How much crack do wealthy businessmen-type dudes smoke?

The other day I was sitting on the train, making my daily voyage to work, when I thought about hamburgers… which made me think about fast food joints, which made me think about how fast food is marketed and sold to the general public.

As with any restaurant, the fast food place is going to try convince you that the food they make tastes good, and if eaten in moderation, shouldn’t be bad enough to kill you. But seeing as every one of these restaurants shoves that same spiel down your throat, some places decide to take their sales approach a step further, and start targeting certain markets.

Let’s take a look at Burger King. Burger King has recently come up with the creepiest, most awesome mascot I’ve ever seen. The Burger King… he’s an escaped mental patient with a plastic face who wears a crown, and some royal-looking robe. The guy rocks! The reason the guy rocks, is because I’m a weirdo in my mid-twenties who gets a kick out of strange, creative, mildly relevant shit. If the Burger King walked up to a little kid he’d probably send the poor bastard screaming and crying to his mother… cuz kids are afraid of kings with plastic faces. And old folk would likely bitch about how the king looks so youthful, and his plastic skin will start to melt in a few years, leaving him deformed… and then he’ll turn into a Phantom of the Opera-type character, who wears a mask and haunts restaurants. The old people may be right… but I’d still like him. Kudos to Burger King for not sucking at selling their brand.

Then there are places like KFC, who try to appeal to an older crowd by selling their tradition of making genetically-mutated chicken, laced with heroin or some sort of opiate that will hook you worse than a Beatles song. This is also a decent approach, because no one enjoys going through withdrawal, and you’re more likely to just cave and get some chicken than you will be willing to go down the shaky path of sobriety. I think it’d be cool if they took a page out of the Weekend at Bernie’s book, strung up the Colonel and made him dance around in commercials… that would be the best marketing campaign in the history of history.

Finally there’s king of marketing to children… McDonalds. I don’t know where to start here. I wish I could’ve been at the meeting when the marketing dudes at McDonalds were coming up with fun characters to sell their company.

Wealthy businessman 1
“How ‘bout a clown, a pigeon, a thief, 2 hamburger-headed government officials, a big purple blob, some pom-poms, and a group of chicken nuggets with faces?”

Wealthy businessman 2
“that’s exactly what I was going to say.”

Wealthy businessman 3
“What about an angry Viking?”

Wealthy businessman 4
“No.”

Guy in charge of Marketing
“Then it’s settled, we’re going with the clown and friends.”

Ronald McDonald – the dude is a twisted circus freak who looks like he takes far more pleasure from having children sit in his lap, than he does selling hamburgers. Perfect!

Birdie / Nuggets – Does no one at McDonalds find it a little odd that Birdie is associating with, what are likely, pieces of a relative or close friend?

The Hamburgler – He’s an escaped convict… what a great role-model for children!

Mayor McCheese / Big Mac-headed Policeman – why doesn’t the Hamburgler ever try to take a bite out of these guys… if he ate the police-dude there’d be no one to arrest him for stealing hamburgers.

Grimace – I think a 4 year old designed Grimace… cuz no one knows what he is, or how he got involved with this dysfunctional posse.

Pom-Pom people – see Grimace.

The only logical explanation I could come up with for this slew of characters is McDonalds wants to steal money from you. First, you get distracted when Ronald-the pedo-clown fondles your kid. In a fit of blind rage you approach the creepy clown-man… that’s when the Hamburgler steals your wallet and runs away. McDonalds then sends out their mayor to convince you that they’re doing all in their power to get your wallet back… and they’ve sent their best cop to do so! Getting your money back, now rests on the shoulders of a dude with 2 thin slabs of fake beef for a brain. The pom-poms cheer on McDonalds’ sheriff, as he scours the area to no avail, cuz you’re money is flying across the Atlantic in Birdie’s backpack, to be deposited into a Swiss bank account. The mayor then offers you a plate of chicken nuggets, as compensation, which you refuse to eat, cuz each nugget has a face on it. Finally you look over at Grimace and ask… “what the fuck just happened.” Grimace shrugs and McDonalds gets wealthier.

The Marketing people at McDonalds are a sneaky bunch.

Recap:
The Burger King is cooler than a regular crazy person, cuz he has a plastic face;
KFC needs to Weekend at Bernie’s the Colonel;
The McDonalds family has some serious issues;
Seriously, what the hell is Grimace?

Tell your friends… or in the case of Grimace, ask around.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 20th, 2007 at 7:45 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.