Response to “McDonald’s Apologizes For Unapproved Ad That Mocks Mental Illness PSAs”

This article discusses the use of McDonald’s Big Mac’s advertisement. In the ad, a woman is clearly resting her head in her palm in anguish with the tag lines “You’re not alone. Millions of people love the Big Mac.” This ad is seen on the Boston metro and has been discussed all over twitter. It has successfully attracted people’s attention to McDonald’s Big Mac, but at the same time it heated up debates since it mocks mental illness. As it turns out, the same picture has been used to promote mental health while McDonald took it to advertise its Big Mac. This act has offended a lot of people and caused them to doubt McDonald’s ethics. It is important for a company to think about how its actions will affect the consumers and society. In this case, the consumers feel horrible about this ad and possibly about Big Mac since it is the subject of the ad, and the society sees McDonald’s marketing skill as unethical. Marketing is about promoting and selling one’s product. I think as a marketing technique, it is creative for McDonald to create a parody of something everyone’s familiar with, because it attracts attention and brings people to talk about it. Unfortunately, most people found the parody rudely offensive which probably brought negative effect to Big Mac since the ad mocks those in need of mental illness help. Is this ad successful? The answer depends as it can be viewed differently from a marketer’s point of view and general public’s.

Original article link: http://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-apologized-for-ad-mocking-mental-illness-2013-4