According to legend a man in Utah once kept a McDonald’s cheeseburger in a dry, stable environment for fourteen years without any real deterioration. Admittingly, this says as much about people from Utah as it does about McDonald’s, and given it comes from a Reddit forum it *might* not be true, but it confirms what we all know: McDonalds is not good for us to eat. It’s heavily processed, full of salt and saturated fats, and that’s before we look at external, non-food related issues like deforestation and high emissions. And yet, despite the open knowledge, the hearsay, the facts, and a movie called ‘Supersize Me’, it remains a major player in the fast world in over 100 countries globally. They serve four million customers a day in the UK. Four Million. I was one of them yesterday. I don’t know why either. I’m certainly not lovin’ it.
The strangle-hold McDonalds has on its customer base has been studied by doctors and psychiatrists across the globe. At its core is their ability to humanise the marketing to appeal to the maximum number of customers. Think about it, little you as a little person in the little old days. McDonalds got you excited didn’t it? Maybe not even the food, but the toys in the Happy Meals, the play areas with the ballpits, and the creepy and never-to-be-trusted Ronald McDonald with his weird hair and weirder jumpsuit. As adults, they tempt us with gambling on Monopoly boards or stickers on drinks to win prizes. In 2011 the prizes included one million pounds, a Nissan Z coupe, and various holidays. I know because a burger who was around back then told me yesterday.
This isn’t a slight on McDonalds. They market themselves extremely well. And they are not alone. Coca-Cola has managed to create a brand that covers 200 countries with a universal message of happiness, sharing, and celebration through simple slogans like ‘share a coke’ and a seasonal truck that pulls Santa Claus into town. Does that man not have any morals? It’s a policy that transcends generations, gender, and backgrounds. Their ‘4P’s’ of marketing are so simple yet so effective. Product. Place. Price. Promotion. It’s almost too simple. Maybe that’s why they monopolise an entire sector. Pepsi’s attempt to do something very similar in 2017 came across as snarky and exploitative, though maybe that’s fully deserved for thinking that a Kardashian could be used to promote unity.
Whilst writing this I tried to think about the extreme version of a product that great marketing has made absurdly popular. Ladies and gentlemen I present to you Liquid Death, or as you may know it, water. A brand founded in 2017 that is now valued at 1.4 billion dollars. It’s canned water. A 1.4 billion, eight year old company that sells canned water. It’s slogan? “Don’t be scared, it’s just water”. Proof that with the right approach we really will just buy into anything.
I am Simon Carlo, a food blogger, journalist, copywriter and bonafide mild child. The above words are mine. Mostly. The gooder ones anyway.
