I once saw a TV segment showing some starlet being photographed for a print clothing ad campaign. The stylist used metal clips (the sort one can buy at an office supply store for holding 50 sheets of paper together) to tighten the garment around her torso. From the front, the dress looked like it fit her perfectly. However, the back exposed a bunch of black metal clips holding back fabric. How does such an ad compare ethically to the specially-made McDonald's burger? A woman with the same measurements buying that same garment would not look as good as the starlet being photographed.
Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
31–40 of 195 posts
Re: Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not a lawyer, or even an armchair lawyer, so I don't know where to look to find the applicable laws. However, there are plenty of cites from industry people saying the same thing. I assume they have to be familiar with the law that regulates what they do. And the bun, pickles etc would have to be real by law, is what I'm saying. They're part of a single McD's product being sold by the photo.
The subtext I'm communicating is, "if I was in the food marketing industry, I sure would want to communicate to the world that I was legally obligated to adhere to some strict code of conduct". It's a credibility booster. So I'm going a step further and seeing if anyone can use an advanced legal tool like Google or Wikipedia to find the place that says McDonalds must-absolutely-must use real pickles or exactly the re…
"So I'm going a step further and seeing if anyone can use an advanced legal tool like Google or Wikipedia to find the place"
I tried that, of course, and didn't find a proper law reference in the amount of time I dedicated to the task. I'll have leave it up to you to satisfy your curiosity from here. Please do post if/when you find it!
Re: Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
You claim they responded transparently and without sugar coating anything. So what was the answer to the original question? Why does the ad burger patty appear thicker and larger? Edit: So many answers talking about how they might make a quarter pound patty look larger. Anyone can do that. I was addressing the fact that the video in no way covers why they look larger in advertisements. Sidestepping the important ques…
They addressed it directly. When it sits in the box, the steam makes the bun wilt.
Referring to the meat, not the bun.
Re: Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
#34I'll disagree slightly with tptacek... this is a genius piece of marketing by McDonalds. It does everything that we routinely see listed on this very site as Best Practices™: - Respond to customer feedback in a friendly and highly transparent manner. - Don't sugarcoat things that "everyone knows but no one admits"; they could have avoided showing the graphic artist photoshopping the burger, but everyone knows that th…
You claim they responded transparently and without sugar coating anything. So what was the answer to the original question? Why does the ad burger patty appear thicker and larger? Edit: So many answers talking about how they might make a quarter pound patty look larger. Anyone can do that. I was addressing the fact that the video in no way covers why they look larger in advertisements. Sidestepping the important ques…
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Re: Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
#35Did I just hear a photographer say that photographs are one-dimensional?
Re: Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
#36I'll disagree slightly with tptacek... this is a genius piece of marketing by McDonalds. It does everything that we routinely see listed on this very site as Best Practices™: - Respond to customer feedback in a friendly and highly transparent manner. - Don't sugarcoat things that "everyone knows but no one admits"; they could have avoided showing the graphic artist photoshopping the burger, but everyone knows that th…
Well, yes, check all the boxes. But don't forget to check the "yes, we blatantly lie to you and pay high amounts of money to make it look good" box. They built an elaborate marketing video on "how our advertising tricks you".
Minus the photoshop, the burgers could technically be made to look that way, but the customer is more keen on speed than presentation. Its marketing, welcome to earth.
Re: Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
#37Photos of ad vs. reality for fast food... http://www.alphaila.com/articles/failure/fast-food-false-adv...
Re: Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
#38I'll disagree slightly with tptacek... this is a genius piece of marketing by McDonalds. It does everything that we routinely see listed on this very site as Best Practices™: - Respond to customer feedback in a friendly and highly transparent manner. - Don't sugarcoat things that "everyone knows but no one admits"; they could have avoided showing the graphic artist photoshopping the burger, but everyone knows that th…
You claim they responded transparently and without sugar coating anything. So what was the answer to the original question? Why does the ad burger patty appear thicker and larger? Edit: So many answers talking about how they might make a quarter pound patty look larger. Anyone can do that. I was addressing the fact that the video in no way covers why they look larger in advertisements. Sidestepping the important ques…
She says the retail burger looks smaller because the bun collapsed from the moisture in the enclosed box. She also describes how they arrange the burger to "lean" in the photo, so that might add to the effect. Also the obvious reason would be the one burger was slapped together in 45sec vs. 4-5 hours of meticulous grooming: Selecting the loftiest bun, searing the edges to square up the perimeter of the patty before grilling, delicately balancing the layers on top of each other, etc...
Re: Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
#39I'll disagree slightly with tptacek... this is a genius piece of marketing by McDonalds. It does everything that we routinely see listed on this very site as Best Practices™: - Respond to customer feedback in a friendly and highly transparent manner. - Don't sugarcoat things that "everyone knows but no one admits"; they could have avoided showing the graphic artist photoshopping the burger, but everyone knows that th…
You claim they responded transparently and without sugar coating anything. So what was the answer to the original question? Why does the ad burger patty appear thicker and larger? Edit: So many answers talking about how they might make a quarter pound patty look larger. Anyone can do that. I was addressing the fact that the video in no way covers why they look larger in advertisements. Sidestepping the important ques…
From the video:
1) they stack up all pickles/onions/etc in the front for ads.
2) the real burger goes in a box and the steam makes the bun shrink a little
Also, they didn't say it but they showed it:
The burger is cooked differently for the ad. I got the impression they were just grilling it to make it look good but with minimal cooking (I wonder if it's even safe to eat the ad one). If you've ever cooked a burger, you'll know they shrink when you cook them.
Re: Why Your McD's Burger Doesn't Look Like the One in the Ad
#40This is clever (if cynical) marketing from McDonalds Canada: take one of the oldest knocks against large-scale fast food (that's it's marketed dishonestly) and turn it into a product benefit: "it's ugly because we took the original product, which is beautiful, and then uglified it to make it taste better". One thing that makes this piece cynical is that the integrity of fast food promo graphics is not a new or pressi…
I understand there are specific laws about what they can and cannot show in a food ad in Ontario and/or Canada. They can do their own preparation, but I believe the ingredients must be identical to the ones in the actual product. So it must be an actual beef patty, and the ketchup and mustard can be squirted on carefully, but they have to be real ketchup and mustard.
Same in europe - the advertising standards agencies are very strict that it must be the exact product.
There is a famous case of an ad for Martini where, because of the rules, it had to be the real product that the actors were drinking!
Which lead to a catch-22 after a few takes - the more mistakes they made, the more they had to drink and the more mistakes they made.....