of the night: Are there any snacks or meals you’re more inclined to make late at night?
