Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.
McDonald’s is a little like Apple, really.
Except, I fear, not quite as clever.
You see, the burger chain has hopped up onto an idea that others have been trying for years.
Apple at least puts a twist on any idea it purloins, making its products more attractive and tasteful.
Can the same be said of McDonald’s?
It’s suddenly leaped on the revolutionary notion of making (some) burgers with fresh beef.
Yes, so many of its competitors did this years ago.
Yet now that the vast burger chain has got around to offering it to its customers, it’s acting as if this is something so rare and precious that it’s going to send human beings into Carmelite raptures.
To coincide with the fact that its fresh beef Quarter Pounders are now (somewhat) widely available in the U.S., McDonald’s has released an ad campaign to underline the reverence you will surely offer this product.
Here we have famous stars such as round mound of chattering rebound Charles Barkley, and actors John Goodman and Gabrielle Union devouring the fresh beef Quarter Pounder without uttering a word.
I worry that famed Despacito singer Luis Fonsi didn’t want to be seen eating one of these things, for fear that silence would be bad for his image.
Instead, here he is offering words to those who cannot find them while eating the product.
Some will say there’s a certain confidence in such ads.
McDonald’s is insisting that there’s something so sublime about this culinary (not much of a) breakthrough that it deserves the worship accorded to Sunday Mass.
Or watching your inebriated uncle dancing with a hat rack at a wedding.
Of course, hyperbole is one of advertising’s strongest tentacles, gripping your feelings with an otherworldly force.
Who, though, can imagine any true American trying something, loving it and not wanting to instantly ululate about it in person and on social media?
How many Americans react to the exalted in silence?
No, we cheer, we roar, we scream, we shout Yeah!. Or In The Hole!.
Can anyone truly conceive that Americans will sit in silence, savoring the astounding quality of this Quarter Pounder and not so much as reach for their phones to tell their families, their friends or their confessors?
Sadly, I can’t get there from here.
If it happens, however, it may be one of the greatest achievements in McDonald’s history.
The mere thought that one could wander into a McDonald’s and discover silence is something that makes a couple of my extremities vibrate with anticipation.
It’s not going to happen, though, is it?
Even if the Quarter Pounders have their desired effect, we’ll still have to put up with the noise coming from all those slumming it with the frozen fodder of a Big Mac or a Happy Meal.
And just when we thought McDonald’s had finally attained perfection.